For the seventh year in a row, Finland remains as the world's happiest country by the UN sponsored World Happiness Report (published Wednesday, 20 March 2024).
Here our Helsinki-based writer Meiju Niskala reflects on the everyday things that make her appreciate life in the capital.
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Spring is here, spring is almost here, I wake up to the chirping of sparrows gliding into my bedroom through the open windows. Entire bushes teaming with birds are chirping, I use sound to navigate towards the bus stop with my eyes almost closed, such sweet sounds of spring.
Spring is here, spring is definitely here: flocks of birds fly across the sky making a sort of creaking sound, and I really do love the creaking of Helsinki, I love the raspy creaking of wintertime as the road grit rustles in the streets before it is finally cleared, and I love the creaking of the tram as it slows down to take a curve. One especially enjoyable raspy creaking sound can be heard around the Market Square, at the old Cholera Basin, as it’s called, where ice rafts the size of dinner trays rub against one another.
Former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, once told me that this very sound is his favourite form of silence in Helsinki. I told him about the soundscapes in libraries, as I tell anybody when I get the chance: from winter to summer and summer to winter, Finnish libraries stand for the values of culture, encounters, and sharing, and not only in terms of books. Libraries, such as the Central Library Oodi, include services such as shared kitchens and sound studios – because information and the coming-together of worlds are not only about rows of words. You can also borrow a drill, or a bicycle, or a boat. Alongside book-based learning, culture is also about doing things together and producing a shared experience and practising care. I make an annual round of all libraries in Helsinki, because they are unique – and, above all, interesting structures of values and architectures.
But now back to spring! It’s here! I sit on shoreside rocks, running my hands over the messages cut into stone by soldiers of the Russian Czar’s era, smelling the sea with my nose. There is nothing between myself and the horizon, even though it will soon change, swiftly even, for the summer does not only manifest as little flowers on the ground, but also as kayaks and sailboats on open waters.
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And what about summer, the first signs of it are yellow coltsfoot on the roadsides, city bikes on bike lanes, and people wrapped in towels getting some fresh air outside public saunas.
Helsinki’s summer wind rustles shirt tails and skirt hems like the narrow pointy flags on countryside flagpoles informing if someone is home, and a sensation swells in your chest: this city is ours, it’s everyone’s! The nooks in the rocks fill with people and the city is neither sinking nor turning into a swamp, because this is helsinkite, a rock that will neither crack nor crumble. Time has gnawed out nooks in the city rocks that can fit one person, or five, or thirteen, with space yet for pets and picnic baskets, like park benches, or seats by a sauna. From those nooks, we witness the city, our common protagonist.
And when night falls – it is sniffed out in the air, because the light will stay and stay and stay – we still hear occasional birdsong, then see the lilacs – those fashionable plants brought over from Sweden in the 19th century – spring into bloom. Promise me that you will sniff at least one tussle on your way from one city event to the next, or as you approach one of the old carpet washing piers to take a midnight dip in the sea.
And do not fret about the short-lived bloom of the lilacs. It’ll soon be followed by the berry bushes, and the start of the harvest season. And you’ll find rose hips, sea buckthorns, bilberries, and mushrooms on beaches, small islands, and in the Central Park. You can pick plums, currants, and apples right in the middle of the city, although it’s also good to leave some for the birds. This is how you encounter history here: left behind in public spaces or spread out as useful plants.
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And when autumn arrives, the scenery is filled with mist, a sea so full of the break of day and of mist that I can hardly contain myself. Autumn days are marked with a scent that is sour on the surface, it paints the trees with foliage, as well as the facades of houses that now appear fire red. For me this is a sign: now the winter swimming season starts, now the sauna season starts, and the season of museums, libraries, and architecture tours.
It is the start of the season for porridge, when the colours of autumn begin to fall, a season of such slushiness that I like to keep myself upbeat by heading to the Hakaniemi Market Square to eat porridge under the orange awnings. I eat my porridge and bump into people, eat more porridge and am always ready to defend these orange awnings. Banging in the wind at the market stalls, they’ve been here for more than half a century. Whenever someone proposes a stylish and novel alternative, such as a glass case and rows of lightbulb ornaments, I cry out in protest: you can order those anywhere, but the Helsinki marketplaces are unique just as they are, and they only happen here!
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And when the first proper snowstorm hits the city and winter begins, I turn my face to the wind, slip my skis on, and push myself to work along the tram tracks. Some like to ski in the park, but I would go as crazy as a bird in a cage, I’m so used to the sensation of vast open spaces.
I have an Indian friend who was suffering precisely because of this overwhelming sensation of space in Helsinki. I decided to take them to the market place when Finland won the world hockey championship. “Now it’s like home!” they shouted to me from within the throngs of celebrating mass.
And another notion on the sensation of space: that is precisely why I like to drift along the shores in summer. When the ice is thick enough, I head out to the frozen open sea with ice claws hung around my neck, as do hundreds and thousands of other Helsinkians. On our skis and ice skates, we travel to the nearby islands and islets, and enjoy how different Helsinki looks from the sea. That’s how it was first planned – as a white pearl of the North that one arrives at from the sea.
I can’t help but finish off with a last wintertime notion on Santas and the Christmas sauna tradition. On Christmas Eve, a bunch of freelancer Santas gather at one of the public saunas after they have all made their rounds in the evening. But I won’t reveal which bathhouse it is, you’ll find out when you come to Helsinki!
Written by: Meiju Niskala
Translation by: Simo Vassinen
You can read more about Helsinki's annual rhytms and other tips for urban explorers in Helsinki in Meiju’s book Olet tässä (Helsinki) published by Avain in 2008 (currently only in Finnish).
