I love Helsinki

Yesterday I had the most wonderful day of photographic wanderings in Punavuori, and once again my heart was filled with tremendous love for Helsinki. It sounds a bit dramatic, like how the characters speak in Victorian novels. But it's true, it's the place where I want to be - and luckily am!

Punavuori, Rödberget in Swedish, translates as 'Red Mountain'. It's one of the (locally) legendary inner city districts of Helsinki in the southern part of the city (map). The district's name comes from shore cliffs that used to be between the modern Sepänkatu and Punavuorenkatu streets and were called Rödberget in 17th century documents due to their reddish hue. Punavuori, though, did not become the official name of the district until 1959. The eastern part of the district has long had apartment buildings, whereas the western section, 'Rööperi' (city slang, comes from the Swedish name), was in the late 19th century an area of low, wooden working class housing. The wood houses were subsequently replaced with apartment buildings. Punavuori was still in the 1970s a restless working class district.

Nowadays the rough past is romanticized, which I'm sure is one of the reasons why the wealthier, trendy folks want to move there and add to the long-established local population. Their desire was probably not abated by Rööperi, a film that was made last year, about the professional criminals of the neighbourhood in the 60s and 70s. It's fictional but based on real events,  on a book called 'Rööperi - the years of crime 1955-2005', by crime novelist Harri Nykänen and Tom Sjöberg, a former criminal who was himself born and did business in Punavuori. In reality there's nothing romantic about a city district controlled by criminals. Even so, this sort of a past gives Punavuori a certain edge and excitement, which are lacking for example in the otherwise similar neighbouring Ullanlinna, with its more upper-classy character. You have street cred if you can say that you have a place in Punavuori. The district's popularity is reflected in things like the proliferation of trendy design shops, cafes, bars, vinyl record stores and such. 

The district is completely gentrified, but it remains an area of urban diversity. It also has an open and friendly, lively and young mood - not least because of the young student population for whom the area's many small apartments are ideal. The mood is why Punavuori is my favourite district of Helsinki, along with Kallio. The open mood seemed to me yesterday to be reflected in the open arch ways to the inner courtyards of the 100-year-old apartment buildings. The courtyards are sometimes almost labyrinthine, with other archways leading to other parts, narrow passages, edges and niches. Closed off from all sides (apart from the archways of course), you have the tall building walls rising up towards the sky around you, with balconies and windows. These buildings are not terribly tall, seven storeys at most, but one gets the impression of tallness and narrowness, as  if of a chute. It's wonderful to go in the courtyards and look up and around and think about things. What was it like for a child 70, 80 years ago to grow up in such a place? What is it like now? They are their own world, these interiors of inner city blocks, so different from the 60s blocks of flats of the suburbs, let alone the single-family houses of the countryside.
  

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The previous time when I was thinking about how happy I am to live in Helsinki was on sunday. It was another day of walking and finding things - a fan's dedication, misspelt, oddly moving, to Michael Jackson, written on a bench by the Töölönlahti bay; in Kamppi, a neighbouring district to Punavuori, behind a closed kiosks and close to a public toilet, a small, wooden stand which someone had humorously named 'Griin Stage'; a big, pink heart and the message 'love each other', painted on the wall of the aforementioned kiosk. In between my wanderings I went to Kiasma, the museum of modern art, and as usual found something that elevated my spirit. I was particularly impressed by the video installation of Finnish and Swedish artists, with a series of video screens hung up as if in a forest, each of the screens showing in turn a conflict situation in different professions. The installation seemed to me a powerful comment on the modern working life. I was also affected by the exhibition of Denise Grünstein, one of Sweden's foremost photographers, especially the series depicting human figures in nature, sometimes mysterious, sometimes even threatening. Click HERE for one of the pictures. My day ended perfectly with a free concert of the youth choir Cantores Minores in one of the churches. I'll just repeat what I said in Facebook: "Moved by the glorious, beautiful music; amazed that human voices can create such complex, magnificent worlds of sound. And Sibelius' Finlandia as third and final encore."

To end, one thing (one of the many things) I'm amazed about is the (seemingly) sudden explosion of green in the city. It is green everywhere where there are trees lining the streets - like there are in the pedestrian section of the Iso-Roobertin katu street in Punavuori. Of course they are there in winter too but you sort of don't register them because of the bare branches. It's quite amazing how the green, especially the exuberant green of spring and early summer, changes a street.

The Odyssey

This is an old picture of mine, one that I took in November 2008 and I've posted it before. But it's related to something I've been thinking of recently. I originally named the picture A Shopping Cart's Odyssey, jokingly, to give the shopping cart's adventure in the woods an appropriately Homeric character - as befits someone like me who dabbles in ancient things by way of work. Recently, though, I was thinking that it actually fits what is going on these days. The Enron scandal, the absurdly large bonuses of industry execs, the depression, and so on. You could certainly say that the capitalist economic system is looking for direction, couldn't you?

Money's a weird thing isn't it? The way I see it, money in itself has no negative or positive moral or ethical value. It is simply a medium which enables people to obtain the necessities and pleasures of life, to buy services and goods. Money only acquires a moral or ethical value depending on how it's obtained and used. I'm not against money nor do I think it is evil.  I very much enjoy the pleasures that money can get when I happen to have it (conversely, now I don't happen to have that much money, and I don't mind that either). I don't mind some people being richer than others, as long as the acquirement of wealth and its use has not caused suffering to others. Even so, it is very absurd that money has very much become a value in itself. It's always been so in the whole human history of course, and I know this is not a new thing to say, but that is where the problems stem from. Money as an independent value has become more and more emphasized in the past couple of decades, with the multinational corporations aiming for greater and greater profits at any cost. It's as if the race towards bigger and bigger profits has become some sort of a sacred objective that justifies any means.

I could really rant about this a long time, but I'll end this with some wise words by Douglas Adams:

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Miniature sun

Lesser celandine, one of those small flowers so modest in form compared to the flowers of the tropic but somehow I like it more because it grows wild here. This, though, was in the botanical gardens where they grow in large mats. They're so beautiful aren't they, like tiny little suns.

Time, where doth it go?

Do you ever get the feeling that days should be twice as long as they are? I don't mean only in the sense of too much work but in there being so many things you'd enjoy doing but there isn't time for all of them in a day? Right now, for instance, I would like to get photos edited but the warm days are tempting me to just go out and spend most of the day outside in the park reading. I shall of course do the latter, as the book I'm reading is wonderful - Doris Lessing's The Sweetest Dream - and it makes no sense to waste a brilliant day away by sitting indoors at the computer.

So, I indeed did make the sea journey to the city during the weekend. A warm, sunny summer day sitting on the roof of the boat, a refreshing yet warm sea breeze in my hair and on my face. Just wonderful. I have been to all of the places the boat passes (well, excepting the stretches of shore that are private property) but it's so very cool to see your home city from a different angle. Here are a few pictures.

And now it's off to the park with the book, not forgetting sunscreen and a bottle of water!

 

The spring most beautiful

For me, the most beautiful sight in the spring are the slender, young birch trees with their white bark and the new leaves of fresh, exuberant green. I spent most of the day yesterday in the park reading (barefoot of course, oh how my toes enjoyed it!) and in the evening took a stroll in the neighbourhood. It's astounding how it is suddenly green everywhere! I know it didn't happen overnight, but it feels like it did. And the woods are full of windflowers, the flower that welcomes the summer.

Today it's even warmer than yesterday. I'm hoping to take a sea journey to the city centre. I discovered/remembered that there's a boat line that goes from a pier nearby all the way to Hakaniemi in the city centre, along the coasts and past numerous islands. I think the journey takes about 40 minutes. Should be amazing. And certainly different to the usual metro ride, huh? When I say 'hoping', I mean if I looked at the schedule correctly. The boat only goes twice daily in May, in the morning and early evening. Well, if I miss the morning boat, I can go to the city and take the boat ride from Hakaniemi back home at 5 pm.

Sitting in the grass...

There's nothing photographically interesting about this picture whatsoever. It's just for illustration. I was just so happy that today was the first day I could sit in the grass and feel the summer warmth. It suddenly got warm yesterday and today was a proper summer weather. Tomorrow (friday) it's going to be warmer still. I didn't take my shoes off today but I will tomorrow because it's such a wonderful feeling, bare toes in new grass. Of course here you have to be careful with tics. But just for a little bit! My only sorrow is that the balcony is out of bounds due to the facade and balcony renovation. Would be so heavenly to be able to lie in my deck chair in the balcony tomorrow. But at least I can go to the park nearby, or to find a good spot by the shore.

The joy of colour

I was somehow reminded of Patsy's words in defence of Eddy when Saffy reproached her for STILL not having done anything about the kitchen: "Maybe this is it... What is the difference between someone who chooses to paint like a child and a child's painting?" (Patsy of course had been the cause of the kitchen's chaotic state because she had burned it down by falling asleep - or more likely, passing out - with a burning cigarette in hand). 

In all seriousness, I don't know much about art, but this painting really made me think that if it had been painted by a grown-up artist with an intentionally chosen naivistic style, the work might well be much praised and in some good gallery somewhere. This is one of a large series of paintings decorating the pedestrian underpass by the Kulosaari metro station, painted by the pupils of the local elementary school. There was plenty that I liked but this one in particular struck me due to it's bright, bold use of colour and the wonderful sense of unreal that is there in the depicted scenery. It is as if the mountains (?) at the front could in fact be fire mountains or trees, whose flames JUST fail to reach the lone house at the edge of a strange desert land where the sun never changes colour or goes down and the sky always has the same bright blue tone.

Just thoughts and feelings created by my own imagination and associations of mind of course. What does the picture make you think?

Divine music, and other things

I experienced some quite divine music today: the Mother's Day concert of Cantores Minores, the Cathedral Choir of the city cathedral of Helsinki. They were founded in 1952 and are the best boy choir in Finland (minors as the name tells although the singers include some young men for male voices as well), with an extensive regular repertoire of the oratorios, passion plays and requiems by the great composers. They regularly tour all across Europe but also in the U.S. and Asia. My younger nephew is in the music play school group of the choir (5-6 year olds), which also performed at the concert. The little boys were of course totally adorable, but the divine music was offered by the Cantores Minores proper. Their program included Bach's Ave Maria and several other numbers. There is something quite extraordinary in a choir with a perfect harmony of voices. As for my nephew's choir's performance, of course I was beaming all through. How could I not? I'm his auntie. :-)

Here is a picture that I took one beautiful evening recently in the park nearby. Black and white seemed to work for this occasion. I like coniferous trees so much, fir trees and pine trees. They have strength and calm and they seem to fit in this northern climate. 

Asfalttimetsän lehtiä

Maybe it's just my browser, but it seems to me that blogger uploads pictures in a poorer quality than it used to? Click on the picture to see in larger size, it looks sharper that way.

"Leaves of the asphalt forest" is what the title is in English, but my modest little play on words only works in Finnish: you see "lehti" means both "leaf" and "paper" or "magazine".

Clarity

At the southern sea-side in Helsinki, a bit further along the shore from the section Val and I walked (see previous post).

I was wondering: is the spring light brighter up here in the north? I tend to imagine that it is. At least I know that at this time of the year there is more and more light more north you go. In Utsjoki, which is the northernest bit of Finland that you can possibly get to, about 1200 kilometers from Helsinki (map - scroll down the entire length of the country to see Helsinki), the sun rises today at 3.15am and sets at 11.08pm (compare Helsinki: 5.04am and 21.31pm). Come midsummer in Utsjoki, the sun will shine 24 hours a day. Literally. It doesn't set at all. Here it will set for five hours.

I was also thinking about the different kinds of light.
 

The word for spring light is 'clarity', because of the way it outlines everything with its almost harsh, blaring brightness.

Summer's light is more even with its long, all-encompassing warmth.

Autumn brings a new kind of softness and a hint of weariness to the light.

Winter's light is already exhausted at the moment it rises and from that moment on is merely rushing to get back to sleep. In Utsjoki it doesn't even get out of bed.

Hopefully the sun is shining today wherever everyone is.

Ah it's May again!

For me the month changed in a particularly memorable way, because I had the supreme pleasure of enjoying the visit of blogger friend Val. She is a very very special person, so it was a joy all around.

FRIDAY. May Day's eve. It was supposed to be mostly cloudy with rains of shower but actually it was sunny and warm for most of the day! We met at the Senate Square at 10.30, and after rejuvenating ourselves with coffee at the university cafe headed out on a walk along the southern sea front and Merisatama (Sea Harbour) at the southern tip of Helsinki, in the districts of Kaivopuisto and Ullanlinna. On a sunny day it's a really enjoyable walk along the promenade, and you can pop into the Kaivopuisto park, from the highest point of which the view towards the sea is magnificent. There are also several small islands just off the shore, accessible by regular boat lines (run by the sailing associations I believe), my favourite being Harakka, which used to be owned and controlled by the army and has rich bird life.

From the Sea Harbour we headed back to the Senate Square and Kruununhaka for lunch in Pompei, a tiny, true Italian trattoria. You can't beat their pizzas and pastas, and our veggie pasta did not disappoint.

After lunch, Snellmaninkatu street took us directly to the market square by the harbour, and there we caught the ferry to the Suomenlinna sea fortress. On a beautiful spring day it's the place to be, to wander along the cliffs and battlements looking out at the sea and listening to the waves. Historically it is fascinating too, the naval dockyard being particularly interesting. It was built in the 18th century for the Swedish coastal fleet and is still used for repairing and renovating old sailing boats and vessels. I feel lucky to have a place like Suomenlinna so close to Helsinki and so easily accessible (the ferries go every 20 minutes in summer time and are part of the city public transportation). Although the ferry takes only 10-15 minutes, it feels like a sea journey, and the islands of Suomenlinna are a different, more peaceful place, with a village feel. About 800 people live there permanently, and I wouldn't mind being one of them. Well, in spring and summer at least: in winter the icy winds easily sweep the islands. For visiting Suomenlinna, I think the spring is the best time, because in the summer's tourist season the place can get a bit crowded.

Our visit to Suomenlinna was excellently timed, because coming back we had just enough time for a cup of coffee before watching Manta receive her cap again together with about 50 000 people. This is an annual tradition that has been going on for decades, although I think it has become such a huge media event only in recent history. To go all anthropological, basically it's a pagan rite to welcome the spring. The ceremony starts Vappu in Helsinki and after it everyone is allowed to wear their student caps for that evening and the next day. I put on mine symbolically but did not wear it for long because it's a fairly silly piece of headwear.

SATURDAY. May Day/Labour Day. Cold and windy. Despite the weather, I headed out to Hakaniemi market square to see some of the Labour Day celebration of the social democrats and the Leftfield Union. Lots of people, live music, stands with food and coffee (vendace fried in butter, the supreme Finnish market food; crepes), was quite enjoyable. Then the Labour Day march came by, all red flags in the wind and stern, serious socialist songs. It felt somehow surreal, the songs slightly out of place.

SUNDAY. Sunny and warm again, a day of supremely enjoyable slow, free wandering. I love such days, just starting out and walking without any particular destination, seeing what comes up. First I went to the sunday market in Hakaniemi and enjoyed a crepes, then headed out to Kallio. It's my favourite district in all of Helsinki I think. A former working class neighbourhood, now the locale of artists, students and the like, it seems to have more life than the "fine" centre on the other side of Pitkäsilta ("long bridge", see the Kallio link). I don't think I would want to live in Kallio though, because you get the alcoholics hanging around the metro stations all the time. Among the things encountered: an adorable "missing" notice for a beloved turtle soft toy posted by a child, probably at most a first-grader, judging by the notice which was in wobbly block letters and with spelling errors. TURT-LE-HAS-ES-CA-PD-DIS-TIC-TIV-MARKS-IS-BROWN-SHELL-AND-O-RIN-GE-SPOTS... I do hope someone finds the greatly missed and obviously loved turtle. At first I thought the notice was for a missing pet but then saw the addition "if you find this soft toy, call...". My steps next took me to Vallila to the big flea market, located in a large former factory hall. What an enjoyable day.

MONDAY. The weather was identical to that of sunday, yet I didn't have difficulty in motivating myself to go to the university library to do some work. In fact I was considering another photography trek, but didn't feel like it. The mood was more for work. In the evening I met up with Val again by the opera house, and we walked around the Gulf of Töölö, across the train tracks, along Tokoinranta (a quay in Hakaniemi) and on to Kruununhaka for dinner at a restaurant. Excellent food, a bottle of wine and three hours of conversation. What a good evening.

Val is flying back to Holland today and it seems a good day to go, because it's again cold, windy and pouring rain. Oh, now it's sleet actually. One thing I would like to know is, why do the workmen do the noisiest work (drilling and all) just when the weather is absolutely dismal and you would like to have a nice day at home?

Alright, enough with the complaining. Thank you so much, Val, and have a safe trip home!