Hyvää Pääsiäistä! Or Happy Easter! The Easter celebration continues here in Finland, despite the very secular leanings of the country. Below are a few traditions in Helsinki and Finland:
Passion play
There is a reenactment of the Passion of Christ, with a man lugging a cross through one of the large streets in the center, ending by climbing all of the steps up to large white Lutheran Cathedral. I can't comment on this one since we didn't go: it was 9PM on Friday night and our sauna time is at 8.
Mämmi
This is a special Easter time delicacy. It is sold in boxes in the stores or people make it at home, though this is rather labor-intensive. It seems to be a great divide in Finland: you either love it or hate it. What is it? It is a dessert that looks pretty disgusting but is actually made of food items: water, rye flour, powdered malted rye, dark molasses, salt, and dried orange zest. It is served cold with cream or vanilla sauce and sugar. We tried some at a party a few weeks ago, and I am on the fence about it. The taste wasn't offensive, but I didn't need to eat more. The consistency was reminiscent of Malt-O-Meal, and the taste, well, at least it didn't taste the way it looks.
photo courtesy of yle.fi
Rye grass
At the beginning of Lent, it is quite popular for children to plant a small dish of rye grass seeds and to watch it grow over the next few weeks. Rye seeds sprout very quickly, and so in a matter of weeks, there is a nice patch of grass growing. And by Easter, the grass is just tall enough in which to hide Easter eggs, I am told.
Mignon Eggs
I've saved the best for last. The Fazer company gets in on the Easter action, too. Actually, they were probably one of the first to capitalize on the holiday as the box said that this was their second product and originated in 1896. This time of year, they produce the Mignon egg. This is a dessert that you will actually want to devour. The Fazer company processes 2.5 million real chicken eggs that are precisely the same size. A small hole is drilled in one end and the eggs and emptied of their contents (not wasted -- somehow used in industrial cooking). The shells are then washed and sterilized and refilled with a chocolate hazelnut mix. Yum! This is, however, a ton of chocolate, so we shared one last night:
Happy Easter! What are your favorite traditions?
It is spring in Finland, or so I am told. My notions of spring are decidedly different: I imagine increased sunlight, cool days, and trees budding. Here, the days are increasing (up to 12.5 hours of sunlight!), but that is where the similarities end. The temperatures have been the coldest of the season and the snow and ice show very little sign of melting. In fact, there are people still walking and skiing on the ice in the harbors. Nevertheless, it is spring and Easter season here.
There are a few unique traditions during Holy Week in Finland. First, instead of passing out palm leaves in church on Palm Sunday, pussy-willow branches are distributed. These are apparently the only budding life forms in Finland at this time of year, though with this weather, it is difficult to imagine that anything has been growing!
The second tradition is akin to trick-or-treating. On Sunday morning, the children dress up as witches and go door-to-door. They carry with them a basket of handmade willow branches adorned with colorful feathers or streamers. When they ring your door bell, they say a short rhyme:
"Virvon varvon, tuoreeks, terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks, vitsa sulle, palkka mulle!"
This roughly translates to, "I wave a twig for a fresh and healthy year ahead; a twig for you, a treat for me!"
This custom is a blend of the Russian Orthodox ritual in which these willow branches represented the palms laid down when Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and the Swedish tradition in which witches drove away evil spirits at Easter. As a side note, the children do not generally dress up and trick-or-treat at Halloween, though I think that this notion is becoming more popular. Wonder if we'll have any witches? Hope so! We have a small supply of chocolate eggs just in case.
The final tradition is that of a nation-wide holiday on Good Friday and Easter Monday. A lot of Finns take advantage of this 4-day weekend to travel: to visit family, to spend time at their summer cottage, or to go to Estonia. This is such a popular time to travel that when we thought of going somewhere, all of the reasonable accommodations were booked. Instead, we will enjoy a long weekend in the city. Hope you have a Happy Easter!
One of Finland's heroes is Carl Gustaf Mannerheim. My guess is that most people outside of the Nordics do not know who he was. But, he was honored with an US Postal stamp in 1960! Do any of you remember that? He was a natural leader who served many roles during some of Finland's most turbulent times. Mannerheim was from a prominent Swedish-speaking family and while this was certainly an advantage, he was endowed with good character qualities since he was called upon time and again to serve Finland. History isn't my strong suit, so I will just be brief in my synopsis of Mannerheim's service. I am leaving out a lot of details and I hope that I don't get anything incorrect! But here is what I understand...
Mannerheim was born in the late 19th century in Russian-ruled Finland. Though he was a poor student, his connections earned him entrance into the Calvary School in St. Petersburg where he excelled (until a drunken episode where he spouted off about Finnish autonomy lowered his rank). This eventually gained him entrance to the prestigious Chevalier Guard. He volunteered in the Russo-Japanese War, rising to the rank of Colonel. After the war, he served as an intelligence office in Manchuria, taking cover as an ethnographic collector and sent many artifacts to St. Petersburg and Helsinki (many of which are still on display in museums today). During World War I, Mannerheim served as commander of the Guards Calvary Brigade and fought on the Austro-Hungarian and Romanian fronts. It was at the end of WWI with the collapse of the Russian Empire that Finland finally became free. This period was not without conflict in Finland as they had to decide how to set up their country and a short civil war ensued. Mannerheim was on the side of the White Guards and acted to defend the new parliament despite his distaste for their pro-German sentiments. The 'Whites' eventually won the conflict and Mannerheim traveled to Britain, Sweden, and France, working to earn recognition of independent Finland and to declare support for the Allies. In this time Finland had decided to become a monarchy and they chose a king, King Frederick Charles of Hesse. He, however, renounced the thrown before ever taking seat. When this occurred, the parliament of Finland named Mannerheim as Regent of Finland to lead them. Mannerheim lost the first presidential election and settled into a life outside of the government.
In this time, he led the Finnish Red Cross and established the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare. He was again called to service during WWII to negotiate with Russia: they wanted access to the Baltic and Finland did not want to give it. They attacked Finland, then, drawing them into the war. At the age of 72, Mannerheim found himself as commander-in-chief of Finnish forces. Finland was quite weak at this point in time and was required to call on Germany for assistance. In the end, this meant that Finland was unofficially at war with the Allies, and Finland had to pay reparations to Russia (they are the only country that repaid ALL of its wartime debts). When the USSR became weak enough to attempt peace negotiations, the job fell to Mannerheim. To better facilitate this, parliament made a special position for him, naming him Regent of Finland, and later taking special action in 1944 to name him president. After all peace treaties had been resolved, Mannerheim resigned the presidency in 1946. He died at the age of 83 in 1951.
Mannerheim's legacy continues today with the survival of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, a street in Helsinki which bears his name, and his home, turned museum, on Kaivopuisto in Helsinki, and other things, I am sure. We recently visited this museum and here is the only picture I have as photography was not permitted inside.
It was a short, guided tour. The guide is obligatory, either because they don't want to disturb the house with placards of explanations, or they want to be sure that you don't touch anything with your grubby little mits. If you are really interested in Mannerheim, then I highly recommend this museum. If for nothing else than to see the impressive collection of all of his medals and awards. Before you go, I would strongly urge you to read up on Mannerheim as this seemed to help me out during the tour. I recently finished the English language (not a translation) Mannerheim by Jonathan Clements and would recommend the book. Happy learning!
If you have kept current on my posts, you already know that Finnish is a difficult language. If you are a new reader, Finnish is a very difficult language, at least if you are used to Latin- or German-based languages. Another factor that increases the difficulty of learning Finnish is that it is not essential to speak it in Finland to get by as English is a compulsory subject in school. So, for the sake of learning, Brent and I are both taking Finnish lessons: his class moves at a more rapid rate than mine (with lots of grammar and very little speaking) while mine meets once a week and we are not very advanced. I also hear Finnish every day at work. Between the two of us, we think that we can manage at the level of a 3 year-old child with a large vocabulary of laboratory jargon.
There are some basic phrases that everyone should know when visiting a country that does not speak your native language, such as:
English Finnish
please *does not exist, it is assumed that you are polite
thank-you kiitos
excuse me/sorry anteeksi
I do not speak [native language] en puhu suomea
These phrases are in heavy rotation in my vocabulary, especially anteeksi.
For the first time in my life, I have an exotic accent! So exotic that when I respond to a question that I do not understand by saying, "Anteeks, en puhu suomea," I usually get a "Mitä?" ("What?") in return. Uhhh (with sinking stomach)... I do not speak Finnish. I guess I really don't puhu suomea if I am so bad at pronouncing it that the natives don't understand me. How can it be that my Finnish is so terrible? Am I unwittingly cursing their grandmother by adding an extra syllable that I cannot hear? Thankfully, I am not. It turns out that I was putting stress on the wrong syllable. Finnish, though difficult, makes it easy in that you don't have to remember which syllable gets the stress in each word: it is always the first. Just imagine in the English language if you were to put emphasis on the wrong syllable of 'assess'.
I have learned a few things about the Finnish language: it is easy and logical, but with complicated grammar. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the highlights for beginning Finnish:
1. Pronounce every letter in every word.
2. Every letter makes the same sound all of the time, regardless of what other letters surround it (Finnish schools do not have spelling tests for this reason: if you can say you, you can spell it. I was quizzed over this Spelling subject in American schools that the Finns had seen in American TV shows and movies.).
3. Put stress on the first syllable of each word.
4. There are no articles (a/an, the).
5. There are no gender distinctions.
6. Prepositions, plural, and possessives are just endings tacked onto the nouns.
While I continue to learn (and butcher in the process) Finnish, I am very appreciative of the patience, sympathy, encouragement, and compassion that my coworkers, friends, shop clerks, strangers on the street, etc., have shown to me. Maybe someday I will say with confidence, "Puhun vähän suomea".
