Below is a note from my Swedish friend Lasse Westling. Thanks, Lasse!
Hi Jim! I see that you are digging into your family's old photo collections. Interesting! I couldn't figure out how to comment on your blog. But here's what I know – for what it's worth! The only Swedish text is on the bottom. "Plåten förvaras" means that the original is kept by the photo studio for future use. "Plåt" is, as you may know, a metal sheet. That was the technology photographers used in the late 1800's, and maybe longer. "Helsingissä F…" is probably the name of the photo studio in Finnish. The text below that is in Russian. I think the first row says Daniel Nyblin and the second row is the name of the studio again. Finland was part of Russia until 1917, so it makes sense that the text is in both languages. It's a bit surprising that "Plåten förvaras" is in Swedish. Maybe the photographer was Swedish-speaking. Helsinki is still one of the areas in Finland where the Swedish language is in use by a minority of the population.
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