Giant pandas at Ähtäri Zoo

During President of China Xi Jinping’s visit to Finland on April 5, 2017, China and Finland signed an agreement on bilateral cooperation in areas such as cooperative research on giant pandas, agreeing to lease a pair of giant pandas to Finland for a period of 15 years.

A pair of giant pandas, Hua Bao & Jin Baobao, arrived on loan in snowy Finland on January 18, 2018.

Hua Bao received the Finnish named Pyry (meaning Snowfall) and Jin Baobao would be called Lumi (meaning Snow).

The cold wintry conditions in Ähtäri would be similar to the giant panda’s natural living environment in China’s mountain areas. The Snowpanda House is a unique project that the country’s largest wild zoo had spent 8.2million euros building.

Ähtäri’s Snowpanda House closed on October 21, 2024 due to financial problems, that started after the COVID19-pandemic and the war between Ukraine and Russia.