Vappu

So, I've been quite enjoying Vappu, which is the name of the Finnish celebration of 1st of May. At least in Helsinki Vappu is a huge two-day carnival of revelry, during which tens of thousands of people get out on the streets. Nowadays Vappu is above all a celebration of students, and it begins at 6 pm on May Day's eve with a ceremony by the harbour, followed by immense crowds, where a student guild (a different one each year) washes the statue of Havis Amanda (above) and places a student cap on her head. The statue was sculpted and set up in the early 20th century at which time it was found to be rather controversial, no doubt due to the nudity. This ceremony is actually well in accordance with ancient traditions, come to think of it: in ancient Athenian religion there were cults that involved re-clothing of the statue of the goddess. I can't recall if washing of the cult image was involved. In any case, I don't know - or don't remember - how this ceremony started, but it's rather a nice pagan-ish rite of welcoming the spring. :-)

I witnessed the ceremony, and subsequently left before people's state of drunkenness got too emphasized. The drinking factor can be a problem, causing disturbances - Vappu is the biggest business of the year for the state alco company - but I do like this stuff, the happy and joyous revelry. There's not much of that in Finland (in public)! There are lots of things tomorrow too, for instance as much as 50 000 people gathering in the central park on the May Day morning for picnic. There's also a big Vappu march. Everything starts pretty early though so I'm not sure I'll make it.

Happy May Day to all!

And here's a small set of photos of the event: http://picasaweb.google.com/mr.wisty/Vappu2009#

I meant to add the link before, but forgot. Btw, if someone wonders about the overalls the students are wearing in the pictures, and the cloth badges on the overalls: all student groups (of the departments of the university) have these uniforms, everyone a different colour, usually got in the first year of study. The various student organisations sell cloth badges which are collected and sewn onto the overalls. You can usually conclude how active a student is in the parties and functions by how many badges he or she has sewn on the overalls.