4th May 1984 - Hello, Helsinki

Friday May 4.  Wakey wakey. At about 7.30 we arrived in Vyborg for a breakfast/Russian customs stop. We didn’t have breakfast but we changed our roubles for Finnish marks. A Russian customs lady went through my suitcase as a token gesture – she didn’t check the bags of the other two.

  At 8.40 Fintime we arrived in Vainikkala. While the Finn authorities had our passports to stamp, we went to the little café and I bought an apple and a bottle of orange soft drink – we had previously been eating dry biscuits and my sweet ones from Hong Kong. I talked to a couple of girls from the Australian embassy in Moscow who knew Heather [I guess it was Heather Walsh, who had been on the Trans-Siberian with her husband Paul] – they were on their weekend off and glad to be going to Helsinki for a break from Moscow.

   So we passed through Finland on our way to Helsinki, past lakes and forest, farming land (patches of) and such towns as Kouvola, Lahti, Riihimäki, Kerava. What a difference – the houses and apartment blocks look so much cleaner, neater, more durable and well looked after. There are bicycles and bike paths and hundreds of pedestrian crossing signs – groves of them.

   We arrived at Helsinki Station on time, we got off the train. [These days you can take the Allegro train between St Petersburg and Helsinki, and it takes a little over three and a half hours. Maybe they still have overnighters, being a cheaper alternative.]  And there was Riika [Kekki] coming towards us – it wasn’t hard to pick her. [Riika had been an exchange student in Texas at the same time as my sister, which is how I came to contact her before leaving Australia.] Anyway, I said goodbye to David and Bill and put my luggage in Riika’s car. We drove to a park station behind a department store and went to a Burgerking place for lunch. Have you ever burgerked? Then we went walking around the town – down the Esplanade to the famous market place where there were still some stalls set up. We bought a bag of mandarins and then went up to have a look at the Uspenski Cathedral, but it was closed. [That’s not the big white one, Helsinki Cathedral.]

Uspenski Cathedral also has a very nice interior.

    Then back down again, for the cathedral is on a hill, and along back to the station square, where also is the Art Museum of the Ateneum, which displays mostly Finnish paintings, which are really quite impressive. It also has a small collection of Impressionist art, including one, and only one, painting by Van Gogh – “street scene in somewhere-l’Oise”. This happens to be the painting of the print I have in my room and I never knew where it was before, never seen it in any art books. It’s probably the only van Gogh Finland has.

Rue d'Auvers-sur-Oise (I always see a gentleman in the sky, upper-left, walking bowed with his hands behind his back

   Then we went to the Gallery of Photographic Art Museum where there was an exhibition of Manuel Álvarez Bravo papier-maché macramé knots. All the photographs were in black and white and I thought that some of them would have looked much better in colour; but then I discovered that this Mexican bloke was ancient, and some of the photos dated back to about 1927. Fairground horses, rocks, buildings, dead striker in the street.

   While were in the building it had rained, so now you know it rains in Helsinki too.

   We went back to the car and drove to Espoo, where the Kekkis live. There is not much in the way of high-rise buildings, so all the houses cannot be seen for the trees from a distance. There are large fields and Riika’s old school, and bike paths on both sides of the road (not all roads).

   The Kekkis’ house is one of six and it is very nice.

   They have lots of nice artwork on the walls, some of it by Sappo, Riikka’s father. [He was born in Finnish territory that was lost to Russia, possibly Vyborg, if I remember rightly.] They have two cats, a grey and a black and white one. Every day they put the black and white one outside on a leash tied to a log, but only for a while. It’s not very carwise and the neighbours don’t like cats.

  Anyway, I had a shower, we had a very pleasant pork dinner and they went off to the stables. [Riikka did competitive showjumping]. I stayed at home writing, but actually fell asleep in front of the TV, but I woke up to watch Kenny Everett’s Video Cassette. They came home just as it finished at 9.30 and I went to bed, with a sore throat.