Baltics24: Day 4 – Helsinki

A full day in Helsinki. With the weather forecast promising sun, we took one of the harbour tour boats for a bit of fresh air and history.

People have called Helsinki home for thousands of years, but it’s first major development kick was thanks to the Swedish occupiers in the 16th century. They turned Helsinki into a major trading hub, set up boat building, and probably imported meatballs, along with building some impressive forts among the islands that are scattered around the harbour. The forts didn’t really help when Sweden and Russia had a war in the early 19th century, which sent the Swedes packing (leaving their meatball recipe behind). The Russians then moved the capital of Finland from Turku to Helsinki, probably because it was closer so they could keep an eye on their semi-autonomous neighbour.

This worked for 100 years or so, until Russia had its own issues (thanks to some Lenin guy who hung out occasionally in Helsinki, so maybe they should have been keeping a better eye on the place) so Finland decided it had enough and told its neighbours where to stick their meatballs, and kept Helsinki as the capital. Since then they’ve had the olympics, made wonderful public transport, been a European Capital of Culture (a dubious distinction I know, given Glasgow was one in 1990) and generally done Finnish things.

Like I say, this ain’t wikipedia.

The harbour tour was lovely, sitting on the top deck looking at Finns doing what they do, flying kites, exercising, sunbathing, sadly didn’t catch any washing rugs, another regional pastime is taking rugs to the harbour on sunny days, washing them with an environmentally friendly detergent, then draping the rugs over built in jetty hangers so they can dry. We saw the old forts, the church that doubles as a lighthouse, the various places where people keep their boats, islands with wonderful biodiversity (achieved by keeping people away), the island where they used to process lots of tar (the Finns say that saunas, alcohol and tar will cure most things), and the harbour’s icebreaker fleet, moored for the summer.

We stopped at the enclosed harbourside market for lunch, where I had a large reindeer spring roll: looked amazing, tasted good, but sadly they heated it up in a microwave so the pastry was meh, the reindeer was good, a little milder than beef but with an extra gamey flavour. We shared a big bowl of salmon soup, lots of creamy soupy goodness, salmon chunks, and plenty of dill. Then went to the stall with the stuffed potatoes, and went for the reindeer meat. Very delicious, reindeer goes well with creamy cheese potato, topped with tzatziki, mushrooms, chickpeas and pickles.

We strolled down to the central station to see the large, brutalist, lantern wielding statues that guard the main doors, and are sometimes redecorated for special events but were just in their regular glory today.

Then it was back to the hotel to try out their sauna. The Finns love the sauna, there’s something about sitting in a hot room, regardless of the season, sweating quietly (or not so quietly apparently) and slowly cooking that appeals to this nation. I think they just get a kick out of throwing cup fulls of water onto hot stones to hear the sizzle (they have a word for it, “loyly”). Maybe it’s the extra blast of superheated air that comes from this (I read all the guides I could prior to stepping in, and none of them mention it’s a good idea to only do shallow breaths when happens, so you’re reading this here first: when the air around you becomes full of superheated steam, inhale slowly). There is something nice about stepping out of the heat and onto the hotel balcony to feel the cool breeze through the sweat, but I never got to the stage where a contrast shower felt temperate, it still felt very cold. Hopefully my skin and pores feel like they’ve had a workout, and my joints that were feeling rather achy from our walking seem a little happier now.

I’m not sure what thing going on yesterday involved lots of cheering (it certainly wasn’t topless me stepping out onto the balcony) but to try to find out I went searching through all the Helsinki goings on and stumbled across a public bellydance performance taking place shortly and close to where we were, so I dutifully informed L and off we went. After many years of watching L and others perform, it was interesting to just watch this Finnish group and their interpretations of the various middle eastern dance styles. They were predominantly tribal, which to the uninitiated (like me) means the ones where the dancers are scary looking and perform with deliberate movements, whether solo or in a group. To me, this group seemed to be stiffer in their movements, more robot-like, than the Perth style, and put that down to a regional thing, but L (who knows so much more and will just sigh at any attempt I make to describe dance) said that’s reflective of a specific style popular in the US and could spot all the various influences. There were some more traditional performances too, and a Romani-inspired solo, some more contemporary performances too. There were zills, and a couple of veils, but no swords or Isis wings or candleabra. As the dancers were all from the same school, there was the obligatory beginners group who did a fantastic job, props to anyone who does public performances. It was close to an hour of excellent dance.

From here we went to Zetor Restaurant, owned by the director of Leningrad Cowboys Go America, and with decor designed by one or more Leningrad Cowboys. As such there were tractors as decoration, the light fittings were buckets, and numerous random objects adorned the walls. It wonderfully bills itself as 110% Finnish, and the menu (presented as a newspaper in Finnish, Swedish, and English) is full of wonderful quirks (“Why head to the forest when you can enjoy mushrooms at Zetor”, “Close to deserving a place on UNESCO’s heritage list”, “Beef meatballs made according to the traditional recipe of grandma Helvi”). For the starter I went with the Shaman’s Set, which was thinly sliced reindeer, reindeer mousse, and lingonberries on dark bread and it tasted great. I’m not a big fan of lingonberry jam, and tasting the berries themselves I can see why, as they have a bit of bitterness that goes really well with this dish, but the jams I’ve had were just too sugary meh. For the main I went with the Tractor Man’s steak, sirloin cooked wonderfully medium rare with bacon (allegedly cooked on a tractor bonnet), more reindeer mousse (I could eat a lot of that wonderfully meaty salty stuff) and potatoes (with “vegetables as eye candy”). To drink I first had a Karhu lager, malty goodness with a hint of hop fruitness, followed by the Lammin Sahti. Sahti is Finnish farmhouse ale, and is definitely not for your average beer drinker. Low carbonation, apparently unhopped, filtered through juniper, and fermented hot, it’s a rollercoaster ride of esters and other yeast flavours, lots of banana, a bit of caramel, and 7.5%. Not for the faint-hearted, but something very different that Finland should be proud of.

Then it was tram back to the hotel, and between the Sahti and the sauna my eyes were closing the minute my head hit the cushion pillow thing.