Baltic/Scandinavian Log (Part 8 of 10)
Evelyn C. Leeper
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 22 May 1994 Page 99
got there about ten minutes to noon. Other tour groups were already
waiting. Noon came and went. Then we saw the tour groups going away.
A woman from one of the tour groups (one with a bunch of teenagers)
explained that there was no tour on holidays. May 22? Today is
Whitsunday. If it weren't for the fact that we had heard of this
before, we probably would have thought it was a holiday they invented
just to play a trick on us. (In Malaysia everything was closed one day
we were there because of elections. In Israel we were in Haifa on a
Saturday--no town is deader than Haifa on a Saturday.) As it is,
Whitsunday seems to be a holiday peculiar to Finland, Iceland, and
Denmark, and is seven Sundays after Easter. No tours.
Across the street in an old railway yard was a flea market (maybe
it was a special Whitsunday flea market?). Like trolleys, these markets
give you a good feel for the real society. Here you see for sale lots
of clothing, old puzzles and toys, comic books, and a fair number of
books. Mark bought a British mystery novel for FIM 5 (under US$1), the
same price as each of two mini-dictionaries for translating from Finnish
and Swedish respectively to English. Evelyn bought an inexpensive (FIM
4) pair of gloves that don't quite match in color, but will keep her
hands warm in the chilly weather that is May this far north. (When the
woman selling them saw they didn't match she wasn't going to sell them
to Evelyn, but she must have seen Evelyn's disappointment and instead
reduced them from FIM 5 to FIM 4.) We each bought a sausage for lunch
for FIM 8 each. It must have been cheap sausage. The flavor was good
but the meat was too soft. It was like eating porridge.
The National Museum was designed by Gesellius, Lindgren, and
Saarinen. It is one of the nicer museums we've seen, at least as a
national museum. Over the first hall are four beautiful murals from the
Finnish national epic, the KALEVALA. The KALEVALA was first collected
in the 1830s by Elias Lonnrot. It's even been made into a movie, THE
DAY THE EARTH FROZE (which Mark says is not very good but we may order
from Sinister Cinema when we get back anyway). One mural involves
plowing a field that has snakes, one shows the killing of a monster
serpent, one shows the making of the Sampo, and one shows the stealing
of the Sampo. Mark thinks a Sampo is a device like a horn of plenty.
It produces whatever you want. Not surprisingly, it is too coveted for
its possessor's good. If Mark remembers rightly, misusing it may be
dangerous also.
(Postscript: Mark says, "We did get the film on our return and
watched it. It was better than I remembered it, but still not really
good. It is stagey and poorly dubbed, though some of the scenes are
visually very nice. It reminds me a lot of the paintings in the
museum.)
The museum has archaeological finds, weapons, and historical
furnishings, including a Russian throne with feet like the Russian two-
headed eagle and each arm like a gold eagle head. There are religious
carvings and paintings. There are portraits and Finnish furniture, and
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 22 May 1994 Page 100
also ethnographic exhibits.
Mark took a picture of a stuffed reindeer as part of his personal
campaign against the misinformation barrage we get every Christmas
season about what a reindeer looks like. Any representation we ever see
of reindeer shows them as looking like North American wild deer. The
color is wrong; the shape is wrong. They are portrayed as frail and
dewy-eyed, which is not at all correct. The size is about right, but a
reindeer really looks a lot like a midget moose. They have big wide
snouts. As you might expect (because reindeer really do pull sleighs),
there is nothing dainty about them. They are small homely powerhouses.
The museum also had a temporary exhibit on Chilean culture.
Postcards are expensive here--FIM 3 each, or about US$0.60. (They
were even more on Suomenlinna--FIM 4.) But then, everything is more
expensive here. And we don't mean more expensive than the Baltic
republics, but more expensive than home. On this trip it balances out
somewhat, which helps.
On leaving we took (more) pictures of the stone bear outside the
museum. Since the walking tour we started would take us a long way
around a lake without a lot of interest for long stretches, we decided
to switch to a different one. (Also, it looked like rain and the new
tour didn't commit us to as much walking.)
We found a machine to get more money from, getting FIM 1000 this
time. At first we tried changing money in a machine that claimed to
take bills of various currencies and dispense Finnish markka. But it
didn't recognize any of the four bills in two different denominations
that we tried. "We have machines like that at home," Mark said.
"You mean machines that don't give you Finnish markka for dollars?"
Evelyn countered. "Of course we do. Our toaster, for example."
But as Mark pointed out, it's really just a change-making machine
that recognizes a lot of different inputs.
We also picked this new walking tour which started at Cathedral
Square because we wanted to go to a concert there anyway.
The Cathedral, or rather Senate Square on which it stands, is one
of the few images Evelyn says she remembers from our last trip here.
She thinks that is because we didn't really see much in Helsinki and
this was one of the three or four stops the bus made. (The others were
the Sibelius Monument, the Rock Church--Temppeliaukion kirkkoEMand maybe
Market Square. Or we may have walked to Market Square on our own--I
know we went to the bookstore on our own. Then again, markets are just
the sort of thing that tours like to take you to.)
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 22 May 1994 Page 101
Anyway, we followed the tour around, along the waterfront, looking
at historic buildings and so on. About 16:30 we found ourselves
opposite the Kolme krunnua (Three Crowns), recommended in the "Lonely
Planet" guide. Even though he had very little English, the owner did
his best to help us with the menu, which was hand-written and hard to
read. The food was very good. The price was much better than the
previous night and the portions were really generous. (We think we'll
stick to "Lonely Planet" recommendations from now on, or at least
seriously consider them first.) Evelyn had roast lamb and Mark had pork
with melted cheese. The bill came to FIM 115, still a touch expensive
by United States standards, but close ... about US$22.25. The rule in
Finland is not to tip unless service is really good but the owner worked
so hard translating we left an extra FIM 5.
From there we went back to the Cathedral for the concert being
given by the people in our youth hostel. The woman we'd met had said it
was 17:00, but when we looked it up in "Helsinki This Week" it said
18:00. We got to the Cathedral at 17:45 only to find it was mostly
over. In spite of the listing it was at 17:00. We heard the last part,
however, and it was very beautiful. It combined choral music and a
drum, oddly enough. We both thought the drum added a lot, but Mark
thought a deeper-sounding drum would have been better. This sounded too
much like workmen on the roof to him. (It was supposed to be FIM 30,
but since we arrived so close to the end, the ticket-seller just waved
us in.)
Well, back we went to the hotel, doing the walking tours near our
hotel (on the island of Katajanokka/Skatudden) at the same time. (It's
an island only because they dug a canal across the base of the peninsula
it used to be.) We are right near the Finnish Film Foundation, but
there is not much that can be seen from the outside. Chinese
restaurants seem a bit expensive where we were looking. It is about
US$10 a dish. We dropped some things off at our hotel, then continued
on. Most of what we were seeing was architecture, particularly odd
faces and animals on buildings. We were very close to the eight ice-
breakers in the fleet. They are big. Not as big as the luxury ships we
see, but they still look like massive mountains of metal. We were also
very close to the Helsinki County Prison, which turned out to be right
next door to our hotel.
Back in the hotel we listened to some Sibelius and some Grieg
(well, at least it is Scandinavian, if not a country we visit this
time), and wrote in our logs.
May 23, 1994: According to the shortwave, at 8 degrees Centigrade
we are about the coldest place in Scandinavia. It looked sunny when we
got up, but as we were eating breakfast it was clouding up again.
Breakfast was at the market down on the harbor. We shared a liter of
strawberries--thinking of Dale Skran, a close friend at home who is also
a strawberry fan. Evelyn had coffee--slightly more expensive here than
at the hotel, but overall the meal was cheaper, and better. Mark tried
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 22 May 1994 Page 102
to get a picture of the little birds who come begging. And he got a
little strawberry juice on his log accidentally. He thinks he got a
little strawberry juice on the name "Sibelius." It will look a little
pink (though not in the version you're reading).
There is an indoor section of the market and we bought some cheese
(gouda). It was FIM 59 per kilogram, so it was very, very roughly
US$5.90 per pound. Actually it is US$5.16 per pound, but you are in the
ball park by just dividing by 10. Mark wonders why every coin we get
seems so shiny and new.
Since the weather looked moderately acceptable--we're beginning to
think it doesn't ever get what one might call "good" here, at least in
May--our destination is the fortress island of Suomenlinna (Sveaborg).
(Also, some of the other things we want to do aren't open on Monday.)
Mark relates, "During the Crimean War the island Suomenlinna, under the
Russians, held off the combined sea forces of France and England--for a
little while, anyway. It kept two powerful military fleets out of the
bay--momentarily. It stood up to two powerful, advanced, well-funded
navies--for a bit. And while the battle could not be termed an actual
victory, it did provide a proud moment in Finnish history."
You take a tour boat (FIM 20 each for the round trip) from Market
Square and it brings you to the fortified island. (It also gives you a
nice twenty-minute ride through the harbor each way.) We sailed at
10:00 with a school group. We seem at times doomed to be harried by
school groups who block passageways, take longer to get on and off the
boat than anyone else, and so on. The island, dubbed "the Gibraltar of
the North," is a natural bastion for defending the Helsinki harbor. It
had fortifications built and guns put in place. Today you can run
around the forts and go to the various museums, typically on a military
theme.
Since when we arrived at the island the school group headed for the
Ehrensvard Museum, our first visit was to the Vesikko, a Finnish U-
boat--the one we'd seen from the ferry on first arriving. (It's a
submarine, of course, but here they're called U-boats. They are
Finnish, however, not German.) In the post-WWII Paris Peace Treaty
(1947), Finland had to scrap all its submarines but this one, to which
it added two side doors for easy entry and turned it into "Das Mooseum."
As Mark describes it, "It is 134 feet (41 meters) long. It had a crew
of twenty very cramped men, men living in hot bunks (that is, bunks that
are constantly in use in twelve-hour shifts). It is hot, you sweat a
lot in bed, then when you get up someone else sleeps on your sweat and
his own sweat from the last shift. You are in an iron water bubble. If
you walk five feet, you change the balance of the submarine and you tip
it until somebody can pump water to restore the balance. You are stir-
crazy from the tight quarters and outside is either nothing but water
and sky or nothing but water. You go to Hell to be punished for your
sins on earth. If you commit sins in Hell, they put you on a U-boat.
Recommended reading, incidentally, is THE BOAT (DAS BOOT) by Lothar-
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 23 May 1994 Page 103
Gunther Buchheim.
By the way, it's not called World War II here. It's the Winter War
and the Continuation War. The first was in late 1939 and 1940 when
Finland went to war with the Soviet Union over territorial demands made
by the latter, and the Continuation War was after a one-year "peace"
when Finland got some aid from Germany to fight the Soviet Union, which
it did from 1941 to 1944, but its position was more anti-Soviet than
pro-German. When they fought alongside the Germans, they let the
Germans use Finland as a base of operations, but never allowed
themselves to be occupied. Himmler insisted that if Finland got German
aid it must deport the small population of 2000 Jews. Foreign Minister
Rolf Witting neither refused nor agreed. he basically pretended not to
hear Himmler's demand. Himmler did not press the point. In 1944
Finland was again forced to sign an armistice with the Soviet Union and
to agree to fight Germany, or at least the Germans in Finland.
After visiting the submarine, we walked around exploring the fort
walls inside and out. The Ehrensvard Museum--sort of the main museum of
the fortress--is not technically one of the military museums, but it
does show what officers' quarters were like, exhibiting rooms and
furniture. Eventually it gets to uniforms, weapons, and artwork
depicting battles. Particularly depicted was the siege of the island
during the Crimean War in 1815 (August 9-11, though the Russian prints
label it as July, since Russia had not yet switched to the Gregorian
calendar, and would not do so until after the 1917 Revolution--what they
call the Octoberists we should presumably call the Novembrists).
J. W. Carmichael did one of the more famous drawings of the battle, with
lights in the sky that look like UFOs. It must have been famous,
because there seemed to be a half dozen different versions of engravings
of it.
We walked around the ramparts for a while. There were cannon
placed at various points, but they were from all different eras--some
from the 19th Century and some clearly 20th Century in origin (with cogs
and wheels for changing the elevation and a wheeled track for rotating).
We happened to be passing a cafe when it started to rain, so we stopped
for a snack before continuing on to the Coastal Defense Museum, devoted
specifically to guns and aiming devices from the coastal defenses (what
a surprise!) from the earliest times to the present and included a
camera with a telephoto lens with a focal length of 250 *centimeters*
(Steve, eat your heart out!). The museum was inside a hill, but must
have been heated, as it was warmer than outside rather than cooler as
one normally expects from caves and cave-like enclosures.
We continued around back to the dock and then to the adjoining
island for the War Museum, which has relics of the Winter War and the
Continuation War, including armored vehicles, a plane, a truck, and a
bunker you can walk through. Each of the military museums is small by
itself, but together they seem to form a decent museum of some size,
making the combination ticket worthwhile if you're interested in
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 23 May 1994 Page 104
military history. (And if you're not, you probably don't come to the
island anyway.)
We decided to skip the Doll and Toy Museum (as not being
representative of a military fortress), and took the 15:00 boat back to
Market Square. Every half-hour or so it would cloud over and rain a
little, and a half hour later it would clear up and be sunny.
We then proceeded to the inevitable--a bookstore, in this case,
Akateeminen Kirjakauppa (Akademiska Bokhandeln in Swedish). Akateeminen
Kirjakauppa is the biggest bookstore in Finland; somewhere Evelyn had
read a claim that it was the biggest in the world, but this clearly
isn't true. Evelyn writes, "It celebrated its 100th anniversary in
1993, has a cafe, carries 140,000 titles (1,000,000 volumes), and was
designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. (There was an article
about it in the 27 September 1993 issue of PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.)
Akateeminen Kirjakauppa is across the street from the large Stockmann
department store on Keskuskatu/Centralgatan at the corner of
Pohjoisesplanaadi. Despite the name (literally "Academic Bookstore"),
Akateeminen carries a large selection of modern fiction as well. Books
are in Finnish, Swedish, and English, and to a lesser extent German,
French, Italian, and Russian."
It is of some interest to see what books we know are available in
Finnish, and also to see what they have in English. Most of the English
books would cost a lot more than at home. Hardback science fiction was
about FIM 130-185 (US$25-35), trade paperbacks FIM 77-108 (US$15-20),
and mass market paperbacks FIM 41-79 (US$8-15). That's for translations
into Finnish; originals in English from the United States or Great
Britain may be 10-15% cheaper on the average. Fans here must be either
very rich or very dedicated. I imagine there are some used bookstores,
so that may help.
Last time we were here (in 1986), we looked into buying an English
translation of the KALEVALA, but it was too expensive. (Evelyn thinks
it was about US$20.) Now it's even more--FIM 134 (US$25) for a mass
market British paperback labeled 7.99 (about US$13). We also saw a
couple of other British books of interest and may order them all from
Hatchard's when we return home. (We now understand why people in Europe
are so big on mail-ordering books.)
Evelyn was surprised to see no Sherlock Holmes in Finnish. They
had a lot of other mystery writers translated into Finnish from English,
and Doyle in English, including some in a line of English "classics" at
only FIM 15 (about US$3). The same line is available at home for about
the same price. But here they had some titles we'd seen no place else.
They had the first 20th Century thriller, THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS by
Erskine Childers. They also had RAFFLES: THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN by
E. W. Hornung. Raffles is a sort of fictional Deacon Brodie. By day he
is a gentleman and champion cricket bowler who is welcome in the highest
circles of society. By night he is a master burglar. His stories were
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 23 May 1994 Page 105
popular back at the turn of the century.
After that, we went to the train station. The reason was that in
Stockholm we wanted to stay at a youth hostel, so we'd joined the IYHF.
They gave us identification cards, but they needed a photograph. The
train station had one of those machines that take four pictures for some
fixed set of coins--in this case FIM 20. So we needed the photographs
for the youth hostel and in addition our well-worn passports expire in
another few months so we needed new photographs for them as well. Mark
relates, "I told Evelyn we could probably share--that they take more
than one exposure and she could get two and I could get two. She said
no, they take only one exposure. Passports require two identical
pictures. We both guessed wrong. Evelyn went first, adjusted her seat,
put in her coins, and then came the flash. Boy! Do they flash! Your
first impulse is to duck and cover. Then as she was leaving it flashed
again. Well, she wasted two pictures. Then it was my turn. Again the
flashes. Then we just waited for the pictures to come out. It takes
about five minutes. Evelyn wondered if they can process two at a time
or if we should have waited for one set to come out before shotting a
second set. I suggested it would come out with her picture but have my
head and my hand."
"After the five minutes hers popped out. It was a terrible picture
that came out, but there was a good pair that looked like the top of her
head. Mine came out strange, as perhaps a trick of the lighting and my
glasses. My eyes look very wide. If you look carefully you can see
that it is just the skin around my eyes blending with the whites of my
eyes. But I look like I am trying to hypnotize someone."
Mark continues, "It is fun playing with passport photographs. The
rules say you should submit two identical photographs, but passport
cameras don't do it that way. They use two side-by-side lenses and get
your face from two slightly different angles. You have parallax. So
what you actually have is a stereoscopic picture of yourself. Pull it
up close to your face and slowly pull it away and you get a 3-D image of
yourself or the top of your head."
"The pictures came out wet and you have to hold them a while before
them are dry enough to put away. When they came out they had a green
tinge to them, but when we looked at them later it had turned to a pink
tinge. I don't think we are talking genuine Kodak here. I don't know
if we are even talking genuine photographic paper," Mark concludes.
Evelyn adds, "We may not see the world through rose-colored
glasses, but that's apparently how the world sees us!"
Dinner was at a place nearly across the street called the Turkish
Kebab Room (recommended by the "Lonely Planet" guide). You order at a
counter, then they deliver. It isn't fancy, but the price is not
unreasonable. Mark had half a roast chicken, rice, and Turkish salad.
Evelyn had the same, but gyros instead of chicken, and it came to FIM 91
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 23 May 1994 Page 106
(about US$17.50). Mark's chicken also seemed to have a ketchup sauce,
but he livened it up with some Jamaican pepper sauce.
After dinner we walked back to the room by way of the ice-breaker
dock to get some pictures. The room was the next destination, except
that we had to find out at the desk in the hotel if they had been able
to get reservations for us at the youth hostel in Stockholm (we had
asked for them to try before we left this morning). Luck of Leeper
struck again. They had tried three youth hostels in Stockholm. No
room. So this means we really wasted FIM 30 each on joining the IYHF
and another FIM 20 on photographs for the identification card. It's
worth it not to have to use those ugly pink photographs.
Back at the room Mark suddenly realized that in two nights he had
to make a speech for the Turku Science Fiction Association. He was
thinking that he had five more days. He says, "I probably shouldn't
worry about it, but I do. Part of it is my expertise is in obscure
films. Who knows what obscure films have played in Finland? Well, I'll
have to see what I can do."
May 24, 1994: Breakfast was the leftover cheese from yesterday. A
little time later we went down to the cafeteria, where Evelyn had coffee
and Mark had juice which turned out to be orangeade. The plan for today
is mostly walking tours of Helsinki, self-guided using the brochure we'd
gotten at the tourist information office.
We got to the Uspensky Cathedral about 9:30. That is the local
*Greek* Orthodox cathedral. As we walked up the steps a tourist bus
arrived. Just our luck. Inside was a nice-looking cathedral. Lots of
paintings, lots of gold paint. Cathedrals tend to waste a lot of space
over the heads of the worshippers. Mark thinks it harkens back to the
days when the cathedral was the tallest building in a city. Sort of
advertising. It made the cathedrals easy to see. Actually, Helsinki's
two cathedrals are the two highest buildings in the city, and give nice
views from their steps as well as being artistic inside. The Uspensky
Cathedral is built on a giant outcropping of rock of the sort that is
common throughout Helsinki (and Turku as well)--they are a distinctive
feature of the geology. While we were there some school classes
arrived. All around the Baltic schools seem to have *a lot* of field
trips. We seem to run into classes just about wherever we go.
We continued on, building-watching on the walking tour. That is a
really good way to see Helsinki. It does not really make for a lot to
write about in our logs, however.
The next stop was the local military museum. We started with the
usual hall of heroes, portraits, medals they have won, and other
trinkets. Mark was reminded of the scene in OCTOBER where the
revolutionaries storm the palace and find boxes full of medals to be
given out. It is a very effective piece of propaganda.
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 24 May 1994 Page 107
A room off the main hall shows uniforms and artillery pieces. Some
of the uniforms look a lot like German uniforms. Of course, Finland was
fighting against the Soviets at first by themselves and later with the
help of Germany. The Soviets won this piece of the war and eventually
the Finns were fighting the Germans. Mark thinks it is that the helmets
curve down over the ears that makes them look German.
In another room we are back to the late 19th Century and the
uniforms look Russian and have Cyrillic or double-headed eagles on the
buttons. Another room and we are further back, with flintlock pistols
and rifles and even swords.
Back in the main hall there are large plaster statues of soldiers
in uniform.
There is little English, but there are certificates of the Purple
Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross from the United States to Larry
Thorn, born Torni, a Finn who was killed in Vietnam flying with the
Americans. There is an exhibit of pistols, including one cut away to
show how it works.
There is also a small walk-in bunker with log walls. The display
ends with some German and Russian uniforms worn by their troops.
We spent about an hour in the museum, which let us out about noon.
Our next event planned was the changing of the guard at the Main Guard
Post. However, the guard would not *need* changing until 13:00, so we
walked to the Market Square, where we took pictures of some sort of Navy
boat that had docked. It was a fair size and had guns, but beyond that
we have little knowledge of types of Navy boats. Mark also got some
pictures of sea birds who boldly let people get close. There will be no
time for breakfast tomorrow, so we dropped into the indoor market to get
a chunk of cheese. Mark asked for something called "Polar" and it looks
like Swiss.
Back to the guard post and there was already a crowd forming,
almost all of older people. It must be pretty good to get a crowd this
big. Then they all moved around to the side of the building. That was
odd, because the guard was in front, but perhaps the replacement comes
around the building. We milled in with the viewers and they stared at
us a bit. 13:00 was approaching. An empty tour bus pulled up and the
other viewers got on. We were left standing alone. At 12:55 somebody
came out of the guardhouse to replace the guard. No ceremony. Well,
that was a bore. (Evelyn looks at it differently; she says, "Not only
do the Finns have a very low-key view of what a parade is, their clocks
run fast.")
We were going to be passing the tourist information office so we
thought we'd drop in and ask what happened to the changing of the guard.
Basically they said they had no idea.
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 24 May 1994 Page 108
Next we returned to the big bookstore so Evelyn could collect some
data for this log (she hadn't noted prices and so on last time). Mark
writes, "I figured it was best to humor Evelyn so she does not get
snippy. (Actually, she did so much as organizing that she deserves a
chance to pick the activities.)"
Next we went to the Finnish National Gallery in the Ateneum across
from the railway station. Here at least we had better luck, since
although there was a special exhibition with a higher admission, the
admission for the rest of the museum was the same as usual (FIM 10).
We started on the top floor, which are really the most recent
works, starting with the Impressionists. The room started with Aalto.
I pointed to some nudes on the other wall. "Here are the Aaltos, there
are the barer tones." A Cezanne ("Road Bridge at L'Estaque") and a Van
Gogh ("Street in Auvers-sur-Oise") were in the next room.
There were Rodins with descriptions in Braille. The blind are
allowed to feel the sculpture. Yngve Bach had "Melody of War," a sort
of "Guernica" with musical instruments.
(In spite of the mention of foreign artists, most of the works were
by Finnish artists. There is a separate museum for foreign art which we
didn't visit.)
There was a room with a composition in video art, and other modern
art. Evelyn writes, "The modern stuff is at times interesting, but I
found myself thinking, 'Is it art?' For example, there was 'Ms. Found
in a Bottle' (after the Poe story) which consisted of a wine bottle with
a year engraved on it. There was a block of granite about the size of a
piece of carry-on luggage with a handle and two clasps
labeled 'Suitcase' [I know the feeling!]. There was a gauze tent that
you walked into and a shrouded form lay on a cot inside. And there was
a room playing some sort of ambient music. It was a relief to move down
one floor to the more realistic 19th Century artists."
On the second floor, we are in the 1880s, with more self-evident
art. There is a painting, "Christ with Mary Magdalene." The part of
Mary is performed in modern dress. There is a nice triptych by Gallen-
Kallela of Vainamoinen in love with the young woman Aino, who drowns
herself--a story from the KALEVALA. (Gallen-Kallela did the
KALEVALA murals in the National Museum as well.)
There are also some bird paintings that have nice detail.
Ferdinand Von Wright has a delightful painting, "The First Surprise," of
a new-born calf finding three geese, and his sons Wilhelm and Magnus
also had avian paintings. Collectively they could be considered the
Audubon of Finland.
When it was all over, we were a bit surprised that the museum was
as small as it was, though it was actually bigger than any other museum
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 24 May 1994 Page 109
we'd visited in Finland.
That whetted our appetites for KALEVALA material, but when we
went to the museum shop, we discovered the net result of:
1) art books are expensive, and
2) books in Finland are expensive,
which is:
3) art books in Finland are outrageously expensive.
Rather unimpressive-looking books would cost something around
US$100. There also seems to be a de facto tax on any book having
content related to the KALEVALA. As we noted, a British edition of
the KALEVALA which was labeled 7.99 (about US$13) would cost FIM 139
(about US$26). Other British books were not marked up nearly so much.
Also, when you get a book in Russian, you have a fighting chance of
figuring out what a given section is talking about. You can sound out
the words and often they sound like words you know. They're cognates.
Finnish goes out of its way to avoid international roots. If a new
device comes along, like the telephone, they don't transliterate
"telephone"--they pick Finnish roots with a similar meaning ("pahulin").
This may make figuring out what a new word means a little easier, but it
is probably tougher for Finns to deal internationally and for the
visitor Finland is a verbal fruit cocktail of incomprehensible phonics.
Dinner was at Lokran Grill (another "Lonely Planet"
recommendation). Mark ordered more or less at random off the menu.
Evelyn saw a salmon plate coming out of the kitchen and ordered that.
Mark's turned out to be something like Wiener Schnitzel stuffed with a
blue cheese and cream sauce. He says his only regret was that it was a
bit too much like food he'd already had this trip, because it was
certainly tasty enough.
It came with a salad, soup, and dessert. You pull the salad out of
a chilled case. Mark saw what looked a little like dressing, so he put
it on the salad. Yes, it turned out to be a nice honey Dijon dressing.
The soup was potato, and good. There was very good bread pudding in
vanilla sauce. With drinks it cost about FIM 130 (about US$25). (Since
service is included, by the way, the United States equivalent includes
tip.) The place was basically a bar with a television going and no
atmosphere, but it still was a good choice.
There is a trolley route that takes you past some of the major
sight-seeing spots for what the brochure calls a "semi-guided tour" of
Helsinki. It was interesting, but there really isn't time to see much
from a trolley. Trolleys are expensive here (for FIM 9 you get to ride
any trolley for one hour). The sight-seeing trolley was just long
enough that we could not get another trolley back to the Eurohostel on
the same ticket. Just as well--you see more on foot, though our feet
(all four!) were very tired at this point.
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 24 May 1994 Page 110
Mark noted, "As we got off the trolley a young dog had been tied to
some fixture in the wall while his master shopped. Most people just
heard the howling. The first thing I thought about is how terrified
that dog must have been to see his master walk away and when he tries to
follow his collar stops him. He feels this frustration and stress that
he will be abandoned and on his own, perhaps never able to get himself
free of this wall. You wish you could tell him that in a few minutes
his master will return, but there is little you can do. I think
relationships are very important to dogs--probably to most mammals."
"I have been told that close to the western summit of Kilimanjaro
there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has
explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. But maybe he
wasn't hunting game. Maybe he was searching for a parent or mate or cub
that he had lost and was trying to find," Mark concludes.
Back at the room we packed, wrote logs, and went to bed early. We
also tried three times to call Hannu. The books say to put in at least
FIM 5 before making a long-distance call since they charge at a faster
rate. A little window shows how much money you have left to spend. And
it diminishes a lot faster if it is a long-distance call. We called his
office, got a recorded message, and so got only FIM 1.6 worth of call,
but the machine ate the whole FIM 5. Eventually we reached him at home
and arranged for him to meet us in the morning at the train. All this
calling had involved making sure we had enough coins for the telephones,
since we didn't know how much the calls would cost and couldn't find a
credit card phone. The result, of course, was that we had enough coins
for E.T. to have phoned home. But they're only PMUs anyway.
Oh, yes, PMUs. We have a friend Guy who was telling us a story
about being in the Caribbean and something cost N PMUs. "What's a PMU?"
"A peculiar monetary unit." Well, the expression caught on, so now we
speak of PMUs when we travel.
We should probably also explain how we came to be doing this
calling and so on. When we first decided to go to the Baltics, Finland,
and Sweden, we posted a message on Usenet on the Internet asking about
places of Jewish interest and about science fiction fans. We had
originally mentioned only Helsinki in Finland, and got a message back
from Hannu asking why everyone who goes to Finland goes only to Helsinki
and skips Turku, which was full of both history and science fiction
fans. We replied that we had in fact visited Turku when we were there
in 1986, said we were perfectly willing to visit it again if people
wanted to get together, and mentioned in passing the 1827 fire that had
destroyed most of the former capital. The latter was mostly to show off
and at least give the impression we were not boorish Americans. It must
have worked, because Hannu wrote back that, yes, people wanted to meet
us. We could stay at his place and he would even show us around. In
fact, the Turku University Science Fiction Association wanted to know if
we would be willing to give a short talk. Apparently a fair percentage
read Evelyn's science fiction reviews and Mark's film reviews. The
Baltics: Helsinki, Finland 24 May 1994 Page 111
Internet seems very closely tied into science fiction fandom in Turku,
which means they see what we write and as a result they seem determined
to treat us as if we were celebrities. We aren't, but it was nice to be
treated as we were.
May 25, 1994: Mark woke up about 3:30 thinking about the speech he
would be making, throwing out all of what he'd prepared and starting
over. (He worries too much.)
So he dozed a little bit, but was up at 5:15 so we could catch the
for the 6:50 train to Turku. We took the 6:10 trolley to the train
station. The streets seemed oddly deserted.
There was a film crew with a camera dolly in the train station.
Presumably they were setting up to film something, but we couldn't stick
around to find out. Does anyone in Helsinki know what they were
filming? Unlike our experience with the film crew in Zagreb, there were
no well-known actors and we would have had no chance to talk to them
anyway.
There is a peculiar system for choosing seats. For FIM 15 extra
you can get an assigned seat. If you don't have an assigned seat you
sit anywhere, then if asked to move by someone assigned that seat you
move. We got on the car and sat down. We were the first and second on
the car. The third person came over and said we were sitting in her
seat. What are the chances?
It is possible we moved to someone's seat who just did not have
enough English to ask us to move. In any case, Evelyn waited until we
had passed all the suburban Helsinki stops and were scheduled to run
non-stop for a while before going to the cafe car for coffee and an
exceptionally greasy doughnut.
Finland was able to escape being absorbed into the Soviet Union, as
is abundantly obvious just by looking out the train window. Get out of
the city and you do *not* move into poverty. You don't see *any*
ramshackle chicken farms. To all outward appearances the Finnish
economy was, is, and will be prosperous. You see more poverty from a
train window while traveling in England or the United States.
Eventually the train came to a stop at Kupittaa. That is about
four kilometers from Turku. Hannu was there to meet us. He somehow
recognized us. Well, first of all, we had sent him a description, but
also we were the only tourists with luggage to get off at this basically
industrial stop outside Turku.
Mark explains, "Actually, I can say in a little more detail what is
happening. The United States has the highest concentration of organized
science fiction fandom and the greatest number of communities, by a wide
margin. Fan groups in Scandinavia are more widely separated, often with
international borders between them. The Internet is nothing more or
Baltics: Turku, Finland 25 May 1994 Page 112
less than a device for removing distance concerns from information
exchange. From my office at work I can inter-office-mail a memo and it
will get three offices away in about a half a day. Or I can post a
review on the Internet and it will get to Finland in about a half an
hour. You are two jumps from massive libraries of news, information, or
literature. THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS (a.k.a. THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED)
was about a group of children who all share the same experience. What
one finds out they all know. That was how we got a lot of the
information we needed for this trip. For hotels in Stockholm we could
tap into people who live in Stockholm. They tap into Evelyn's knowledge
of books and mine of film. And when we travel seven time zones from
home, there are people interested in meeting us."
Anyway we ended up being treated like royalty the whole time.
Hannu took us first to his apartment. Immediately you could tell this
looked like it belonged to a science fiction fan. The shelves are full
of science fiction books, magazines, comics, and--a related interest--
war games.
We dropped off our bags and Hannu served a meal more elaborate than
we were ready for, including yoghurt, herring, cheese, vegetables, and a
lot more we did not try.
At 10:00 we went to Turku Castle, the major historical site of
Turku. In fact, it was the only site in Turku that we had gone to in
1986, but since then they have renovated it. Actually, "renovated" is
probably the wrong word; they had done a lot of work on it and there
were a lot more parts open and displays within. It is a huge medieval
castle turned into a huge museum. The floor space must be at a minimum
50% larger than any other museum we have seen this trip and probably
more. Of course, the biggest exhibit was the castle itself with its
vaulted ceilings and many restored rooms.
And of course there are models of what Turku Castle looked like at
various times in its past.
In the rooms there is much of what you would expect. You see a
collection of arms, you see paintings of some of the incredibly ugly
people who lived in the castle. Some of these people were very
powerful, no doubt, but the artists who painted the portraits had the
last laugh. One hall showed 19th and 20th Century fashions for women.
It took us about three hours to see the entire castle and we *know*
we didn't spend that much time the last trip.
This must be the time of year for school field trips. The whole
trip, wherever we went of public interest there was always a mob of
kids, particularly if it was a weekday. In the art museum in Helsinki
there was a mob of clearly disinterested students intentionally stamping
around on the floors to hear the echo and otherwise alleviate the
extraordinary boredom that fine art represents to the disinterested. In
--
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn...@att.com
"Am I politically correct today? Do I do crystals and New Age?
Obviously, women's music's for me--Edith Piaf, Bessie Smith, and Patti Page."
--Lynn Lavner