Postcard from Helsinki: “A tangible feeling of disbelief has landed over the Finnish capital” | Travel
OOn the last Saturday in February, the sunshine greeted the people of Helsinki after several gloomy winter months. It was the end of the school holiday week and the Covid pandemic was fading, so a cheerful visit to the city center was in place. More courageous people sipped their coffee on the outdoor terrace, and the restaurants were full of friends and families gathered to take advantage of the spring hues in the air – even though the streets were still covered in ice cubes and snow was piled up along the roadsides.
After relatively severe Covid restrictions and an occasional winter storm, a long time had passed in the seaside town after Helsinki took a respite. But now, 86 percent of the population double-vaccinated and more than 60 percent with three vaccines, the pandemic seemed to loosen its grip. It was time for the people of Helsinki to enjoy their city again.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and instead of waiting for a sunnier future, a tangible sense of disbelief prevailed over the Finnish capital.
Esplanade Park
GETTY IMAGES
During the pandemic, the people of Helsinki always kept their temper, no matter how anxious they felt in their private lives. But now, as I walked into the city two days after the attack, I heard the names Putin, Belarus, and NATO emerge in passers-by’s discussions. Finland has had its own battles with Russia and the news has hit particularly hard here.
Arriving in the center of the Esplanade, lined with designer shops, cafes and upscale hotels, I found a number of foreign visitors from almost pre-pandemic times. New hotels have been opened during the pandemic, and more will be opened in the near future; Helsinki is ready to receive guests again.
But once the tourist cameras around the park were pointing towards the market square – where you can buy everything from Finnish, fried vendace fish to fur hats – or towards the harbor and cruise ships ready to cross the Baltic Sea to Stockholm, now some cameras zoomed into an insignificant building wall. Interesting destination? Barely noticeable sign for a Russian restaurant.
I reached Senate Square via Cobblestone Street. Normally, Helsinki Cathedral – Finland’s most famous landmark – looms over an almost empty square, but now 10,000 Finns have gathered to protest against Russia’s actions.
Anti-war demonstrations in Helsinki
TAKIMOTO MARINA
A sign on the wall of a neoclassical government palace next to the cathedral shows the place where Swedish-speaking Finnish nationalist Eugen Schauman shot Governor-General Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov to death in 1904. It is over 100 years old, but now its significance is obvious.
Not only did the atmosphere on the streets in Helsinki change after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some stores, such as the state alcohol monopoly Alko and the cooperative chain S Group, emptied their shelves of Russian goods. And more gloomily, the city’s pharmacies sold out iodine, which protects the thyroid gland in the event of a nuclear explosion.
The attitude of Finns towards NATO membership has also been affected changed dramatically. A survey of Finland’s main television channel MTV3 in January showed that only about 30 per cent were in favor of Finland joining NATO. However, according to a recent opinion poll by Yle, the second most important broadcaster, 53 per cent of Finns are pro-NATO and only 28 per cent oppose joining.
Many of us have colleagues, friends and family from Ukraine or Ukraine and they want to help. Friends of Helsinki have provided soups and rooms for Ukrainians, and others have arranged vans to drive food to the Polish border and plan to return to Finland in the back seat of Ukrainians.
After the isolation of the pandemic, it seems that the people of Helsinki have gathered again overnight.
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