In 1877, Russia invaded the Ottoman Empire’s Bulgaria in order to dominate the Balkans. Finnish Life-Guard’s 3rd Finnish Sniper Battalion, a detachment of the so-called Finnish Guard in Helsinki, took part with the Russian forces from autumn 1877 onwards, fighting in some minor battles. Most of the Finnish casualties were caused by epidemics and starvation and not by actual combat. For the Finns, the Russo-Turkish war lasted one year, of which less than half involved actual fighting. The rest of the time passed near Constantinople waiting for the return home. The war memoirs written by Finnish soldiers have some interesting cultural and ideological views that changed during the war. Innumerable memories and tales about the war and encountering the local foreign cultures changed the Finnish soldiers.