The Forum For Peace, Umbria

So far...

The first sitting stones to be given to the Forum were from a forest in Finland, a coastal area of Estonia and from beneath an olive tree in Italy. In December 2006, two hand stones were given to the Forum by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since the project got underway in 2005, the first to complete its journey to Umbria was in fact a hand stone posted from London by Andrew Miller in December, 2006. He had brought it back from Tunisia to find its place in the Forum.

The stories of the stones

PLANNING THE FORUM

ESTONIA

Jyrki Flinkkilä loading the Estonian stone for transport to the Forum. His father Timo Flinkkilä had found it near the coast a little west of Tallinn and brought over to Paimio in south Finland where it waited for a lift all winter under a tree next to the Finnish stone.

FINLAND

The stone was found by Ilkka Kivi (Kivi, coincidentally, is Finnish for "stone") in the forest near Ylivieska, North Bothnia. It was later loaded for transport to the Forum by Jaakko Savela in Paimio near Finland's south coast.

FRANCE

French hand stone (ammonite from Ibie, Ardèche) given to the Forum by Siegfried Brandt in Dresden during April 2009.

INDIA

The two hand stones were given to Heiko Rah by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in December 2006.

GERMANY

Hand stone sized piece of rubble from the war-time ruins of the Frauenkirche, Dresden, bought from the Frauenkirche church shop to support the upkeep of the restored church in April 2009.

GREAT BRITAIN

We have a stone from Westminster Abbey, presented to us by the late Lilian Carpenter, widow of Dean Edward Carpenter. It has been set on an Italian stone to make up the height as a sitting stone.

The English sitting stone was found in a small stream near Briercliffe, in a fold of the hills near the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire. It was found by Simon Love, Philip Cave, Thomas Stevenson, Sam Love and Ben Cave and brought back to Leeds in Simon's car.

Weighing nearly 60kg, it travelled first to London in Philip's car, who then took it on to Umbria in late April 2010. It was taken from Castelbuono to the Forum by Umberto Bonetti, and given its final place at the Forum by Andrew Stevenson and Philip Cave, with a little help from Sergio and his tractor. The stone will soon be inscribed with the letters "EN".

ITALY

The stone was chosen in April 2007 by Umberto Bonetti at ‘Il Mandarino’, Torre del Colle. He found it a few hundred meters from the site of the Forum for Peace under one of his olive trees.

RUSSIA

The hand stone was brought from Russia by Kenneth Mikko in March 2009

“I reached Vorkuta in Northern Komi, famous for its coal mines and huge Gulag camps. At school number 14 they presented me with a piece of high quality coal. It’s not big. But Vorkuta is a place of huge suffering, cold and death, so it has a symbolically strong content. That is all I could add to my travel luggage.” Kenneth Mikko

It will represent its country and all those there who work for peace. It will be housed in a small niche prepared for it in an Italian stone, found near the site of the Forum for Peace, in such a way that the coal is visible. Engraved on the stone will be the initials RUS and near them the name Vorkuta in the Cyrillic script: Воркута. He also gave a green hand-stone from the Urals which will be placed with the coal.

It’s the highest quality coal. Like none I've ever handled. Very hard, its facets glistening. It leaves no mark on the hand. The mine was started by prisoners; there was nothing: not a single habitation. Forest and open space. That first winter they lived in tents; whatever came later was the work of their hands. Most of the coal mines in that area of Northern Komi are closed down now. The Vorkuta mine, because of the quality, is still open.

Any Russians hearing the name Vorkuta … their blood would run cold. We must be careful not to be propagandist and yet at the same time the peace we seek is because of the wars and suffering we see. It’s difficult, important, and we must talk more about it.

We've been contacted about a Palestinian stone.
Robert Piéchaud will be trying to get a French sitting stone down to the Forum in the summer of 2009.
Albert Stupak of Vilnius, resident in Finland, is mobilizing his Lithuanian friends back home. He hopes to soon have the address of a sitting stone waiting for whoever is ready to take it to Italy first

For more information about donating a stone, click here.

Over time we'll post the details of all the stones and their donors on this site. If you would like to include the story of the stone you have donated, please make sure to let us know.