Finland

December 30, 2005 — January 06, 2006

I felt like seeing in the New Year without Olivier salad, a New Year’s staple in Russia, nor Maxim Galkin, a famous Russian TV personality, nor Putin (in the end only the Olivier was missing).

Finland is fantastic at this time of year, save for the extremely short days — the day begins to dawn around midday, then darkness begins to fall again by three p.m. already. That’s why half of the photos are taken at nighttime.

Helsinki

The city resembles Riga more than it does St Petersburg.

Everything closes early here, as befits a European capital. So if you get a hankering for a cup of coffee and a pastry after midnight you’ll just have to wait for the next weekday to roll around.

They’re rather fussy about how city traffic is organised. You have to remain in the correct lane at all times and only turn when the correct arrow lights up. They’ve got separate three-section traffic lights for turns, which are actually easier to interpret than the ones in Israel, where there’s just one arrow sign above the traffic light.

Any city looks neat and tidy with an identical electric Christmas candle in every single window.

Surprisingly, there aren’t any traffic jams in the daytime. And it’s so empty at night that they switch off half of the traffic lights.

Lots of trams up above.

They’ve dug out catacombs under the city centre. You can walk around, ride the metro, and park in them. The underground part is huge. It connects large stores together and is itself a shopping centre.

Almost every traffic light in the city centre is equipped with a video camera — presumably, to remember who ran a red light. There it is, small and grey. The “no entry for vehicular traffic” signs are panoramic, just like in Tallinn.

Local slush is up to snuff — just as good as the slush in Moscow.

I read somewhere that they spread granite chips here instead of salt. It’s true — there’s heaps of the stuff everywhere.

The one thing that’s striking is just how clean shop, telephone box, and tram stop windowpanes are. It is specifically the clean windowpanes that make the city appear clean. I can’t quite get my head around how they keep the tram stops in particular so spick and span in the wintertime.

It rained all day long. We picked Senate square for our New Year’s Eve celebrations. I had the foresight to buy a bottle of champagne back in Moscow; the strawberries were purchased at a local greengrocer’s. Also brought a champagne flute from the hotel.

This is the country’s main square at one and a half minutes to midnight on NYE (monument to Alexander II on the left there):

Ten... eleven... twelve! Hurrah! It’s the new year! Two firecrackers farted in the square. The silent crowd just stood there. That’s what I call bona fide Finnish reserve.

Snow fell on January first. Everything in Helsinki was closed, so I went on my way.

Turku

Turku looks like a mixture of Uglich, Tyumen and Murmansk.

If you flatten the hills, then in parts it looks like St Petersburg:

Why, why the dickens are these stops so clean?

Tampere

The lights display on the main thoroughfare shows the town’s main sights — telecoms tower, man with stump, waterfall, and a Batman-like lynx:

The local lighting design conjures up childhood memories. Just like any other union entity, Europe inevitably takes on socialist characteristics once you add graphic design. The euro’s design alone speaks volumes — it’s as if it were drawn in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where the agreement dissolving the USSR was signed. How is this EU flag made up of light bulbs any different from stars on lampposts?

Oh-so Soviet:

The city’s main Christmas tree looks like it came from the estate of some small-time gentry.

The waterfront lighting is the sole redeeming feature.

There’s a Lenin museum here (I did not go) and a spy museum. Totally third- rate. The only interesting thing I learnt was that the PPSh-41 (Shpagin’s 1941 machine pistol) is in fact a clone of an earlier Finnish model. The patent title page is displayed as proof. Also, anyone who’s interested can have a go writing in invisible ink.

I decided to not to pass up the opportunity.

Jyväskylä

This place is literally bumfuck nowhere.

I was pulled over as we approached the city. At first, I thought that it was an ambulance wanting to use my tracks in the snow as a trace to follow, but it turned out they’d tracked me down. The cop car had more lights, light bulbs, and emergency vehicle beacons on it than all of Helsinki just after New Year’s Eve. A copper came over, checked my driving licence and registration, breathalysed me, and given this was my “first time”, DELIVERED A VERY LOUD AND DISTINCT SERMON ON STICKING TO THE SPEED LIMIT.

By the way, everyone here speaks English very well — shop assistants, waiters, underground car park attendants, the woman at the checkout, as well as ordinary passers-by. Some cops once stopped me in Moscow to ask why I made a turn where there’s no turning allowed, and also whether I happen to speak English. So I had to play interpreter to them and a newly arrived Spanish embassy staffer. In return my contribution to the traffic policemen support fund was halved.

By the way, Finns ride bicycles year-round:

The over-40s walk around with sticks that look a bit like ski poles year-round (they’re a Finnish invention, supposedly not just your legs get a workout, but your arms do as well):

Lahti

Ski jumping hills tower above the city in rather surrealist fashion. I have nothing to say about what’s realist here.

In between cities

A canal is kanava in Finnish, in case you were wondering.

For some reason all of the barns, sheds, and summer kitchen are painted dark red.

The roads are good in Finland, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call them magic. Anyway, it’s much nicer driving along country roads — there’s no one around and it’s pretty.

From Lahti it’s back to Helsinki, then home.