As promised, here is a post about our recent trip to Finland. We left early on a Saturday morning along with our friends Sveyta and Kristina (also teachers at IA) and took a bus to Helsinki. Its approximately an 8 hour trip (but this includes a few stops along the way and the whole process of crossing the border). I always enjoy getting outside of the city and seeing the neighboring countries. Helsinki is the fourth European capital city we have visited in the past 8 months (Riga, Tallin, and Moscow being the others). I've added Vilnius and Stockholm to my wishlist for next capitals to visit, but we'll have to wait and see if we can manage those at some point:-)
Helsinki, like St. Petersburg is on the Gulf of Finland. The city also bears some traces of Russian influence on its appearance, which is understandable since Finland was a part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917. In terms of size Helsinki is much smaller with about 1 million people living in the greater city area (about 600,000 live within its limits). However, since Finland's population is only 5.3 million people, Helsinki is far and away the largest city in the country.
We didn't have any specific plan in going there, other than to enjoy getting outside of Russia for a few days and finally putting the Christmas money we had been sitting on for three months to use. Our friends wanted to do some shopping, and we were just happy to see the city.
Our hotel was on the sixth floor of a building in the center of the city within easy walking distance of most of the points of interest. We spent our first night walking around by the harbor and enjoying the sites and taking in part of an Orthodox service at the Uspensky Cathedral. The next day I went off walking around the city for a few hours while Amanda, Sveyta, and Kristina did some shopping. I visited the Helsinki city history museum which at the moment is entirely dedicated to the subject of the history of women's rights in Finland. Not what I expected, but very interesting none the less! We also took the ferry to the nearby islands of Suomenlinna, home to an 18th century military fortress that is a major attraction for visitors and a UNESCO world heritage site. The wind on the island was absolutely unbelievable, but the view was beautiful even for a very cloudy day.
Part of the fun of being in Finland is the chance to take advantage of things that we can't find in St. Petersburg. For us that meant a stop at a Ben and Jerry's ice cream store and eating bagels at another restaurant. I also got to visit my favorite Finnish fast-food restaurant, Hesburger. I recommend their new pepperoni cheeseburger:-) Amanda and I also discovered and fell in love with Jaffa, a brand of Finnish softdrink. We even took a two liter bottle back with us of the delicious lime and red grapefruit flavored variety.
We took a night bus back to St. Petersburg which meant that we had a short night since our bus left at 11 and it was hard to sleep knowing that in two hours we would be awakened to go through the Finnish and Russian sides of the border. On the plus side, we did get to enjoy some delicious hotdogs right before going through the Finnish border at 2 a.m. at the last establishment before passport control.
We arrived early on Tuesday morning and promptly went to sleep:-) We had a little "excitement" upon return as we tried to sort out our registration situation. All foreigners (and Russians too) must be registered with the authorities in the country. This must be done again everytime you come into Russia. However, in mid-February a new law was passed that said that employers were no longer allowed to register their employees and that landlords must do it instead. For us, this meant having to talk with our landlord, get him to talk with our visa person at school, have a packet of necessary documents for registration ready, and be prepared to call our landlord as soon as we returned to the country.
However, a few weeks ago the law was repealed. Since the president had not yet signed it, we were told that we would have to have our landlord do it anyway. Upon returning we gave the documents to our landlord, only to be told the next day that he and his wife did not understand what needed to be done. This put us in a temporary panic since our visa manger was out of the country (a lot of people from school were travelling during the break) and we would only have one more day before we had to be registered or else we would need to leave the country and re-enter all over again. After some frantic late night phone calling, we found out that the law had in fact been repealed, and that under the new law the period you have to be registered in had been extended. This was welcome news indeed! Its things like this that remind us, lest we forget, that we are living in a foreign country and often do not understand what is going on. Dealing with documents and the labyrinthine process that staying legally in Russia is is just one of the perks of living here:-) It makes us extremely thankful for the people at IA who do so much to take care of 90% of the process!
Here are some photos of beautiful Helsinki. I promise we took them in late March, though the copious amounts of ice and snow might convince you otherwise.
This is the Helsinki Cathedral, one of the most prominent landmarks in the city. Originally called St. Nicholas' Church during the period of Russian rule, it is a functioning Lutheran Church. The statue in front of it is of Tsar Alexander II.
This is the Uspensky Cathedral, which is still a functioning Orthodox Church. The vast majority of Finns identify as Lutheran, but there is a small Orthodox presence in Finland. One of the enjoyable features for me of Helsinki was the fact that there are lots of hills. St. Petersburg is completely flat so seeing some variation in elevation was a nice change!
A street facing the water on the southeast portion of the city. The beautiful architecture of the city was another enjoyable site to take in.
All right, this building isn't anything important, just apartments. I just think that it looks really cool:-)
Another beautiful building that gives a taste of Helsinki's architecture.
The ferry that we took to Suomenlinna.
Part of the walls of the fortress.
Inside the walls of the fortress. Seen from behind is our friend Sveyta:-)
Me inside an opening in the wall!
And now we're both joining in on the fun:-)
Amanda, Sveyta, and Kristina. My apologies to Sveyta for catching her making a weird face in this photo.
I took this photo on top of a hill overlooking the sea on Suomenlinna. I have never felt such intense wind in my life and was afraid I was going to get blown over once I reached the top of the hill.
A view of Helsinki taken from the shore of Suomenlinna. You can see how much snow and ice is still present, even when I took this photo on March 27th.
Some lights on a street in Helsinki at night.
Well that's all for now!
-Matt
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