Finally, the castle

Ok, finally I got all the pictures I took gone through and edited.

Click the link below for a slideshow:

The Turku castle slideshow

I was a bit wrong in saying that Turku was the capital of Finland until 1809. Actually, Turku was the capital in 1809-1812. Before that there was no capital city as such, because under Sweden the country did not have an autonomous position. However, Turku WAS the most important concentration of population and the largest city until 1840. Its history is counted to begin from 1229 when the bishopry was moved to the location; town formation began in the late 13th century. Thus Turku is the oldest city in Finland. The bishopry of course made the place the most important here, but it also became an important trade centre, due to its location on the western coast and the river that runs through it. 1640 saw the foundation of the first university of Finland in Turku. A great fire destroyed much of the city in the early 19th century, though some of the older buildings survived the fire.

The castle of Turku was built in 1280, at the time outside the city, in the river mouth close to where the modern port is. It was founded by the Swedish conquerors, intended as a military fortification. In the early 14th century, with the addition of living quarters, the fortrification developed into a closed off castle formed by the forecastle and the main castle. In the mid-16th century King Gustav Vasa of Sweden gave Finland as a dukedom to his son Johan, who enlarged the castle in a grand Renessaince style - approximately its modern form - and held his court there. In the first half of the 17th century, the castle functioned as the residence of the general governor of Finland. However, like many castles in Europe, it had lost is military role due to changes in European warfare and was subsequently used mainly for storage and as a prison.

Strictly speaking, the castle as it is now is not from the 13th century, because the original was badly damaged by bombings in the Second World War. It has been faithfully restored to its original form, though.

Going mobile

This is fun! Here I am on the train! Decided to take a trip to Turku on the west coast, two hours on the train. Turku was Finland's capital when the place was under Sweden - ended in 1809 when Russia took over. The capital was moved to Helsinki, because Turku was too connected to Sweden. Its history goes back to the medieval times and it has, among other things, an impressive medieval castle, which was the residence of the Swedish regents and princes in Finland.

Modern train, I can charge my camera battery and phone, bought coffee from the trolley and have a good book. Nice! Report with pictures to follow.

Railway Station

Incidentally, thematically linked with the pictures in the earlier post - I don't mean loneliness but railway stations. Although: Vally got me thinking about the anonymity of railway stations, their transience which is caused by their being places of moving on: people rushing to trains and stepping off trains in order to continue wherever it is that they're going in the city; a railway station is never the final destination for anyone. Thus no faces in this tiny film (mind you, shot it before Vally got me thinking about this stuff.


Railway Station Anonymity from Maria Niku on Vimeo.

Snippets of words:

"Nice ..."
"... city day ..."
"It leaves in about half an hour, let's walk ..."
"If it'd been raining it wouldn't have been nice here."


(P.S. Is the sound of the video a little jumpy for you? I think there's something wrong with the Vimeo systems currently)

Loneliness

This little series which I called Loneliness is really an example of the occasion creating the subject and the story: I happened to go to this particular place, and the man happened to be there. I'm particularly happy with the way this set turned out. This is one of the train stations in the local train network, really a depressing place with all the concrete. The man might not be lonely at all, of course. He might have a wide circle of friends. However, I saw he also had a booze bottle with him, so seeing him alone in a train station, smoking and swigging from a bottle in early friday afternoon made me think he is one of the lonely men in cities all over Europe: men who have no family and no home, who spend their nights in lodging houses, and possibly have an alcohol problem. The oppressive concrete constructs and the greyscale add to the feel of loneliness. A depressing vision I'm sure, but I don't think photography should be only about pretty and cheerful things.

Toilet communication and other things

Sorry about the extreme mundanity of the subject, but today, whilst doing my business at the university ladies' room I was wondering about toilet communication. Namely, scribblings in the toilet booths. At the university, the current subjects in the ladies' toilet seem to be religion (evangelicals arguing with atheists, with plain old lutherans having a word in between (I think)); men and relationships; children; with a bit on pets. I recall some years ago there was some quite heated debate about the Swedish language in Finland (Swedish is the 2nd official language in Finland, since about 6% speak it as home language; every Finnish-speaker has to learn it as school, like every Swedish-speaker has to learn Finnish). Methinks this would be an interesting subject of social study. Do the subjects of toilet discussion vary according to the place and what sort of people mainly are present in the place? Why toilets especially? And are toilets universally THE place for such communication, or is it selected places?

I went to a concert today, a free record store gig of an alt rock band called Risto (myspace, if you're interested: http://www.myspace.com/ristoristo - they sing in Finnish only though). Immensely good live band. Their lyrics are about a character called Risto whose life is in a REALLY bad way all around. I tested recording on my IPhone (program called iTalk). Surprisingly good quality though of course not state of the art sound! I love the IPhone. One thing that has happened is I've started using ITunes more to check out new music, because it's so easy: just tap the iTunes icon on the phone and buy & download straight to the phone. And not too long ago I was declaring how I hate ITunes and their format policy! Hm...

A friend of mine has made his way to Helsinki, so after the show I went out for a coffee with him. We have VERY different world views (him being an evangelical of the fundamentalist sort) but he is a nice guy so I enjoyed it.

Still busy with work. I'm trying to get the article done by the 10th day, at the latest by 15th, so there'll be enough time for proofreading. Not much left, thankfully, just the conclusion chapter and a bit. Very much doable in a handful of days.

Now to finish, here is a picture of a wintery beach. It's so quiet, completely separated from everything to do with beaches really. Makes me long for the summer really: the sound of the waves, the sun, the warmth, the merry splashing of children in the water.

Only the open sea

The vast openness of the sea is sometimes overwhelming. Me, I usually like space. I'm used to it in Finland where there is plenty of it, not just on the sea. I'll admit, though, that I edited out one other figure close to the horizon to get the desired effect. There were lots of people on the ice and I probably should've waited for hours to have just one person there exactly like this!

Taken yesterday on Aurinkolahti ("Sun Bay"), Vuosaari, at the eastern end of Helsinki (about 14 kilometers from the city centre). I didn't go on the ice myself. It's supposed to be thick enough to be safe now, but I was all the same a bit cautious because I don't have any equipment to save myself if I end up in peril on the ice.