The Christmas season lasts until the 13th of January here, so I'm really not late at all in posting about Christmas!
The most notable thing that happens in Turku specifically is the declaration of Christmas Peace. Since medieval times, the mayor of the city has read a proclamation from the balcony of the old town hall on Christmas Eve at noon, establishing a situational peace time until January 13, Knut's Day. Even today, fines and penalties for crimes committed during this time are much harsher. Originally this tradition was not merely a ceremony but part of actual municipal lawmaking, and not unique to Turku. Today in Finland the tradition still continues only in this town as the country's official peace declaration. Most people watch it on TV or the internet or listen on the radio, but I really wanted to see this event in person.
It was bitterly cold, -26C, but I wore some of the warmest clothing I had because I knew I'd be standing around outside for at least a half hour. I'd brought my camera and hoped I would get a good spot since I knew that normally thousands of people would attend. The cold must have kept a lot of people indoors, because I got a good spot right at the front (though by the time we left, there was a huge crowd that had closed down the main street). My camera still managed to work in such low temperatures, and the photos can be seen here. Almost everyone was red-faced from the cold and jumping around in place to stay warm, but we stuck it out until it was over and had a lovely warm bus ride back home.
Also included in that photo set are some photos of the snow around here; it's by far the most snow I've ever seen in one place, and we'll certainly get more before this all melts in April or so. It's impressive how well the snow is handled here - moving from a place where a couple centimeters of the stuff is enough to shut down schools and stores, it's nice to see life continue as usual no matter how much snow falls. Helsinki airport was recently all over the news for its smart and efficient handling of snow and ice, only closing for a half hour last year!
I hope all you readers had a great holiday and enjoy the new year. I'm going to Helsinki to see a Finntroll gig, so that's a good proper celebration in my book!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Long days
"All my life I pack/unpack
But man I got to earn this buck
I gotta pay representation
To be accepted in a nation
Where after efforts of a hero
Welcome start again from zero"
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened"
But man I got to earn this buck
I gotta pay representation
To be accepted in a nation
Where after efforts of a hero
Welcome start again from zero"
-- Gogol Bordello, "Immigraniada"
It's been awhile since my last update, but I have a good reason: a temporary job this week! It's only a 10-day contract; seasonal work for a company that sells corporate swag. In this case, of course, it's large companies ordering vast quantities of Christmas gifts for their employees, customers, and partners. I've spent this week assembling chocolate- and wine-filled backpacks for what must be every DHL employee in Finland (tomorrow we should finally wrap up this order of 1200 pieces). I'm only one of at least five other temp employees to help them with their workload, and though it's only a week, I'm working like I mean it and hoping that they might remember me the next time they need some extra help.
It's a warehouse environment, and the atmosphere as well as the other employees are pretty similar to the warehouse I worked at in the States. Except, of course, that it's heated and quite comfortable even though it remains around -15 C outside. Everyone I've worked with has been really nice, and almost everyone speaks English to some extent, which is great, though I try to use my Finnish when I can manage with my limited vocabulary. Actually I think they were told that I only spoke English, because I apparently surprised some people by understanding and speaking a little Finnish. So much for the secret code language! One older lady told me in Finnish that she was in the US last year, and is taking and English course - I told her I was taking some Finnish courses, and that we could practice with each other, of course. The days are long, and start early, but most days allow for some extra hours beyond the standard 8. I've been staying as late as I possibly can, which means I really don't have time to do anything this week except work, go home, sleep, wake up, and go back to work. The work is repetitive and tiring, but I'm pushing myself as hard as I can since I know at some point I'll be glad I got the extra hours in.
I feel really lucky to even be working at all: the university's career center, which has been entirely useless so far, as well as the local company JobCafe and the temp agency Adecco, all more or less wrote me off as an illiterate immigrant - despite the fact that I'm actively and perhaps obsessively learning the language, and that I've only been here for four months, most of the experience I've had so far indicates that unless you speak perfect Finnish (how would that even be possible for a foreigner before actually moving here?), your job hopes are pretty bleak. Scrubbing toilets on a cruise ship seems to be the usual placement for international students. However, Manpower was different. I went there because I recognized their name from the States, and figured that a temp agency would be my best bet for a rinky-dink little job to hold me over and help me save up money for my trip to Germany. The lady there actually gave me a short interview on the spot, and encouraged me to put my CV and info on their website, which I could then apply for with just a click. She didn't seem to think that my limited language skills would be a problem, since most of their clients are office/clerical environments, which often operate in English. I immediately went home and applied for this packing job, figuring that I really wouldn't need that much complicated Finnish to put stuff in a box, and hey, I know warehouse ops like the back of my hand. A few days later (along with some calls to the immigration office, HR, and the university to clarify some details about the number of hours I was allowed to work when on holiday from school). She has absolutely been an angel in helping me, even calling ahead to this client to ask if my English would be a problem. And then at some point, I signed a contract, read some employee handbooks, and bam, I've got my own little spot in the economy - for one week and change, at least.
Much of the contract language is similar to that in the US, except the tax situation is a little different. I had to go to a tax office and procure a document that specifies my tax bracket. Without this document, my wages end up taxed at around 60%, ouch! Luckily, if you make under 1000€ in a year, you apaprently don't have to pay taxes anyway, and I'd be hard pressed to earn that kind of money in the next month and a half.
Being in the right place at the right time seems to be how I get most of my jobs. Thankfully it worked out again this time, and once I get some school projects out of the way early next year, I'm going to have to set my sights on something I can do part-time while taking my Finnish courses. We'll see how that goes, and if things keep looking up.
"It's a book of our true stories
True stories that can't be deniedIt's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened"
Monday, December 6, 2010
Independence Day
Today Finland celebrates its independence. After the fall of Russia's imperialist system in 1917, Finland's allegiance to the Czar no longer bound it to that country and the Finnish parliament declared its withdrawal. Finland's new independence was off to a rocky start, though, as the country immediately engaged itself in a civil war between the bourgeois Whites and the communist Reds. When the Whites triumphed, most of the Reds moved to Russia or the US, leaving behind a nation composed mainly of people who clearly did not want to join the big happy USSR utopia that eventually engulfed the rest of the Baltic states. A little over twenty years later, its status as an independent country was tested heavily with the invasion of Russia, who had decided that Finland's borders were a little too close to St. Petersburg, and that the best solution for this was to not have those pesky borders at all anymore. Thus began the Winter War, and with minimal help from outside nations, Finland successfully defended its sovereignty against the aggression of the largest and most powerful army of its time.
Finnish celebrations for today include lighting two blue-and-white candles in the windows of homes, which originally indicated an offer of food and lodging for friendly soldiers. There is also a presidential ball, a huge party held at the presidential palace that is attended by Finland's politicians and famous faces. Like the Oscars, the real point of the broadcast is to establish the fashion themes for the coming year. Some people I know are having dinner parties tonight, but on the whole, it's not the riotous opportunity to party and shoot fireworks that Independence Day is in the States. Perhaps because there are plenty of pikkujoulu parties going on this time of year where people can get all partied out, or perhaps because of the solemnity of independence celebrations for a young country: there are still veterans of the Winter War around for whom the idea of independence from an oppressive invader is still a very real, living memory, not distant events that one reads out of a history text that occurred over two hundred years earlier.
Yesterday's candle-making workshop also included blue dye this time, so I made a couple of blue and white independence candles as well. It seems a little strange to be celebrating the independence of another country, even if it's my adopted one. But I do feel pretty strongly about the veterans who ensured that I would be in fact living in Finland and not western Russia, and the society which after the war, paid all of its debts and then went on to transform a farming and logging economy into one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced countries in the world. Of all the triumphs of history, Finland's is one of the most unlikely and also most under-appreciated. So hats off to you, Finland, and the generation that made it possible for me to be here at all.
Most of today I'll be studying for the Finnish exams I have coming up next week. I'm going to have to be an expert in forming imperfect and negative imperfect versions of all six verb types by Tuesday. And then there's the mountain of vocabulary. This evening, though, my friend JP is organizing a peaceful candlelight protest in front of Turku cathedral against racism, in support of both Finnish culture/independence (Finns themselves having been used as a human shield by either Sweden or Russia as they fought each other over the past thousand years) as well as those countries who haven't fared as well and are still suffering ethnic oppression today. It's something to do that's a little more meaningful than sitting around watching some people in Helsinki wearing nice dresses.
Finnish celebrations for today include lighting two blue-and-white candles in the windows of homes, which originally indicated an offer of food and lodging for friendly soldiers. There is also a presidential ball, a huge party held at the presidential palace that is attended by Finland's politicians and famous faces. Like the Oscars, the real point of the broadcast is to establish the fashion themes for the coming year. Some people I know are having dinner parties tonight, but on the whole, it's not the riotous opportunity to party and shoot fireworks that Independence Day is in the States. Perhaps because there are plenty of pikkujoulu parties going on this time of year where people can get all partied out, or perhaps because of the solemnity of independence celebrations for a young country: there are still veterans of the Winter War around for whom the idea of independence from an oppressive invader is still a very real, living memory, not distant events that one reads out of a history text that occurred over two hundred years earlier.
Yesterday's candle-making workshop also included blue dye this time, so I made a couple of blue and white independence candles as well. It seems a little strange to be celebrating the independence of another country, even if it's my adopted one. But I do feel pretty strongly about the veterans who ensured that I would be in fact living in Finland and not western Russia, and the society which after the war, paid all of its debts and then went on to transform a farming and logging economy into one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced countries in the world. Of all the triumphs of history, Finland's is one of the most unlikely and also most under-appreciated. So hats off to you, Finland, and the generation that made it possible for me to be here at all.
Most of today I'll be studying for the Finnish exams I have coming up next week. I'm going to have to be an expert in forming imperfect and negative imperfect versions of all six verb types by Tuesday. And then there's the mountain of vocabulary. This evening, though, my friend JP is organizing a peaceful candlelight protest in front of Turku cathedral against racism, in support of both Finnish culture/independence (Finns themselves having been used as a human shield by either Sweden or Russia as they fought each other over the past thousand years) as well as those countries who haven't fared as well and are still suffering ethnic oppression today. It's something to do that's a little more meaningful than sitting around watching some people in Helsinki wearing nice dresses.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Heat wave!
I had a lot of delicious snacks at the Language Center's pikkujoulu (pre-Christmas party) tonight, so I'm going to stay up and write here until my sugar buzz wears off enough for me to go to sleep. The big news today is that the temperature went all the way up to -2 C! After enduring -15 to -20 for the past week, it felt almost like spring. I could even leave the house with my lightweight gloves, no scarf, and no long underwear. It was a real treat.
As I've never before experienced an ultra-cold snap above the 60th parallel, I found it really intriguing. Things just don't act the way you'd expect them to at -20 C. For instance, walking around for some time in that temperature will result in your entire face and half of your hair encrusted in ice as you continuously walk into the cloud of your own exhalation, resulting in strange facial crispiness and the appearance of having aged 40 years in 15 minutes. When I thawed out, my hair was soaked and felt even colder than when I had been outside. Also, that part from the Christmas Story movie where the kid's tongue gets stuck to a metal pole? That actually does happen, folks. And no, I didn't actually stick my tongue to a pole, but I was standing on my apartment's balcony to soak up about five minutes of sunlight, and realized that my gloved hand had frozen to the balcony railing on which it lay. There is still a layer of suede fuzz there. I immediately started trying to stick other stuff there, such as my scarf, just to be sure it wasn't due to some regular adhesive that somehow ended up there - but no, just actual insta-freeze adhesion. I've never lived anywhere where it got cold enough for that to actually happen, so it was pretty exciting.
The really great thing about it being well below freezing is that the snow never melts and re-freezes. It stays powdery and pretty day after day, which I think has helped my mood immensely. My roommate had warned me about the entire population of Finland turning into zombies for the month of November, mainly due to the cold and the dark. But the snowfall has really kept my spirits up, even though the sun is setting earlier and earlier. Also helpful was this past weekend's joulutori - the Christmas marketplace featuring booths with homemade food and crafts, as well as performances by dancers and choirs, and of course a booth with Santa, Mrs. Claus and some elves too. Even the biting cold didn't keep people away, though I felt bad for the vendors who had to endure that weather all day Saturday and Sunday. Most towns in Finland have a Christmas market but Turku's is the oldest. It's not in the city's current center, where the market is usually held, but in the old square, surrounded by the cathedral and the old orange and yellow Swedish buildings. In front of the cathedral is a gigantic Christmas tree, 25 meters tall and lit up with thousands of lights. Even though there's a month still to go, in these surroundings I'm looking forward to it - and not only because this will be the first Christmas in almost ten years when I haven't been working in retail. On Sunday near the joulutori there is a culture workshop that has free candlemaking for several hours - all you need to do it show up, and make some candles the old fashioned way by dipping them repeatedly into paraffin wax. Then there are some colored waxes for a final dip to give them whatever color scheme you want.
This weekend there are some more pikkujoulu parties, for my department as well as TYRMY the metal club. Next week brings some final exams, and after that I will have some free time to catch up on some other projects and hopefully start looking for a job for January through March. If I can make a little money before I leave for Germany in April, I'll feel a little more comfortable about this exchange thing. But in the meantime, getting all my papers done and rocking these exams is the first order of business!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Winter wonderland
Breaking news: Finland is cold!
Winter is in full swing already here. It's different than the winter in the US, where the ground stays warm enough that the first several snows melt away, assisted by the diligent salting of every horizontal surface within reach. Here the cold came early, so a couple of blizzards came through and we've pretty much got snow that will likely be sticking around for some time. In the Midwest the snow was a fairly annoying but temporary visitor, which showed up for a couple of months, stuck around long enough to make everyone drive badly and whine a lot, and then by March you would be pretty sure you were well on the road to spring. Here, the snow shows up all at once, kicks its shoes off, settles down in an armchair and gives the general impression that we warmbloods are actually the visitors here...
Unlike in the US, where every square inch of ice is carefully removed to avoid lawsuits from clumsy pedestrians, only the main roads are salted and the rest of the driving and walking areas get a treatment with a little bit of gravel. In some areas the only way to tell where you drive and where you walk is the shape of the tracks furrowing the surface. The snow falls and life continues on top of it; snow removal in November would be a waste of effort here. There's ice of course, and where the gravel is sparse it's easy to slip and fall. Finns seem to take a shit-happens approach to walking around on ice: "We don't sue people, we just punch them in the face" as one friend said. Do people use ice cleats for walking? "Old people do..." So yeah. I use mine when the ice is bad (I don't have to fall down until I'm 60 years old to figure out that those might be helpful) but while venturing out without them, I fell a couple of times but since we've had some fresh snow, it's a little less icy. Like driving in the winter, it's good to go a little slower. It's a dry snow, the kind that actually shifts around and blows into dunes with the wind, so that you might be walking one some level hardpack one moment and the next, your feet are churning through powder up to your shins. And it's beautiful, it really is - the piles of snow on the rock formations, the balcony chairs upholstered with snow, and the big patch of ice on the river. I lost my bus pass on Monday so I've had plenty of time to enjoy it on foot for kilometers at a time, up close, late at night when there's almost no one else out. Many times it feels like living in a postcard.
This weekend we're supposed to get some real chills: -15 to -20 C. In Lapland already there's -30, and it's only November... thankfully, so far so good with my heavy duty winter clothes, including a new hat I got for 1 € from the thrift store: it's a gloriously huge fur cap made out of badger or fox or wolf or Father Christmas or something. It would look ridiculous in any warmer climate, but it's perfect for this weather and I love it.
Winter is in full swing already here. It's different than the winter in the US, where the ground stays warm enough that the first several snows melt away, assisted by the diligent salting of every horizontal surface within reach. Here the cold came early, so a couple of blizzards came through and we've pretty much got snow that will likely be sticking around for some time. In the Midwest the snow was a fairly annoying but temporary visitor, which showed up for a couple of months, stuck around long enough to make everyone drive badly and whine a lot, and then by March you would be pretty sure you were well on the road to spring. Here, the snow shows up all at once, kicks its shoes off, settles down in an armchair and gives the general impression that we warmbloods are actually the visitors here...
Unlike in the US, where every square inch of ice is carefully removed to avoid lawsuits from clumsy pedestrians, only the main roads are salted and the rest of the driving and walking areas get a treatment with a little bit of gravel. In some areas the only way to tell where you drive and where you walk is the shape of the tracks furrowing the surface. The snow falls and life continues on top of it; snow removal in November would be a waste of effort here. There's ice of course, and where the gravel is sparse it's easy to slip and fall. Finns seem to take a shit-happens approach to walking around on ice: "We don't sue people, we just punch them in the face" as one friend said. Do people use ice cleats for walking? "Old people do..." So yeah. I use mine when the ice is bad (I don't have to fall down until I'm 60 years old to figure out that those might be helpful) but while venturing out without them, I fell a couple of times but since we've had some fresh snow, it's a little less icy. Like driving in the winter, it's good to go a little slower. It's a dry snow, the kind that actually shifts around and blows into dunes with the wind, so that you might be walking one some level hardpack one moment and the next, your feet are churning through powder up to your shins. And it's beautiful, it really is - the piles of snow on the rock formations, the balcony chairs upholstered with snow, and the big patch of ice on the river. I lost my bus pass on Monday so I've had plenty of time to enjoy it on foot for kilometers at a time, up close, late at night when there's almost no one else out. Many times it feels like living in a postcard.
This weekend we're supposed to get some real chills: -15 to -20 C. In Lapland already there's -30, and it's only November... thankfully, so far so good with my heavy duty winter clothes, including a new hat I got for 1 € from the thrift store: it's a gloriously huge fur cap made out of badger or fox or wolf or Father Christmas or something. It would look ridiculous in any warmer climate, but it's perfect for this weather and I love it.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Piles of rocks, and how much I love them.
Yesterday I took a bus from Turku up to the town of Eura with a couple of other history enthusiasts from the local SCA group. We were to leave the bus station at 8 am, and so my day started very early. Daylight was barely beginning to color the sky as I headed downtown. Halfway there, I realized I had forgotten to check the weather forecast for the day, but as I've become accustomed to weeks-long stretches of cold, dark and damp, I had packed an umbrella and scarf by default, and decided on my leather coat and snow boots. This decision ended up being a very lucky one, as I'd find out later. We met up at the station, and once settled on the bus I pulled out my mp3 player, but to no avail, as I was asleep as soon as we pulled out of the station. Around an hour and a half later I was woken up by a gentle shove on the shoulder and gathered my things from the bus. At least it had lightened as much as the always-cloudy sky would allow.
Eura is a small village with a population of about twelve thousand. The bus stop was more or less typical: a tiny bus station, a grocery store, a bar, and a kebab place. The only indication that the most significant archaeological findings in Finland were found here was a small sign from the road indicating the direction of the prehistoric information center with an arrow. For unknown reasons, the ancient locals had practiced inhumation instead of cremation, which would not happen in the rest of Finland until the spread of Christianity around 1100-1200. For that reason there are a wealth of objects found here from the stone age through the iron age, and somehow over a thousand years of cultivation and farming, these areas were mostly still preserved intact.
We had arrived before the museum opened, to take advantage of the diminishing sunlight, and so grabbed a coffee and then headed out towards Käräjämäki, a short walk behind the museum's property. A modest hill sandwiched between a couple of farms, this location is an iron age (6th-7th c.) burial hill, topped by a ring of stones that functioned as a court/moot/althing-style meeting point for the ancient locals. Many of the graves themselves had either collapsed or been plundered long ago, and the surface of the ground was covered in holes and depressions where the burials had been. Many of them have yet to be excavated, however. At one end of the hill a burial was found intact, a very wealthy man buried with expensive weapons and lots of supplies.
Once the museum opened (called Naurava Lohikäärme, or the Laughing Dragon), we strolled around inside, and I was my usual slow, reading-everything, taking-tons-of-flashless-pictures annoying museum guest. The museum (actually I'm wrong in calling it a museum, as it doesn't own its own collection, but rather rotates exhibits from national and local district collections. But for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick with museum) was fairly small, but had a lot of really nice displays with lots of information as well as hands-on activities such as a vertical loom. Also on display was the official reconstruction of the Eura dress, which is the most famous and most complete of the medieval Finnish clothing finds. Thanks to the ridiculous amount of bronze the woman was wearing, some of the fabric itself has been preserved underneath the ornaments and the weave, color, and style of dress have all been discernible from the remnants. Also on display were some other rarities such as a bronze cooking pot, a fire spade, and several swords. There was a wealth of jewelry, though the most impressive pieces found in the area had been whisked away to the National Museum in Helsinki. The museum focused especially on the clothing and jewelry, as well as the swords, and had a room dedicated to each. From the shop I picked up a booklet about the local excavations and some lengths of bronze spiral made by a local craftsman that I'll add to my own garb.
We spent about an hour and a half in the museum, and then had to head to our next destinations with about four and a half hours of sunlight remaining. We decided to head to the farthest place first, Harola farm. About 7 kilometers south of the museum, Harola is unique in that rather than having one or two burial cairns, there are about 50 hectares absolutely filled with them as far as one can see. They are almost entirely intact, and the few excavations that have been made date the cairns to the late bronze age or early iron age, around 500 BC - 50 AD. Also present are long rows of rocks, which could have been either walls or sites for iron smelting, as slag was found here and ore was present underneath the nearby lake. The true function of the long rows isn't known - but Harola would have been a busy place, regardless of what went on there. Snow had started to fall at this point, which was at least preferable to the rain that had been falling all morning. We made our way around the hundreds of cairns towards the lake, which was quite pretty with the snow picking up. In the center of the Harola cairns there was a huge flat boulder which seemed to be the centerpiece of the area. In other areas many of the trees had been cleared to make the cairns more accessible, and in the summer, the ground vegetation is maintained by local sheep. We stopped for a moment, dusted the wet snow from our backpacks, and had some snacks. I realized at that point that my own backpack was about as waterproof as a paper shopping bag.
The daylight was beginning to wane as we made our way back along the road, and we took a short detour to the hillfort named rather uncreatively as Linnavuori. There are many hillforts around southern and central Finland, and this one would have served as an effective defense for the local population around 800 AD when they came under attack. The climb up the hill is a steep one, and there are remnants of stone walls that are thought to have supported wooden walls as well. One side of the hill is a cliff, and a fire would have been lit at the top to signal trouble. As the surrounding area is relatively flat, a fire at the top must have been visible for quite a distance.
The last stop was Luistari cemetery. For an area containing at least 800 graves, the field was surprisingly small - many of the graves were in layers over each other. This area had been used as a cemetery from about 600 to 1200 AD, and as such had been a goldmine of grave finds. It was discovered by accident as a backhoe started digging for some project, possibly the nearby road: a sword fell out of the first scoop of dirt, and thankfully they stopped there. It was from this site that the Eura dress was recovered, along with a wide variety of jewelry, clothing, and the tools people of all ages took with them to the grave. There was one grave for a small but well-armed boy from around 700, and an old man from 1200 right next to him. Even in the old man's early medieval time, the graveyard was already 500 years old! It was really something to be standing at the place these amazing objects I had only ever seen in books had been recovered, and briefly wondered what might still lie under our feet, or under the road, or the nearby house. Each plaque had a diagram of how the grave was laid out and a description of the items found inside, and we speculated about the presence of ox heads in many of the male graves (the custom was to have a funeral feast with an ox, and send the head with the departed), one grave which contained two men and a dog, and the possible presence of a slave in one wealthy woman's grave. Each one held a mystery about the life the person lived. Many of the finds here were inspirations for Kalevala Koru jewlery, and I wondered what the inhabitants would think if they could know that a thousand years after they died, people would be wearing replicas of their jewelry. We swept the snow from each plaque and eventually read them all. At this point it was quite dark but luckily one of us had a flashlight, and the nearby road shed a little bit of light. The 10-cm deep snow covered all but the larger rocks as well, so by the time we had read the plaques there wasn't much else to see, except maybe the sign on the fence around the area saying that chasing the sheep and lambs was expressly forbidden!
Finally we trudged our tired feet back towards the bus stop, or at least the kebab shop from earlier where I had a plate of french fries and hot cocoa to warm up. We were all pretty exhausted from the hike as it was, and the snow had only increased our exertion. Our de facto tour guide was impressed that I would trudge for 15 km through the dark and snow just to see some piles of rocks, and I explained that these were particularly important piles of rocks to me, and that I would have given an arm and a leg to have had this opportunity in the States. On the bus ride home I drowned out the screaming of my hamstring muscles with my mp3 player, and then grabbed the bus back to my apartment. I had to hang up every single item I had with me, as I was completely damp along with my backpack, even through my snow boots and two pairs of socks. One hot shower later, though, and I was a happy camper. I do have pictures from this whole outing, but as I also have a ton of schoolwork writing to do - it may be a few days before I get those online, but I'll add a link here when I do.
Eura is a small village with a population of about twelve thousand. The bus stop was more or less typical: a tiny bus station, a grocery store, a bar, and a kebab place. The only indication that the most significant archaeological findings in Finland were found here was a small sign from the road indicating the direction of the prehistoric information center with an arrow. For unknown reasons, the ancient locals had practiced inhumation instead of cremation, which would not happen in the rest of Finland until the spread of Christianity around 1100-1200. For that reason there are a wealth of objects found here from the stone age through the iron age, and somehow over a thousand years of cultivation and farming, these areas were mostly still preserved intact.
We had arrived before the museum opened, to take advantage of the diminishing sunlight, and so grabbed a coffee and then headed out towards Käräjämäki, a short walk behind the museum's property. A modest hill sandwiched between a couple of farms, this location is an iron age (6th-7th c.) burial hill, topped by a ring of stones that functioned as a court/moot/althing-style meeting point for the ancient locals. Many of the graves themselves had either collapsed or been plundered long ago, and the surface of the ground was covered in holes and depressions where the burials had been. Many of them have yet to be excavated, however. At one end of the hill a burial was found intact, a very wealthy man buried with expensive weapons and lots of supplies.
Once the museum opened (called Naurava Lohikäärme, or the Laughing Dragon), we strolled around inside, and I was my usual slow, reading-everything, taking-tons-of-flashless-pictures annoying museum guest. The museum (actually I'm wrong in calling it a museum, as it doesn't own its own collection, but rather rotates exhibits from national and local district collections. But for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick with museum) was fairly small, but had a lot of really nice displays with lots of information as well as hands-on activities such as a vertical loom. Also on display was the official reconstruction of the Eura dress, which is the most famous and most complete of the medieval Finnish clothing finds. Thanks to the ridiculous amount of bronze the woman was wearing, some of the fabric itself has been preserved underneath the ornaments and the weave, color, and style of dress have all been discernible from the remnants. Also on display were some other rarities such as a bronze cooking pot, a fire spade, and several swords. There was a wealth of jewelry, though the most impressive pieces found in the area had been whisked away to the National Museum in Helsinki. The museum focused especially on the clothing and jewelry, as well as the swords, and had a room dedicated to each. From the shop I picked up a booklet about the local excavations and some lengths of bronze spiral made by a local craftsman that I'll add to my own garb.
We spent about an hour and a half in the museum, and then had to head to our next destinations with about four and a half hours of sunlight remaining. We decided to head to the farthest place first, Harola farm. About 7 kilometers south of the museum, Harola is unique in that rather than having one or two burial cairns, there are about 50 hectares absolutely filled with them as far as one can see. They are almost entirely intact, and the few excavations that have been made date the cairns to the late bronze age or early iron age, around 500 BC - 50 AD. Also present are long rows of rocks, which could have been either walls or sites for iron smelting, as slag was found here and ore was present underneath the nearby lake. The true function of the long rows isn't known - but Harola would have been a busy place, regardless of what went on there. Snow had started to fall at this point, which was at least preferable to the rain that had been falling all morning. We made our way around the hundreds of cairns towards the lake, which was quite pretty with the snow picking up. In the center of the Harola cairns there was a huge flat boulder which seemed to be the centerpiece of the area. In other areas many of the trees had been cleared to make the cairns more accessible, and in the summer, the ground vegetation is maintained by local sheep. We stopped for a moment, dusted the wet snow from our backpacks, and had some snacks. I realized at that point that my own backpack was about as waterproof as a paper shopping bag.
The daylight was beginning to wane as we made our way back along the road, and we took a short detour to the hillfort named rather uncreatively as Linnavuori. There are many hillforts around southern and central Finland, and this one would have served as an effective defense for the local population around 800 AD when they came under attack. The climb up the hill is a steep one, and there are remnants of stone walls that are thought to have supported wooden walls as well. One side of the hill is a cliff, and a fire would have been lit at the top to signal trouble. As the surrounding area is relatively flat, a fire at the top must have been visible for quite a distance.
The last stop was Luistari cemetery. For an area containing at least 800 graves, the field was surprisingly small - many of the graves were in layers over each other. This area had been used as a cemetery from about 600 to 1200 AD, and as such had been a goldmine of grave finds. It was discovered by accident as a backhoe started digging for some project, possibly the nearby road: a sword fell out of the first scoop of dirt, and thankfully they stopped there. It was from this site that the Eura dress was recovered, along with a wide variety of jewelry, clothing, and the tools people of all ages took with them to the grave. There was one grave for a small but well-armed boy from around 700, and an old man from 1200 right next to him. Even in the old man's early medieval time, the graveyard was already 500 years old! It was really something to be standing at the place these amazing objects I had only ever seen in books had been recovered, and briefly wondered what might still lie under our feet, or under the road, or the nearby house. Each plaque had a diagram of how the grave was laid out and a description of the items found inside, and we speculated about the presence of ox heads in many of the male graves (the custom was to have a funeral feast with an ox, and send the head with the departed), one grave which contained two men and a dog, and the possible presence of a slave in one wealthy woman's grave. Each one held a mystery about the life the person lived. Many of the finds here were inspirations for Kalevala Koru jewlery, and I wondered what the inhabitants would think if they could know that a thousand years after they died, people would be wearing replicas of their jewelry. We swept the snow from each plaque and eventually read them all. At this point it was quite dark but luckily one of us had a flashlight, and the nearby road shed a little bit of light. The 10-cm deep snow covered all but the larger rocks as well, so by the time we had read the plaques there wasn't much else to see, except maybe the sign on the fence around the area saying that chasing the sheep and lambs was expressly forbidden!
Finally we trudged our tired feet back towards the bus stop, or at least the kebab shop from earlier where I had a plate of french fries and hot cocoa to warm up. We were all pretty exhausted from the hike as it was, and the snow had only increased our exertion. Our de facto tour guide was impressed that I would trudge for 15 km through the dark and snow just to see some piles of rocks, and I explained that these were particularly important piles of rocks to me, and that I would have given an arm and a leg to have had this opportunity in the States. On the bus ride home I drowned out the screaming of my hamstring muscles with my mp3 player, and then grabbed the bus back to my apartment. I had to hang up every single item I had with me, as I was completely damp along with my backpack, even through my snow boots and two pairs of socks. One hot shower later, though, and I was a happy camper. I do have pictures from this whole outing, but as I also have a ton of schoolwork writing to do - it may be a few days before I get those online, but I'll add a link here when I do.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Kekri
One of the things that surprises English speakers about Finland is that the usual assortment of holidays that Americans grow up celebrating are greatly diminished or even absent in this culture. Whereas Christmas stuff has probably been seen in stores for two months already in the States, our local supermarket stocked its shelves with holiday candies and treats (Glögi, yum!) only this week. And apart from the small pumpkins with jack-o'-lantern eyes and mouth stickers applied to one side, it would be easy to forget completely about Halloween. Apparently the Great American Holiday Consumer culture is slowly making its way here, with Halloween becoming more and more visible each year, but up until recently it wasn't celebrated at all.
Finnish culture isn't completely without its harvest festivals, though. In older times Kekri was the last day of the year, a time to celebrate the harvest before battening down the hatches for a long winter. Some of its traditions have been rolled into Joulu/Christmas celebrations or are celebrated on the New Year of the current calendar, but Kekri was originally celebrated on the same days as other European harvest festivals - the end of October and the beginning of November. And so, amateur folklore junkie that I am, I tagged along with my roommate to the Kekri feast organized by the Finnish folk religion organization, Taivannaula. As traditional dress is encouraged at these events, I was glad to have my Viking age garb with me, and because I wasn't sure what I was in for, picked up a cheap sleeping bag for 4 euros at the local Salvation Army store.
The location of the celebration was a cabin camping area in the southern part of Seitseminen National Park, northwest of Tampere. The area is surrounded by protected wildlife areas with old-growth forest, something quite rare in southern Finland. In order to get there Christine and I had to take a bus from the center of Turku to someplace about an hour north, only to be picked up by car for another two-hour drive. We were following the directions from a GPS navigator that took us from paved roads to a dirt road that became smaller and smaller as we went, eventually becoming a railroad maintenance path barely wide enough to accommodate the car! It was quite a harrowing off-road adventure, given that it was completely dark and we had nothing but a completely insane GPS device leading the way, but we arrived safely in time to claim a bed and unpack a bit. The cabin itself was a three-room wooden building with bunk beds along the walls, fireplaces in each room, and solar-panel lights that we opted to conserve in favor of candle and fireplace lighting. One room was the kitchen, with a wood stove and sink but no faucet (no plumbing: water was pumped by hand outside) , one room was the main living room with a huge table that managed to accommodate all 23 of us for the feast, and one room that was a bedroom with a smaller table. Each room had its own fireplace and plenty of windows for a view of the forest. There was one building outside for chopping wood, an outhouse, and a huge sauna building, also entirely wood-fueled. In the middle of all the buildings was a campfire area and some benches. A line of small candles along the paths between the different buildings lit the way after dark. The beds themselves included pillows and thick heavy blankets, and though we were told we only needed to bring sheets, I was happy to have my ghetto sleeping bag with me. When it got chilly at night we lit the fireplaces, and even the next morning it was still quite toasty - Christine remarked that the wooden building held in heat better than our modern student apartment, and I had to agree. And the atmosphere was much cozier. While I'm happy to return to my electricity and flush toilets, I could easily spend a couple of weeks out at such a cabin.
Friday night most people were still arriving, but there was some socializing as well. Everyone greeted everyone else with hugs all around, which was unusual for me because, well, Finns are not usually the "hugs all around" kind of people. I took a liking to them right away. Several others had either Viking age garb as well, or more traditional Finnish clothing like lapikkaat and vests with white buttoned shirts. I had brought my array of traditional Finnish instruments, and there was much singing and playing of drums, kanteles, mouth harps, and my jouhikko (the envy of just about everyone else). Probably the coolest part of Friday was playing a couple of tunes on my jouhikko, only to be joined by a drummer and some spontaneous singing that was somehow in the same rhythm I was playing. I had a blast just jamming with people! Later that night was sauna time, with the wonderful thick steam from the wood sauna, and old fashioned bathing with birch twigs and washing yourself with a ladle and bucket. Afterwards I was relaxed enough to fall directly asleep upon my return to the cabin, to the sounds of singing coming from the main room, light from the fireplace flickering on the wall, and the smell of wood smoke hanging in the air.
Next morning I awoke to the sounds of yet more people arriving, and more importantly, porridge on the stove! My stomach reminded me that I hadn't had dinner the night before and propelled me into the kitchen for some rye porridge with sugar, milk, and cloudberry jam. In the main room a shrine to peoples' ancestors and dead relatives had been set up with photographs and small objects that people had inherited from their families. Christine brought a picture of her Finnish grandmother from Fairport Harbor and I had some printouts of my grandparents; my grandmother who passed away last year around this time, and my grandfather, who had passed away just the previous day. The end of October has become a particularly reflective time for me when it comes to remembering my dead relatives, because it seems that each year there's a new name on the roster. I added the photos to the shrine and lit a couple of candles for them. Most of Saturday was spent preparing the feast, except for a moment when we heard some knocking from the outside of the walls and saw some smudged faces and funny hats at the windows - kekripukkis were out and about! This tradition comes from the days when the farmhands had their one vacation a year during Kekri, and would dress up in silly old clothes and go to the different houses demanding booze and being mischievous. They ran around goosing the women, and threatened to carry of the host of the household, even picking him up and carrying him to the door, until their demands for booze were met. Trick or treat, indeed! Finally their thirst was sated and they retreated to the sauna (where we found some of their clothing afterwards). Now it was time for some epic food. By the time everyone had settled in with their plates and silverware, there were 23 of us crammed in around the table. We all gave a short introduction of ourselves and where we were from - only me and Christine and another guy Anssi were representing Turku, but others had come from all over: Vaasa, Helsinki, Tampere, Eura, Kuopio, and even Oulu. There was a short solemn moment to memorialize the people represented on the altar that couldn't be there, and a plate of food prepared to represent the place where they would sit. Then the food started to come out... just from memory, here's a list of some of the dishes: veggie and lamb pies, mushroom pie, casseroles made from carrot, rutabaga, and potato, boiled eggs, roasted chicken, sausages, at least three kinds of homemade cheese, three kinds of bread, plum and lingonberry jam, cubed rutabagas (which I learned were also called "swedes", after some confusion about swedes being an important part of the Finnish diet!), and there was homemade sima and sahti to drink. Then there was dessert array: white chocolate truffle, berry pudding, cranberry fudge, and some cheesecake-like pastry. After that huge dinner everyone gathered around the campfire outside to sing the origin of fire, an excerpt from Kalevala, while the campfire was started, and then we all went into the sauna again. Beer was thrown on the sauna rocks, which smelled like burning bread, and vihtas were passed around for whoever felt like some invigorating self-flagellation. Later I brought my tar schnapps and kantele by the campfire and quietly played around with some melodies while everyone else chatted. The Kekri host was, as tradition demanded, given plenty to drink. Apparently if the host sways on his feet, so too the crops that year will sway in the wind. But of the host falls down, the crops will also fall, so we did our best to keep the guy on his feet! Once midnight came around, we celebrated the start of the new year with melting pieces of tin in the fireplace and then throwing the liquid blob into a bucket of cold water. The shapes you get from the tin are supposed to tell what the coming year will bring. Luckily everyone else seemed to know how to interpret what they were looking at, but supposedly I have some money coming my way. I sure hope so!
Sunday morning was rough. Some woke up and left early, since they had far to go, and the rest of us cleaned the place up, swept, collected bottled and cans, and did an unending flow of dishes. I really, really wanted to sleep until afternoon, but alas, it wasn't to be. However, before starting the long drive back to Turku, we did stop to take a nature path through some of the national forest to see some of the original, old-growth forest area. Dead trees still stood tall and mosses hung from the branches like beards. And during this time of year, the forest is really, truly silent - no noise from birds or chipmunks, only the sound of the branches high above and the sound of one's own breathing. Even the footsteps are absorbed by the thick carpet of moss that covers everything. After strolling around for an hour or so, the group exchanged hugs and went to our separate cars. I passed out for almost the entire trip back. Tonight, right now, actually, I'm missing a Turisas show down at Klubi, but there's really only so much partying one can do in a weekend and still wake up on Monday. There will be other chances to see them play, but this weekend was really special, and there's only a couple times a year I can enjoy a weekend like this.
Finnish culture isn't completely without its harvest festivals, though. In older times Kekri was the last day of the year, a time to celebrate the harvest before battening down the hatches for a long winter. Some of its traditions have been rolled into Joulu/Christmas celebrations or are celebrated on the New Year of the current calendar, but Kekri was originally celebrated on the same days as other European harvest festivals - the end of October and the beginning of November. And so, amateur folklore junkie that I am, I tagged along with my roommate to the Kekri feast organized by the Finnish folk religion organization, Taivannaula. As traditional dress is encouraged at these events, I was glad to have my Viking age garb with me, and because I wasn't sure what I was in for, picked up a cheap sleeping bag for 4 euros at the local Salvation Army store.
The location of the celebration was a cabin camping area in the southern part of Seitseminen National Park, northwest of Tampere. The area is surrounded by protected wildlife areas with old-growth forest, something quite rare in southern Finland. In order to get there Christine and I had to take a bus from the center of Turku to someplace about an hour north, only to be picked up by car for another two-hour drive. We were following the directions from a GPS navigator that took us from paved roads to a dirt road that became smaller and smaller as we went, eventually becoming a railroad maintenance path barely wide enough to accommodate the car! It was quite a harrowing off-road adventure, given that it was completely dark and we had nothing but a completely insane GPS device leading the way, but we arrived safely in time to claim a bed and unpack a bit. The cabin itself was a three-room wooden building with bunk beds along the walls, fireplaces in each room, and solar-panel lights that we opted to conserve in favor of candle and fireplace lighting. One room was the kitchen, with a wood stove and sink but no faucet (no plumbing: water was pumped by hand outside) , one room was the main living room with a huge table that managed to accommodate all 23 of us for the feast, and one room that was a bedroom with a smaller table. Each room had its own fireplace and plenty of windows for a view of the forest. There was one building outside for chopping wood, an outhouse, and a huge sauna building, also entirely wood-fueled. In the middle of all the buildings was a campfire area and some benches. A line of small candles along the paths between the different buildings lit the way after dark. The beds themselves included pillows and thick heavy blankets, and though we were told we only needed to bring sheets, I was happy to have my ghetto sleeping bag with me. When it got chilly at night we lit the fireplaces, and even the next morning it was still quite toasty - Christine remarked that the wooden building held in heat better than our modern student apartment, and I had to agree. And the atmosphere was much cozier. While I'm happy to return to my electricity and flush toilets, I could easily spend a couple of weeks out at such a cabin.
Friday night most people were still arriving, but there was some socializing as well. Everyone greeted everyone else with hugs all around, which was unusual for me because, well, Finns are not usually the "hugs all around" kind of people. I took a liking to them right away. Several others had either Viking age garb as well, or more traditional Finnish clothing like lapikkaat and vests with white buttoned shirts. I had brought my array of traditional Finnish instruments, and there was much singing and playing of drums, kanteles, mouth harps, and my jouhikko (the envy of just about everyone else). Probably the coolest part of Friday was playing a couple of tunes on my jouhikko, only to be joined by a drummer and some spontaneous singing that was somehow in the same rhythm I was playing. I had a blast just jamming with people! Later that night was sauna time, with the wonderful thick steam from the wood sauna, and old fashioned bathing with birch twigs and washing yourself with a ladle and bucket. Afterwards I was relaxed enough to fall directly asleep upon my return to the cabin, to the sounds of singing coming from the main room, light from the fireplace flickering on the wall, and the smell of wood smoke hanging in the air.
Next morning I awoke to the sounds of yet more people arriving, and more importantly, porridge on the stove! My stomach reminded me that I hadn't had dinner the night before and propelled me into the kitchen for some rye porridge with sugar, milk, and cloudberry jam. In the main room a shrine to peoples' ancestors and dead relatives had been set up with photographs and small objects that people had inherited from their families. Christine brought a picture of her Finnish grandmother from Fairport Harbor and I had some printouts of my grandparents; my grandmother who passed away last year around this time, and my grandfather, who had passed away just the previous day. The end of October has become a particularly reflective time for me when it comes to remembering my dead relatives, because it seems that each year there's a new name on the roster. I added the photos to the shrine and lit a couple of candles for them. Most of Saturday was spent preparing the feast, except for a moment when we heard some knocking from the outside of the walls and saw some smudged faces and funny hats at the windows - kekripukkis were out and about! This tradition comes from the days when the farmhands had their one vacation a year during Kekri, and would dress up in silly old clothes and go to the different houses demanding booze and being mischievous. They ran around goosing the women, and threatened to carry of the host of the household, even picking him up and carrying him to the door, until their demands for booze were met. Trick or treat, indeed! Finally their thirst was sated and they retreated to the sauna (where we found some of their clothing afterwards). Now it was time for some epic food. By the time everyone had settled in with their plates and silverware, there were 23 of us crammed in around the table. We all gave a short introduction of ourselves and where we were from - only me and Christine and another guy Anssi were representing Turku, but others had come from all over: Vaasa, Helsinki, Tampere, Eura, Kuopio, and even Oulu. There was a short solemn moment to memorialize the people represented on the altar that couldn't be there, and a plate of food prepared to represent the place where they would sit. Then the food started to come out... just from memory, here's a list of some of the dishes: veggie and lamb pies, mushroom pie, casseroles made from carrot, rutabaga, and potato, boiled eggs, roasted chicken, sausages, at least three kinds of homemade cheese, three kinds of bread, plum and lingonberry jam, cubed rutabagas (which I learned were also called "swedes", after some confusion about swedes being an important part of the Finnish diet!), and there was homemade sima and sahti to drink. Then there was dessert array: white chocolate truffle, berry pudding, cranberry fudge, and some cheesecake-like pastry. After that huge dinner everyone gathered around the campfire outside to sing the origin of fire, an excerpt from Kalevala, while the campfire was started, and then we all went into the sauna again. Beer was thrown on the sauna rocks, which smelled like burning bread, and vihtas were passed around for whoever felt like some invigorating self-flagellation. Later I brought my tar schnapps and kantele by the campfire and quietly played around with some melodies while everyone else chatted. The Kekri host was, as tradition demanded, given plenty to drink. Apparently if the host sways on his feet, so too the crops that year will sway in the wind. But of the host falls down, the crops will also fall, so we did our best to keep the guy on his feet! Once midnight came around, we celebrated the start of the new year with melting pieces of tin in the fireplace and then throwing the liquid blob into a bucket of cold water. The shapes you get from the tin are supposed to tell what the coming year will bring. Luckily everyone else seemed to know how to interpret what they were looking at, but supposedly I have some money coming my way. I sure hope so!
Sunday morning was rough. Some woke up and left early, since they had far to go, and the rest of us cleaned the place up, swept, collected bottled and cans, and did an unending flow of dishes. I really, really wanted to sleep until afternoon, but alas, it wasn't to be. However, before starting the long drive back to Turku, we did stop to take a nature path through some of the national forest to see some of the original, old-growth forest area. Dead trees still stood tall and mosses hung from the branches like beards. And during this time of year, the forest is really, truly silent - no noise from birds or chipmunks, only the sound of the branches high above and the sound of one's own breathing. Even the footsteps are absorbed by the thick carpet of moss that covers everything. After strolling around for an hour or so, the group exchanged hugs and went to our separate cars. I passed out for almost the entire trip back. Tonight, right now, actually, I'm missing a Turisas show down at Klubi, but there's really only so much partying one can do in a weekend and still wake up on Monday. There will be other chances to see them play, but this weekend was really special, and there's only a couple times a year I can enjoy a weekend like this.
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