Suomessa

Blog Moved

2006-12-13T19:01:00.000+02:00

I have moved my blog to a new address. From now on you can read it at http://theslate.net.

Hope to see you there.

Mladen

Lobbying the EU

2006-11-20T00:08:00.000+02:00

I've had a very busy week; attended a few good lectures, heard lots of interesting things, had many engaging conversations and learned something too. Part of it was that I participated in a tremendously eye-opening workshop on lobbying the EU. Partly theoretical, but also very practical workshop, was led by a Belgian lecturer from the Ghent University Rik Otten who has himself spent some time in the EU political circles in Brussels, so he spoke from his own experience too.

Although I am sure that what I have heard in this short eight-hour workshop only barely scratched the surface on lobbying the EU, it was enlightening to hear about one aspect of the EU policy shaping. We heard all about how to prepare for lobbying campaigns, how and where to begin, the do's and do not's, the ethics, corruption, infamous cases--pretty much everything about lobbying in a tiny nutshell. It's a complex thing, but it all boils down to relationship management and chess-like techniques.

As it often is, many of the things are rather obvious, but nevertheless you one might not think of them immediately. For instance, before you can even begin lobbying you have to know what for and who you need to talk to. Sounds a lot easier than it is. So, how do you approach the right person? Networking. Go places where you will meet them, in other words purposefully bump into them and start the small-talk. Never mention your intentions the first time you meet. Talk about something completely else. Exchange business cards. Try to bump into them the second time. Talk more, you mention the topic you're lobbying for (or against), but don't present it as an issue or a problem. Not just yet; build the relationship first. Maybe after your third or fourth encounter you could give them a phone call and say something along the lines of: "Remember that thing we were talking about, well I've got some really interesting information about this I'll send your way." Then go play golf or tennis to discuss it. Not only that this sounds like, but it practically is dating.

In Brussels alone there are 15,000 lobbyists. Although being a lobbyist is nothing to be ashamed of, of those 15,000 trying to influence EU policy making, only 5,000 are registered as lobbyists. And I bet that most of them are registered just because registration allows them the access to the European Parliament, which is needed at least at some point. And 15,000 lobbyists does sound a bit scary if you try to imagine the clash of interests, I like the perspective EU officials are taking on this: one lobbyist means corruption, thousand provide a solution.

Power is useless if not used tactfully. If you personally know, for instance, the commissioner covering the area which you are trying to influence, it is an absolute no-no to contact them directly. High-ranking officials have power, but they practically never do the tedious research work or write documents and arguments themselves. They have assistants for that, and these assistants, who just like everyone else, don't like to hear from their boss what they have to write, how and when. So, if they hear your instructions from their boss, the chances are great they will bite back, won't write up, delay, or even skew something. In other words, you're screwed. It is the assistants you need to approach first and influence the commissioner through them. Befriend the small cogs in a huge apparatus, pursue them to be in favor of your cause, they will in turn change the system for you.

This, in fact, skilled lobbyists knew already very early on. I particularly liked the example of Philips. In the 1980's hundreds of people who were on the payroll of the Dutch electronics giant, worked in the offices of high-ranking EU politicians. Philips seeded people who were shaping the EU policies in favor of their business. I'm sure there were many companies or interest group doing the same thing. Generosity eventually went so far that the number and origin of high-ranking officials' little helpers needed to be restricted and monitored closely. Although these days it is not uncommon that assistants quit their well paid job and start working as lobbyists taking all their immediate knowledge and contacts to the new working place and utilizing it in a different setting within a different agenda.

And then there are the differences between lobbying in Brussels and Washington. In many ways what is legitimate lobbying in the US is corruption in the EU. How so? Common wining and dining is accepted in the US, but is considered corruption in the EU; politicians are often voted into the office with the support of a lobby group there, while such thing luckily doesn't happen around the EU. It seems like reason wins in Europe and money talks in the US.

Jack Abramoff is a case in point; the amount and variety of stuff Abramoff did so far in his lobbying career is quite impressive, even for a criminal record, I suppose. He obviously took things to the far when lobbying for the Indian gambling interests, thus his trial in January 2006 has inspired regulative actions both in the US with the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 and in the EU with Green Paper on European Transparency Initiative. A powerful gentleman, no doubt about that.

Anyway, the workshop was an extremely brief encounter with the world of lobbying, but nevertheless very insightful. Too often we easily forget that the world is run by the others. Thus even a peek into the inner workings of political behemoths is always a welcome enlightening. Knowledge is power.

Mladen

Pilkkiminen or How to Go Ice Fishin' in the Summer

2006-11-09T19:36:00.000+02:00

Who would have thought that the ice fishing season is already here? Well, if you ask the real pilkkijät it's always ice fishing season. Aha!?

Kind of difficult to understand, but let's grab the matter from what the rest of us consider logical prerequisite for ice fishing: frozen water, lots of thick frozen water. However, the ice fisherman, aka pilkkijä around here, loves his fun and doesn't even need much of that to go ice fishing.

I think this passion, or recklessness, depending on where you stand, is well illustrated by an ardent pilkkijä I once spoke to. His reply to my question how does he know that the ice is thick enough to go fishing was simple: "If piss melts ice through and through, that's when I go fishing." Yeah, but isn't that also when it's one centimeter thick, how do you walk on it then? "I crawl!"

Sure enough, pilkkijät are quite nuts. I haven't seen this gentleman crawl on all fours to the middle of the lake, open his zipper, take a leak and start fishing, but I can easily imagine what it looks like. Or then again I've seen these guys sitting on their mini chairs on the middle of a half-frozen lake, but was left scratching my head thinking how the hell they got there. Beam me up Scotty, anyone?

Pilkkijä is the pioneer. He's right there with the fauna; nothing stands between him and the fish, not even ice. He is always the first and the last to go on the ice. A stubborn and persistent man.

Not everyone makes it there and back, though. "Man drowns falling through the ice" is a headline one can spot almost daily in local papers for weeks every fall and spring as freezing cold weather comes and goes before it settles for good. It seems like these middle-aged men are as restless as small kids.

Last weekend overnight the temperature dropped to around 25C below the freezing point for a few hours and sure enough the local lake was filled with pilkkijät like woods are flooded with mushrooms after the rain. Hm, trying to walk on the ice myself, I quite quickly noticed that cracking on the contours of the shore makes it a bit too scary.

Once you figure out the whole ice thing (or if you are not scared of falling through into the freezing water, which, by the way, is another popular Finnish pastime anyway), then you find out that ice fishing is a childishly simple thing. Equipment is minimal, strong nerves and sturdy muscles are a prerequisite. A bottle of kossu, a drill, a fishing stick, live maggots, and a mini chair (optional) and you're ready to go.

Sitting it isn't. You don't just sit around waiting for the fish to get hooked. Nope, you have to work harder than that. Fish hardly move in the freezing cold water, so you have. Once a hole is drilled through meter plus thick ice (in winter, that is), you dip the bait and wait for a minute. Nothing? Get your ass up, walk a few meters, drill, dip, wait. Nothing? Repeat. And repeat you can, drilling sometimes even more than a hundred holes on a single fishing trip.

But once you drop your bait into the middle of the school, well then you just hope your hands are not too tired from the drilling. All you'll do now is wind up, take fish off the hook, dip, wind up, detach, dip, wind up, detach. And it's not unusual to catch from 10 to 20 kilograms. Now that's a lot of fish if they are between 10 to 15 centimeters long.

It takes about 30 seconds to drill a hole through a meter thick ice, so you quite easily spend a quarter of your fishing trip drilling through frozen water. Now that makes sense why pilkkijät prefer no ice at all and rather go ice fishing in the summer when there's no ice in sight. Ice and drill are obviously not necessary then, but you do need a large, flat piece of floating material with a hole in the middle and off you go ice fishing with cold beer instead of lukewarm kossu in your hand.

Just be careful when taking a leak, it can be just as deadly as falling through the ice.

Mladen

The Art of Complaining

2006-11-01T22:10:00.000+02:00

It is bureaucracy that is usually a pain in the ass. No matter the state, there is always a bureaucratic apparatus causing people unnecessary troubles demanding this and that stupidity for no apparent reason other than to serve that same bureaucracy and feed that clerk sitting behind the counter or in the next office you're sent to. The main pricks and proponents of the system being both the state and the bureaucrats themselves; neither know what exactly they want from you except that they want something and most often something useless, period. So, you are always sent from one office to another, waiting in lines, not knowing what is going to happen neither how long will the operation take. Will they give some money back? Or will they cut my pinky off?

But for one thing, Finnish bureaucracy has yet to ruin my day, or week, or month. Knock on the wood.

No, this isn't about bureaucratic annoyances which are found in abundance in too many places. Praise the bureaucrats in Finland as they know what they want and they won't bug you if it's not necessary. And they especially don't really need to see your face that often. Or so it seems. Annoyances lie elsewhere.

Savonlinja is a Finnish bus company that among other destinations also connects St. Petersburg and Helsinki. Everything fine up to here. But what is extremely annoying is that Savonlinja is charging more for their bus tickets to the Finnish citizens than to the Russian citizens for the same bus ride. I know, that is every tourist's reality and nightmare in many countries and even though they don't like it, they just shrug it off as a local specialty and since they most often don't speak the local language they don't bargain or enquire, but just open their wallets and pay. However, such a thing becomes unbelievably annoying if you know that you are being ripped off in a Western society, especially if you're ripped of for such a basic service as bus transportation is and even more so if you are ripped off in your home country. Namely they charge 36€ to their Russian customers, but 50€ to Finnish customers. Of course people are pissed off.

Then there are all those late trains. You see, Finland used to be a place where everything from meat section queue in the food store and the smallest town's public transportation to flight schedules is always, I mean always on time. Which means that you can happily shop for other groceries until it's your turn to get pork chops or that you can set your watch when the bus or the train arrives. However, in the recent month or so things have been falling apart and Finnish reputation for incredible punctuality has been ruined by the state railways VR.

Yes, Finnish trains used to be something one can rely on; sunshine or snow storm, they would always be on time. I have always been flattered. But recently they started resembling what I have experienced last summer while island hopping in Croatia. When inquiring about the ferry timetable at the ticket office of the ferry company Jadrolinija, the polite lady told me that the ferry is supposed to come at 15:40, but is always late. Why don't they change the timetable if it's always late, I wondered. But they don't. In Croatia that does not surprise me at all considering that many other more important things don't function the way they should. But how can it be the same with the super-duper Finnish railways. And the thing with the Finnish railways is that they have just changed and ruined a perfectly functional timetable. Unbelievable.

Another thing that is also very annoying around Finland is rude driving. Sure, you're fine if you're a driver sitting behind the steering wheel yourself. It's pleasant to drive in Finland, but it is annoying to be a pedestrian. It's as if almost every driver in Finland thinks that they are Mika Häkkinen. This is especially noticeable when you try to cross the street. As a pedestrian one can easily wait until there are no more cars coming in any direction. Even though as a pedestrian with an intention to cross the street one has the right of way. However, this is neither enforced nor respected, not even by the police as a Helsingin Sanomat journalist depicted in an article a few months ago and was almost run over by a police car. Yet another resemblance of unorganized society and yet another example of how rules don't count even a bit if they are not enforced.

Damn, I almost sound like a genuine Finn.

All these things don't go unnoticed. Not at all. They are all too often the burning topic of public discussions. Yes, Finns make themselves well known for being grumpy and constantly complaining: whether it is about how people all too easy get on their feet for a standing ovation after a mediocre or subpar performance, or about why the hell the Helsinki metro cars are orange as they are. Nothing and no one is spared in this society.

Complaining is hot property around here indeed, and it has been elevated even into an art form. The most notable (but surely not the only one) is the complaints work by duo Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta Kalleinen called, surprise, surprise: Complaints Choir. During the occasion of visiting a specific locale the duo collects the complaints from the local residents and assembles a choir from those very same select residents who have initially submitted their complaints. They write up the lyrics based on their complaints, compose a song and perform around town until they reach catharsis. Check out the clips of compalining in action in Birmingham and in Helsinki and hear the real Finnish complaints. I have one of my own to add: Why the hell is their server so slow?

Take it easy pals.

Mladen

PS: No, that guy in the middle of the Helsinki video of complaints choir is not me.

Welcome to Valtio

2006-10-25T12:10:00.000+03:00

Finland should mark August 26th 2006 as an important day in its history. It was on that day when its land area has been reduced by 50 m². But this time it wasn't the Russians who are to blame for taking over some of the Finnish territory, rather it was one of their own fellow compatriots, Ari Paska Peltonen (yes, Paska as in Shit paska) who took over a piece of territory and claimed independence.

Come again?

But there really isn't anything new about it either. You know, already for a while quite many such micronations, or microstates, have been in existence and every once in a while a new one pops up. There's the almost 40 years old Principality of Sealand, fundamentaly artistic Ladonia, the universal state of NSK-State, the state of all boundaries unified in Kingdoms of Elgaland&Vargaland, and the utterly civil Transnational Republic. In fact there are enough micronations in existence that in 2003 the first Summit of Micronations was organized in Helsinki. But if you keep a list of micronations, you can add a new one: Valtio.

Naturally one should ask, Why is this necessary? and Do we really need another state? I guess it's quite clear that all these micronations could just as well be called egonations as most often they are brainchildren of various artists and serve no other but purely egoistical purpose of their creators. But then again, how does that differ from the purpose of many other "real" nations. I'll let you muse on that one.

According to Ari Paska Peltonen the founding father of the Valtio (which literally means the State) the first sparks around the idea for the Valtio were made around the brief encounter and inspiring conversation during the Laibach concert in Helsinki where representatives of NSK-State were also present. The concept brewed in his head until he decided to get his own state. How to do it?

In a recent article in Nyt liite Mr. Peltonen describes in what can be seen as Valtio's manifest and public proclamation of independence, that his next step in the genesis of his State was to contact a professor of international law who told him that in order to have a state one needs at least three things: land, citizens and international relations. That easy? So, Ari went shopping for statehood.

He got the land for Valtio from Ilkka Malmberg a Helsingin Sanomat journalist who years ago out of curiosity bought the cheapest piece of land he could find in Finland--a hectare, to be exact. Being a generous fella, Ilkka donated a whole 10 by 5 meter piece of land to Ari. One down, two to go. Ari now needed only citizens and international relations. Piece of cake.

Creatures of the universe who intercept this transmission, and you dear earthlings too, can apply for Valtio's citizenship by sending an email to Ari Peltonen. I guess he cannot be too picky about his citizens as many states have become over time in granting something devoid of meaning that they mutually recognize, so I'm sure that your chances of obtaining Valtio's passport are pretty good right now. And I'm telling you this is an investment in your future. Read on.

Ari has already set up a government with four ministers and himself as the prime minister, president and the monarch. In September 2006 the government of Valtio had their first meeting and so far it looks like it is more stable then the new Swedish government appears to be, or Hungarian, for that matter. And now that they have the basic structure up, Valtio has already started the process of joining the EU, the UN and they are already looking into details on how to participate in the ice hockey, football world championships and, what is most important in the almighty Eurovision Song Contest. Paska has got all of it figured out. All these integrations will catapult Valtio into the last frontier of statehood; into having relations with other nations. But Valtio and Ari really do have stars on their side as the current EU's commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, speaks their language.

In fact, according to Ari Valtio has already applied for the EU membership and Olli has been positive about their application. All they are waiting for now is the official letter of invitation from the EU. And, of course, there's a minor detail I forgot to mention, the Finnish parliament must first decide whether they will give Valtio their independence or not.

So far, so good. It seems that Mr. Paska does not have any problems with the Finnish authorities. Although it is really hard to establish what the Finnish politicians make out of it. It seems like they have taken Ari's actions in a typically relaxed Finnish manner and as a witty move, rather than a serious attempt to alienate a piece of their land and ruin the country's integrity.

No worries, I'll keep you posted on how Valtio is doing.

Mladen

We Want More

2006-10-18T11:37:00.000+03:00

You probably remember that a few weeks ago I wrote about all the benefits students are entitled to in Finland. The monetary part, which is at the same time in my opinion also the part with the most profound impact on student's life, was established some 30 years ago. However, students have been receiving the same monthly allowance for the last 14 years now. Yes, the state has been rude enough not to take into account the inflation or changes in living costs for all those years.

But students want more, they always want more. Well, who doesn't. For several months already Finnish students have been quite eloquent regarding their demands. Being Finnish, they have kept it quite simple and to the point: "We want more money." No babbling. There's been lots of attention dedicated to the topic in both student newspapers issued by universities across the country as well as in the mainstream media. The response was sometimes mixed among the plebeians, but never among the students who know exactly what they are after. Not to mention that 127.000 people have signed the petition in favor of the rise (here's the pdf listing everyone who signed it).

The government has been quite silent and didn't take any concrete actions. Students have had it enough and took the matter to the streets. They want a 15% increase on their 260€ per month. But the minister of the finance did the calculations and figured out that this would cost the state more than 70 million Euros a year more. I understand both sides and as I've already written about it a few weeks ago, I think that the idea of student state support is an excellent one. Nevertheless, I think that students are pushing their luck a bit too far on this matter.

I'm not saying that they should go shopping around for a different model as this would result in benecide--killing of the benefits altogether. But some of them don't really get it how good they have it, even though it's just 260€+ Euros each month. I've spoken to a few of my Finnish friends who were not even aware that I am not receiving any such monthly benefits from any country. And outside of Nordic countries, as far as I know, no other country has anything like that. Although Finnish students are arguing that they get the least money of all the Nordic countries.

Of course, it's wonderful if practically 80% of your rent is paid for by the state, plus you get the pocket money for free. And you get free education and many other benefits. You should be rather happy. Really, come on, it's an incentive, a stimulation, a support and not free life kind of support. But then again even though the inflation in Finland has been extremely low and annually it never exceeded 3,4% in the last 14 years (it was only 0,9% in 2005 and 0,2% in 2004), it did eat away the total value.

I'll have to dig a bit, but it would be interesting to find out how this model even got started in the first place: what were the political and what were the real reasons for it, how did those benefits evolve, and so on. I'll make a follow up on the topic when I find out more about it.

Mladen

Humanity Knows No Borders

2006-10-11T13:33:00.000+03:00

I have no idea what to say. I've received so many useful comments regarding my last week's post that it will take me a while to process all that information--I have only a certain amount of time, two eyes, and one merely one ganglion. Meanwhile here's the fresh news from the North.

And interesting it is. Now, there probably isn't a non-ignorant soul in the Western world that wouldn't have already heard about the brutal murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, but for all those who have not yet, it's about time you read about it.

Any kind of murder is brutal and shouldn't be allowed to take place, but I guess the case of Politkovskaya echoes with incredible stamina because she was a strong opponent of president Putin's administration and his war in Chechenya. Her murder is more than just the act of killing of a person, it is the act of silencing and oppressing.

What made a very strong impact on me was how the Finnish society reacted to Politkovskaya's assassination. First of all, since Saturday, October 7th, when she was murdered, Finnish newspapers have been full of articles on the topic and writing in practically all sections from commentary articles from the editors, to the letters to the editor (except maybe sports and economy sections haven't touched on the subject).

Then there was the silent, candle protest in front of the Russian embassy in Helsinki where people have gathered semi-spontaneously the very next day, Sunday. More than 2.000 people gathered to mourn and protest against the oppression and in support of freedom of speech and press in Russia. It was the largest such event in the world, even larger than the one in Moscow.

It is not so much the full-page support for freedom of the press campaigns in many daily Finnish newspapers, which were published within the last few days that have impressed me so much. What made a strong impact on me is that people came out of their warm and comfortable homes to express their exasperations on the streets of Helsinki. They spontaneously understood what the brutal act means and that it is practically only the tip of the iceberg of many alarming human rights issues in Russia.

One of the public figures in Finland that also strongly condemned the violent act was also Finnish writer, producer and director Aki Kaurismäki. Aki harshly criticized the oppression of the press in Russia in an interview he gave to Novaya Gazeta in which he has also said that Novaya Gazeta is "the last free newspaper [in Russia]."

Kaurimäki has already on several occasions expressed his opposition to the Russia's military actions in Chechenya, but even more so in this interview where he has also said that "Russia should immediately pull out of Chechenhya and give the country its independence" and that "only then could KGB man prove that he is also a human being. Otherwise I cannot respect him."

The Novaya Gazeta journalist then asked him if he knows where Chechenya is. To which Kaurismäki straightforwardly replied: "Between Dagestan and Ingushetia, in the Northern Causasus." Journalist openly responded that he does not know that much about Finnish geography. To which Kaurismäki replied only: "Russia used to belong to Finland."

Emotionally laden memories from the past spring forth.

Mladen

Check: One, Two

2006-10-04T12:11:00.000+03:00

Have you ever heard about the two Suns effect? No? I'm not surprised. Neither have I, until last night. You can experience it while you stand right at the equator. I mean, right on the equatorial line; one foot on the northern hemisphere, the other on the southern hemisphere; right above the spot where the halves of the egg shell connect, not a millimeter further. You have to be really precise about this as when you move just a bit, both Suns disappear.

When you stand at that exact point, positioned precisely as I have instructed just now, look up towards the sky, right down the equatorial line and you'll see the two Suns not far from each other: one floating above the southern hemisphere, while the other doing the same thing over the northern hemisphere. You don't even have to look far away, or with the two eyes staring apart in different directions (which not many people are trained to do, anyway)--you'll see both Suns right there in front of you, with both of your eyes. One eye, one Sun, the other eye, the other Sun. Does that sound familiar? I feel like I've just been there.

But, equator is far from me, really far ... Too far, in fact. And so is that one Sun--not to mention how far you'll have to go to reach the other one. Far. The equator actually is reachable rather easily. The Sun? Well, that's a different story. You can see it, but you can't really ever get there and experience it first hand. The equator is an agreed line. Tyhmä juttu. The Sun is all scientifically explained and real. Tosi juttu. Or is it? I guess it's like going to the origin of the rainbow. Have you ever been there? I have, but then, surprise, the rainbow disappears. Does someone know if the same happens with the Sun when you actually get there? Could be. Let me know.

So, what about that other Sun? That one is just as hard to reach and it might just as well disappear when you get there too. I don't know. All I know is that they are all a rainbow.

I've been writing on this spot for a bit over a year now. And it has been a very pleasant and sometimes even rewarding experience. It is especially rewarding when I'm reading about my own writing in digested and reinterpreted form, like for instance here and here. In one word: fun. But not fun enough, though. Why?

When starting this blog in August 2005 I opened it up and wrote my post with mixed feelings. I perceived it both as an experiment while I was at the same time also curious about the blogging experience since before I've only been reading other people's blogs. And then again, I set a very ambitious goal for the blog: to keep in touch with friends on a regular basis and possibly to make some new acquaintances in the process. Ambitious.

Despite the fact that I've been reading quite a few blogs on a regular basis, I really saw the whole blogging phenomena as a new television: you sit and read (instead of watch), you're entertained and when you're done reading, you almost forget what the hell you were reading about. Of course, it was not always exactly like that, but quite often it was. You left with a smile on your face and many saw it as way of wasting time. How could it be different from the television?

And I never really put much thought into what makes those blogs interesting, at least what brings me time and again to those same places. I guess there were so many different things that amused me, which made it so much more difficult to put my finger on something more specific. Then I've opened my own vent and suddenly I was in the position of all those bloggers whose interesting writing I've been reading before. Although I have to admit that I never had any problems with finding the topic of my writing; there has always been plenty of stuff that I've had in my little head that I wanted to discuss in either a dialogue or a monologue (read: a blog). No, the problem lied somewhere else: what would people like reading about, or what would make people like me keep returning to that very same blog on a regular basis.

On this spot I've discussed many things from daily trivia, to politics shit, I've been writing my travelogues and talked about art shows and cultural peculiarities. I even posted several hundred pictures. And believe me, there's a lot of stuff still in the pipeline. But before I return to the old rut of writing the blog my way and begin discussing some dull politics or how cultural this-or-that baloney, I'd like to hear from you, you who read this blog. Whether you've been reading it regularly or whether this is the first post you've read, it does not matter at all. I want to hear from you.

Drop me a line or two in the comments department (think of it as letters to the editor). Tell me: what you've found to be fun; what entertained you; what you've been missing; what I should write more about; what pissed you off; what made you happy; do you like reading long posts or are you a snippet type; do you love your grandma's cooking or are your clients full of it. It doesn't have to be blog or blogging related at all, but if it has something to do with me and you or you'd just like to tell me something, I want to hear from you. Knowing who my readers are will hopefully help me keep it fresh and fun to read in the future too.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Mladen

The Land of Milk and Honey (Students Only, Sorry)

2006-09-27T17:41:00.000+03:00

Being a student in Finland is an awfully nice thing. There are indeed so many benefits students are entitled to that naturally many want to extend their student years as much as they possibly can. Thus it's not that uncommon to be a student in Finland even for the unthinkable 15 years or more ... and being proud of it. Let's take a look at what makes it so appealing.

You guessed it, this is all about money. OK, the profession of a student is even in Finland not really a profitable business. However the state gives out a lot of money to and for their students. Not only in form benefits like well organized and almost free health care, but also as hard cash straight into your bank account. So, being a student in Finland is a double benefit: Finland is said to have one of the best educational systems in Europe (and maybe even in the world) which is free for everyone, plus some get even paid to get that education. What more could you want? A lot more.

But there is a catch you should know about before you start packing your stuff, get the plane ticket and move to the land of milk and honey. The most lucrative benefits are reserved for Finnish citizens and residents, and neither of the two statuses are easily achievable for foreigners. Although I have met a few students here who have come from the US and have made it quite clear that by coming to Finland they will not only get a great life experience, but will also save tons of money they would otherwise spend on tuition. The education in Finland is free for everyone, period.

So how good do you have it if you happen to be entitled to all the benefits. Here comes the first surprise for the many. You are catered to already as a high schooler. Yes, the kids get a monthly allowance from the state already when they begin attending the high school. This simple (or not so simple) action shifts a whole range of parameters and immensely benefits the society as a whole. The money high schoolers receive is for many a sum enough to help them move away from their parents' fridges and get a life. Which needless to say has many great advantages for young people as they do become more independent at much earlier age than, for instance, in countries like Slovenia where kids quite often move away from their parents well into their twenties.

And this does not turn Finnish kids into leeching slackers living on the behalf of the state. Quite the contrary: the money they receive is just a well placed incentive that prompts them to get that part-time job and learn how to earn enough money to make it on their own with the help of the state's allowances. Think seed money rather than free ride mentality.

Once they leave the high school and enter into the higher education things change a bit, but they only get better. When attending the higher education, students first receive money for the 55 months--if they decide to take a leap year, they stop receiving benefits during that time, but can then pick up on everything as they left it once they decide to continue persuading their degrees again. Same goes for continuing education. If you get a BA and then decide to work towards the MA, you receive another 20 months of government support.

But getting a sum of money every month without any strings attached (as long as you study and pass courses) is not all. Students also get covered as much as 80% of their rent up to 252€ a month. Back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that if renting a 250€ flat, a student receives 200€ for the flat on top of 260€ monthly allowance, which sums up to 460€ each month. Not bad.

That's the hard cash part. But the benefits don't end here for Finns and residents while they just begin for us foreigners. Every holder of the Finnish student card gets 50% discounts for all train and bus fares around the country. For instance, the regular price for the return train ticked from Jyväskylä to Helsinki costs 90€, while students pay only 45€ (the total distance of the trip is 724 km). All students are also entitled to subsidized meals in designated restaurants and cafeterias around the country where meals cost from 1€ to 2,35€. And technically speaking you can have as many as you want in a single day as there are no food quotas.

Then there's the practically free health care as you only have to pay if you need to see a specialist, and even then it's cheap. Also dental work costs, but then again prices are really low. Dentist charges around 6€ per filling, which is basically free in comparison to the regular dental prices which can be even ten times as much. So, it is not that uncommon for the students who are about to enter the working world to pay a visit to their dentist in exchange for peanuts, for the very last time.

As you can imagine student benefits do not end here. Students are entitled to discounted prices for all museums and exhibitions, cultural events like theater plays, classical music concerts, opera, then again unfortunately it is not usual that there would be student discounts for events like rock concerts, but as a student you do get substantial discounts for various newspaper and magazines subsscriptions, for instance, a 50% discount when subscribing to the superb daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

Mladen

The Scandalous, The Worst and The Scientific

2006-09-20T08:45:00.000+03:00

Just like in every culture, music has an important role in Finland too. But I don't really intend to go into the details about how it all begun. First of all, I've no idea about it, and secondly, I don't think you'd enjoy reading some dry history stuff. Let's dig out the entertaining and funny tidbits instead.

There are very mixed feelings about Finnish music both around the globe, Europe and right here in Finland. Like, for instance, the annual Eurovision contest, which has due to terrible consecutive results of Finnish performers reached the level of being nothing less than a national trauma. Until, of course, this year when Finland won the contest with Lordi and surprised everyone, even itself.

And I think Lordi is a good example of how out of tune consensual Finnish musical taste is. When they won the national competition, everyone from broadsheet newspapers to yellow press and grandmas on the streets went ballistic about how Lordi will bring eternal shame to the country. Fast-forward a few months and they literally became national heroes being received by both president Tarja Halonen and prime minister Matti Vanhanen, having squares named after the band, statues erected, and on top of everything even getting their own bank card. From bitches to riches in an eye blink. And I cannot really imagine that the queen would hold a reception for the Sex Pistols at the height of their career. But then again, this is Finland after all.

OK, everyone knows Lordi and it ain't really fun anymore now that they are swarmed with sexually explicit letters from their German fans. There's much more to Finnish music than Lordi can offer.

Take, for example, the notorious former world-class ski jumper Matti Nykänen. His career in sports literally catapulted him (no pun intended) into everlasting bingeing, and along the way he became a stripper, a porn star and, yes, even a singer. And I've just scratched the surface here: he has said and done many admiringly stupid things. Even though many regard him to be a tragic character, he's proud of it all. No, really, to do justice to Matti, I'd have to write a separate post. But I'll stick to the topic and write about Matti some other time.

I've no idea why he's so popular as a singer, but I sure noticed that sometimes it's really hard to tell if people and media are laughing with Matti or at Matti. But at the same time, I don't think he's able to make a distinction either. I haven't yet had a chance to see Matti perform live, but cannot wait for that moment to come.

So what does Matti cherish in his songs? He elaborates on V-style (jumping V-style with sexual connotations, that is), jumping and flying (in aptly named song Jump and Fly), on being Topless (I wonder which part of his career inspired this song), he confesses about a Night of surprises (I'm sure there have been many such nights during his long career) and Laps (lap as in lap dance - probably inspired by Topless). But he also touches on more ethereal topics in songs such as are Samurai, Markiisi De Sade (yes, that is Marquis de Sade), and about love and even life itself in the song meaningfully entitled Elämä on laiffi or Life is Life. 'Nuff said, check them out and you'll know what I mean. All those who went gung-ho about Matti here's more. Amen.

Let's stay on the infamous side for just a bit before we move on to hard science stuff. Are you also too young to remember why Finland sucked so bad in the Eurovision contests practically since its inception? I sure am, but that's why I like the Internet so much as it brings back things some people would rather forget. What you are about to see is not really Eurovision material, but I cannot imagine it got much better than this. It is a music video of a song I Wanna Love You Tender performed by Finnish duet Armi and Danny that was labeled as the worst video ever. I know it was in the 80's, but people, please. Just watch!

I'd like to know just one thing: what were these people thinking?

And now for something completely different. Even though it wasn't really invented in Finland, air guitar is very popular around here. Actually, so popular that since the 1996 Air Guitar World Championships have been organized as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival. Pretty cool. "And just how is air guitar related to creating music?" I hear you grumble. Well, smart kids at the Helsinki University of Technology have as a part of their school project created an air guitar that you can actually play. Their Virtual Air Guitar records the movements of your hands as you do the air guitar and it transforms your gestures into sounds. Every drunk rocker's dream just came true. Although I particularly like one kid's honest reaction: "Look mom, magic gloves!"

The result is so cool indeed that you have to check out the videos for yourself. Especially make sure you check out the wannabe rocker professor video.

Rock on.

Mladen

Finnish Delicacies: Mämmi

2006-09-13T18:46:00.000+03:00

I know it's a bit unusual that I've been in Finland for more than a year now, but have so far barely mentioned anything regarding Finnish food in my posts. What's on offer and how am I surviving on the poor Finnish diet are the most frequent questions asked. Poor diet? I don't think so. But I see where that is coming from.

Most recently the reputation of Finnish food has been stumped by political leaders of two countries: France and Italy. After their visits to Finland Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi have been bashing food they ate in Finland. I've no idea what they were offered, but I do know that both gentleman are easily arrogant and insulting. Which makes me believe their statements have very little to do with the actual food. Constipated gentlemen take your own sandwiches with you next time.

Since the time when crops can grow is considerably shorter this far in the north, especially in comparison to Central and Southern Europe, one has to get creative with what can be grown (although admittedly technology has left an imprint on agriculture too). But there's plenty of forest fruits, mushrooms and game that spice up Finnish cuisine. Of course, there are staple foods like bread, meat, potatoes which are practically the same as they are in other Western societies. But far more interesting is the weird stuff.

Talking about weird stuff, my favorite weird Finnish dish is mämmi. And I don't think food gets more bizarre than mämmi around here. It is probably the most unique of all dishes in Finland; there's nothing like it found anywhere else in the world (OK, a close relative in Iran, but I wonder how are they actually related and what that relative looks and tastes like).

Mämmi is a traditional Finnish Easter dessert Finns abominate and adore at the same time. Kids loath it because of its looks. And it really does look like a pile of shit, even on the serving suggestion photos embellishing the packaging containing mämmi where it really looks like shit floating in cream and covered with sugar. Mmmm! I understand kids. Polled adults also tend to grimace upon hearing the word mämmi or, even better, words mämmi and like in the same sentence or, god forbid, next to each other. But I don't understand the adults as they are most likely the ones buying it. The stores are full of mämmi from January to April and during the peak consumption times it even runs out, making it hard to get. Which means that I had to check a few stores before finally getting my daily fix of mämmi.

To feed both your curiosity and to provide a spark for your imagination, check out at least the first few images and let me know what you think.

So, what is this mämmi? Mämmi is a dessert made out of rye flour, rye malt, water, sugar, salt and spices. Although it is fairly easy to make, the preparation is a time consuming process recommended for the patient only as it can easily take a whole day to make and is best when it is made in large quantities. Not for the faint hearted. The process involves several cycles of cooking rye flour and malt in water and cooling the mixture before finally sticking it into the oven for a few hour baking session. The baking part is traditionally done in birch bark baskets. The result is, well, peculiarly looking and incredibly tasty rye porridge hated on declaratory level, but obviously loved by most Finns.

Mämmi is served fresh, but must be chilled to fridge temperature and covered with cream and sugar just before eating (I like my mämmi with cream only). Of course, it tastes like rye (duh!), but considering that the amount of sugar used for making it is practically nil, it is surprisingly sweet, rye kind of sweet. I adore mämmi and based on my observations, I am sure many around me do too, but they are just not ready to get out of their mämmi closets yet.

Mämmi is just a beginning of a truly interesting excursion into the peculiarities of Finnish cuisine. Writing about all of them at once would do justice to none and some of you might even get bored. Thus, do come back and help yourself to seconds. One spoon at a time.

Mladen

Art Week

2006-09-06T21:18:00.000+03:00

How do you know that you're visiting Linz during the time of Ars Electronica Festival? When half of the passengers on your plane to Linz are Japanese. What is otherwise a small sleepy city in the Upper Austria, annually becomes a bustling world center of electronic and digital art for a week in the beginning of September. And it was exactly the Ars Electronica festival that has put Linz on the world map.

I've been coming here for quite a few years now, and whenever I've visited I've never left disappointed. Quite the contrary, this is such an exciting place that I can easily forget to eat and sleep while being here. Might be a bit hard to understand, but those who are similarly passionate (no matter what your passion is) know what I mean. And I am not the only one. During the week long festival a lot of festival goers, artists, researchers and art lovers consume art and attend lectures during the day and party hard into the morning hours.

Every year the organizers assign a topic for the festival which is then discussed in the symposia, discussions and brought to life in a variety of workshops. The topic this year was simplicity. The discussion was at all times about how the striving for simplicity in our increasingly complex world, what to do to reach it and why is it so important. An interesting topic, which has spurred many an interesting presentation and discussion.

But lectures are just a forum where ideas are verbalized. The majority of attention falls on the exhibitions. And every year the festival program is richer as more venues and events where visitors can enjoy the works of digital contemporary artists are added to the list. But, speaking about quantities is not really that interesting. I'll rather mention details that caught my attention and which I've enjoyed most.

Practically all art presented at the festival is divided into six categories: interactive art, digital musics, computer animation/visual effects, digital communities, net vision and u19 - freestyle computing. Although one cannot really measure progress in arts, it seems like a certain level of achievement satisfaction can be attributed to the computer animation/visual effects category.

The works presented in this category have clearly reached an incredible level of complexity. Less than ten years ago, one could see clever works, but they nevertheless resembled garage works. What one sees at Ars Electronica nowadays is outright incredible display of high quality art and technological prowess. The viewer doesn't have to pretend anymore that they don't see the patched up low-tech with a good plot and a nice twist. Practically all the works are polished to the very last detail. Not in the sense of Hollywood blockbusters (although there's every year at least few of those who get some attention too), but rather in Hollywood superficial sense. Whereas works submitted by Hollywood received a lot of attention for years, the independent or school projects now kick their ass. Hollywood should learn from these people. Thus it comes as a no surprise that the award winners in this category this year supposedly already got lucrative job offers.

It is amazing to witness how the presence at the Festival pulls artists from obscurity and into the center of digital arts scene. At the Festival almost without exception receive a whole barrage of invitations and offers.

One of my favorites was indisputably Ryoichi Kurokawa and his intensive, visually striking and musically rich audio/video performance. His incredible skill of combining sounds with visuals almost drives you crazy. The piece he has performed was both technically perfected, as well as aesthetically complex yet balanced. In fact, it was so beautiful that putting it to words comes nowhere near to experiencing it in first person. Browse around his site and try to catch him play.

Another act that really impressed me was the Graffiti Research Lab group. The Lab was thought up by New Yorkers James Powderly and Evan Roth who tend to describe themselves as not gutsy enough to do the graffiti themselves, but admire all those phlegmatic graffiti artists who are responsible for enriching our urban landscapes. But they wanted to give them a hand and augment the paint bucket and spray can. The duo came up with several immensely clever albeit simple ways of doing this. And they excel at it and even NY cops love it.

GRL guys have won the hearts of the public with their throwies: a 1 buck, 20 second retrograde hi-tech graffiti solution. By strapping together a simple consumer LED light, battery and a strong magnet, they have started a whole craze around the net and on the streets. All of a sudden they became magnetic themselves as they were approached even by the Absolut marketing machine (cooperation with which they have blatantly - and rightfully so - refused). Their throwies stick to any ferromagnetic surface and thus far have adored everything from buildings, bridges and sculptures in New York, to, after their most recent action, Linz trams. Make sure you check the videos on their site.

At this years' Ars Electronica I have also immensely enjoyed works by Zachary Lieberman. Besides the performance/lecture done in collaboration with artist/engineer Golan Levin and media archeologist and Finnish star professor Erkki Huhtamo, Zach had three of his works at Ars: drawn, The Manual Input Station and Messa di Voce (the latter two done in collaboration with Golan Levin). Although all these works are interactive and children love them, they are also ingenious visually elegant sound works. They all demand interaction from the audience and are great for jamming. But I have to say that seeing Zach and Golan perform with their creations was truly inspiring. Especially make sure you check out the videos on the sites of these projects, since it's all in the interaction.

Then there were the nerd-retro Papierpixel and PingPongPixel; the unbelievably cool self-destructive (but also self-assembling) Robotic Chair; undeniably cool Khronos Projector and Hello World!. I think I could go on and on about all the projects I have liked. If you've never been to Ars Electronica, you should go. So far I have not met anyone who wouldn't have fun there.

But Ars Electronica is also all about networking, partying and hanging around with the most creative people in the digital contemporary arts.

Later tonight I'll update the gallery with a bunch of images from the festival. Make sure you check it out as there's some pretty nifty stuff there too.

Mladen

Greetings From Nokia

2006-08-30T10:48:00.000+03:00

It all started in the mid-19th century, in 1865 to be precise. Although almost everyone today recognizes Nokia as one of the world's leading high-tech companies, it has not always been that. However, it is true that at the time when they were making other things than mobile phones, one could argue that Nokia was riding the then current technology wave. But world was a much bigger place back then. And over the years Nokia has been producing a whole range of products, some of which one might not even associate with it.

Nokia started out in the communication industry of the day - paper industry. As a paper manufacturer Nokia wood mills was producing the whole paper range from news paper to toilet paper. I don't know exactly when they have ceased the toilet paper production, but it is not uncommon even today to spot around Finland paper towel dispensers and toilet paper holders bearing the company's name. And it was actually those that startled me and I wanted to learn more about the history of Nokia.

However, a nearby Finnish Rubber Works factory acquired Nokia paper factory and the joint venture went on to use the name Nokia as a brand name. During this paper-rubber period on the rubber part of the venture Nokia has been producing a variety of rubber products. Already then one of the biggest customers was in the defence as Nokia was producing rubber items for the military. However, their line of products spawned from tires to rubber boots which they still manufacture today.

And rubber boots are an extremely handy item in this swampy land. They are, however, often worn as a fashion statement too as they do come in bright yellow and pink colors, along with the traditional black. Interesting enough, the decision to make bright-colored rubber boots came in the mid-20th century and was an intentional fashion move. Nokia's rubber boots were up until this year hand-made right here in Finland (now the company has moved its rubber boot production overseas).

Then came the era of electricity. After World War I the rubber and paper Nokia acquired the Finnish Cable Works. One could speculate that the move was made as clever executives forsaw what electricity might bring along. Before the Finnish Cable Works was established in 1912 all telegraph, electricity and telephone lines were manufactured of imported materials. The company's executives obviously figured out that they could make money off of it and Nokia started manufacturing all kinds of electrical cables. That importantly inlcuded even specializing in underwater cables production, an operation which put Nokia on a global map.

A big remnant of the cable era is the still standing, but now utilized for other purposes, Kaapelitehdas (the cable factory) in Helsinki. The now defunct factory now owned by the city of Helsinki serves as a friendly host to the whole range of cultural institutions, galleries, artists' ateliers and small businesses. Due to the self-initiative of Kaapelitehdas early residents, it is viewed as a model of transforming abandoned industrial premises into an important cultural center.

By allowing the Kaapelitehdas to be taken over by the cultural sphere Nokia definitely made an excellent move. One could not say equally so about their Connect to Art digital arts project which is all shiny and sparkling on the surface, but is based on a flawed concept equating the traditional and digital arts. When you scratch the surface of Connect to Art is almost immediately becomes obvious that it's rather a clever marketing stunt than a project made to support art.

Fast-forward to the last decade of the 20th century. It was only in the 1990s that Nokia almost entirely shifted its focus to the making of mobile phones and mobile network equipment. Although it's mobile operations date back into 1960s when Nokia again got an order from the miliatry to develop mobile communications network.

It is rather amusing to look at those early attempts at mobile communications. Nokia's early commercial mobile phones were literaly the size of a small portable fridge. And I'm not talking about the 60s here, this was in the 1991 and the portable fridge size phone was the first GSM phone. I have no idea how many were made and how many sold, but I am sure that they sold a few as the development of the technology did go on. Now that first GSM phone is on display in the Media Museum in Tampere.

(Although the first hand-portable phone, as the like to call them, was an NMT Nokia Cityman placed on the market in the distant 1987. Hm, after seeing the first GSM model it makes me wonder how big the Cityman was and who the hell carried that around. Check out that first GSM in the gallery.)

In fact, those and later phones became so popular that only a few years after Nokia begun making mobile phones, they could not meet the demand and the company almost collapsed as they were striving to supply the much belowed kännykät (a term for mobile phone cleverly implanted by Nokia's marketing department which is still used in the Finnish slang).

Today Nokia is a company that is best known as a mobile phone innovator and manufacturer. It operates ten manufacturing plants around the globe and employs almost 70.000 people. And indeed Nokia is the world leader in production and sales of mobile phones. Nokia churns out an amazing 900.000 mobile phones every single day and has, as a lesson learned from the near collapse in the 1995, developed one of the most sophisticated supply chain systems. Supposedly it is this knowledge that keeps Nokia ahead of its competitors.

What at first might sound a bit odd, that the forefathers of this mobile phone manufacturer have gone from producing toilet paper, to rubber, to cables, was actually an excellent set of decisions made by the owners. The leaders of Nokia have not feared to take daring steps and diversify their business - it kept them afloat and ahead of their time as the company has become a trendsetter. So, no wonder that Nokia is today seen as a high-tech wonder and a silver bullet for the not so long ago stagnating Finnish economy.

And it all started in a small town of Nokia in central Finland where a part of this global goliath still operates today. Quite a joruney.

Greetings from Nokia.

Mladen

Trading on the Commodity Markets

2006-08-23T14:38:00.000+03:00

Before I get to this week's topic a brief update on previous week's writing. First of all, the smoke situation is hardly getting any better. Some days it's really bad. On Monday the smoke in Helsinki made the city look like it's covered in fog. I've read in today's papers that a garbage dump is on fire near Viipuri in Russia. Great.

But drinking and drowning even tickeled your fingers and I've received a few emails. Most of you thought it's quite tragic, but nevertheless found it to be amusing. According to statistic which has been kept since at least 1990, when the air temperature rises a single degree, the amount of deaths caused by drowning rises by seven. This year alone, as of mid-August, 82 people have died. I vote for cold and sunny weather.

Now let's move on to business.

Getting rich on the stock market is so late 90's. Selling Microsoft, buying Google? Get a life. What's hot and hip now is getting loaded on the commodity markets. Stop following the London Gold Fixing twice a day and forget about oil. The bullion of the future lies in plastic, glass and aluminum. And there ain't any better place to get rich by trading these right here, in Finland. No provisions, no taxes, pure hard Euros.

Why don't I just keep my mouth shut and get filthy rich? Now, I sure thought about this too. But, I've gathered that most of you live some place else, and then again, I thought, there's plenty of room for high profits for all those whomever decide to move here. Interested?

At the moment especially aluminum is highly profitable and there's nothing to lose, thus no need for any day trading skills whatsoever. And the best part is that the market is still in the expansion phase. The aluminum market alone will grow more than 15 million Euros next year. Think about it, all this cash might be mine. Excited? I sure am, but unfortunately it ain't as easy as it sounds since the competition is, well, quite competitive (and there are other hidden traps I'll reveal later).

An ounce of aluminum is worth 0,30€ (10,58/kg). OK, not that much, I hear you saying, for a metal that is light and hard to get. But what if I tell you that you can find aluminum at that price laying around all over Finland (especially in the summer in populated areas) in the form of cans. That's right, after consuming their favorite beverage 99% of consumers politely place their canisters onto a curb or on top of a trash bin for others to collect. And you can cash in each can at 0,15€ in any practically any grocery store. Yes, these people do pay for what you then collect.

And the best part is that when you collect the money, you also collect the 22% VAT that someone else paid to the state. And guess what, the same goes for almost all plastic and glass beverage bottles. Quite nifty I say.

Although everything seems really simple when you do the calculations on your napkin, it is a tad bit different when you're on the streets trying to realize your well crafted business plan. First of all you're not the only one who thought about doing the same thing. Which means that you have to have sharp vision and be agile. Then you have to know where people drink and at what time of the day. Because if you're five minutes late, you're late and, bang, the treasure has been already collected by the tölkkimummo (or the "can grandma" as they are called around here). Capitalism and communism all in one; I can see Marx and Weber in ecstasy. And then there's the butterfly effect: if the weather turns sour, so will your profits.

In spite of the huge opportunity to get wealthy waiting for you to come and get it, you have to do your homework first. Here are some tips from the experienced tölkki collector:
- begin running and learn how to snatch;
- eat lots of carrots for sharper vision and get night-vision goggles for the night shifts in the spring and fall seasons;
- survey the hood, even better, acquaint yourself with the whole city;
- learn where the teenagers hang out;
- carry lots of large disposable plastic bags;
- if you see lots of goods, run for the most valuable ones first, i.e. cans and plastic bottles, pick glass bottles last;
- get a bike;
- do not fear tölkkimummot, rather befriend them, they can be real comrades when not on duty.

If you want to make a living in Finland, you probably won't make it, but you can make a decent amount of money without much effort (as in pocket money). I've decided to jump into the commodity market for a month and give it a shot. Here's the outcome. I worked 15 hours during that month and earned 55€, which translates into 3,6€/hour. Bad? Depends! In Slovenia one is usually offered only a few cans' worth more for jobs that demand exponentially more skills, challenges, responsibilities and intellectual agility. So, if you live there, forget about that lousy job at a software company coding your eyes away and come here and collect cans for the summer and earn something. But if you're a Finn, well, then the job is not really in the upper earning scale and you might want to get a job.

May the harvest be plentiful, tölkkimummot of Finland.

Mladen

All About Fire and Drinking on the Rapids

2006-08-16T08:58:00.000+03:00

Summer months in Finland have been unusually warm this year. While the temperature hovers around 25°C, which I really don't find to be exceptionally warm, there's been practically no rain in almost two months. Which does feel rather unusual. Anyway, the country has been going through the driest period in the last hundred years. As a consequence both farmers and firefighters have been struggling to get a grip on nature. And to get a grip on neighboring country's politics.

Naturally the weather does not end at any political borders. Thus at least north-western part of Russia has been going through the same drought that's present in Finland. While Finnish firefighters are trying to stay ahead of the nature and are diligently putting out fires, their Russian counterparts are doing very little while facing the same kind of fires.

The fires have in the last few weeks reached such size and strength that smoke has covered pretty much the whole central and southern Finland. It doesn't take a super sensitive person in, for instance, Helsinki to sniff out that something is burning and quite intensely too. Not to mention that the very same smoke can also be clearly seen as a strong yellowish haze.

OK, one can understand, fires can get big and out of hand making them difficult to put out. But how did they get to such proportions in Russia? They simply did not bother to put them out. Supposedly they started doing something about the problem only after being tapped on the shoulder by the Finnish government. And even when Finnish firefighters have crossed the border to help their comrades, they were sent back home and told not to come back. Unbelievable.

However, the nice weather also has other persistent consequences which are endemic over here. I need not point out again that Finland is the country of thousands of lakes and that when the weather heats up people flock to any kind of water to cool off (read at least the previous week's post for more details, if you haven't yet). Combining the water and people is perfectly fine, but adding alcohol to the mixture causes nothing but trouble.

Why? I guess that's obvious: people drown easily. How? Now, that's a different story, several actually. The weather is nice, the water refreshing, booze flows in streams, life couldn't be sweeter. Then problems materialize, seemingly out of nowhere. The obvious deadly combination is that the drunk person decides to go for a swim ... and they return only after being pulled out the next day by the too often too late rescue crew.

The less obvious way of drowning, but equally common (if not even the most common) is that they decide to either go fishing or rowing on a, let's get this straight, placid lake. They climb into a boat with an extra bottle of Koskenkorva (which by the way, literally means "an area by the rapids" - the name that could hardly be more appropriate for the occasion) or other favorite kind of booze and dip paddles into the water. Sooner or later the bladder gets full. It desperately needs to be emptied. He stands up, opens the zipper, wobbles for a bit and oops ... capsizes the boat. Pretty much a death sentence.

Bingeing turns into tragedy ... and statistic according to which during the summer most men by far drown in lakes with their zippers wide open. And the nicer the weather the more of them there is. Which, if one thinks a bit, is quite sad. Maybe it's about time the weather turns cold and rainy after all.

Urinate responsibly my friends.

Mladen

Kesämökille

2006-08-09T11:10:00.000+03:00

Every Finn has two homes. The first always close to their working place where they spend most of their time. Most often an apartment in an urban area. While their second home is their kesämökki (or summer cottage) which must stand in the midst of the forest and close by a lake. As mökki (as it is often called) is a place off work, quite naturally, most spend as much time as they can afford there. It is at the mökki where they try to get away from their everyday routines. The essence of life at the summer cottage is not to do anything more significant than relaxing. And they are rather good at doing exactly this.

Almost every summer cottage is at first just a hut with a sauna; sauna is the most important thing. There is no mökki without the sauna, or to put it another way around, if the kesamökki does not have sauna it is simply not a kesämökki. And the sauna is used just like it was in the old days: it is the place for maintaining personal hygiene and as a source of hot water. While a nearby lake is used for getting the water for creating humidity in the hot room and as a place to cool off between the sauna sessions. Hours at a time are spent here.

Once sauna is in place only then gradually other facilities are developed nearby: a grill place for cooking, a dock for easier access to the lake and a small hut for sleeping. Whenever possible, these are never too close to one another, as Finns are people who do appreciate having a lot of space around them.

Although mökki is a place for relaxation, it is itself also a never-ending project as there is always something that is either in need of building, repairing or at least painting. However, most of the time spent at the mökki is used for nothing else but eating, drinking, sauna and resting.

The preparations for the visit to the summer cottage include an extensive shopping for groceries. Amounts of food and drinks consumed at the cottage are simply incredible. Thinking about spent time there quite often brings recollections no other but of eating and drinking from getting up until going to bed.

But as easy as it might seem, spending time at the mökki might not be that calming for the faint hearted. In the kesamökki there's no electricity, no running water, no sewer, no nothing. Whereas these conditions don't rise any brows around here, I cannot really imagine that a central European family could and in fact would choose to spend their holidays by candles in the dark, washing themselves in the lake and taking a dump behind a tree. Circumstances which Finns might not even regard as worth thinking about seem rather harsh even for their geographically close neighbors Swedes. (I don't know where Russians stand on this.)

There's another specialty of Finns' summer cottages which is particularly dear to me. Mökit are real time capsules. No, they don't bury anything. They are too practical for such stupidities. Mökki owners bring to their cottages all the stuff they don't need anymore anywhere else (or didn't want in the first place, such as are, for instance, ugly and useless gifts). Mökki hence becomes a living home decoration and fashion time capsule.

If you ever befriend a Finn and they invite you to their kesämökki, don't even think about not accepting the invitation. If you happen to live in the city, mökki experience will most likely be the closest you'll ever get to living like Grizzly Adams, ever.

Check out some new images in the gallery and enjoy your summer.

Mladen

På Svenska

2006-08-02T16:17:00.000+03:00

I've moved to Helsinki for a few months and this has opened a whole new opportunity to thoroughly explore the southern part of Finland. Visiting a place for a few days is always nice, but it's quite hard to get to know it better during a short period of time. But staying somewhere for a longer time lets one do more that just scratch the surface.

For a country so far in the north it's not hard to figure out that the southern part was populated first and is still the most populous area. Depending on your perspective, this, however, does not also mean that the most interesting things happen in the most populous areas. But here, I'd have to say that this is the case.

For most of its history Finland has been juggled between its two rather powerful neighbours: Sweden and Russia. And it has been under the rule of either one of the two until 1917 when its people have finally managed to claim their independence (see Itsenäisyyspäivä or the Blue and White Day). The time spent under the rule and strong influence of other societies and their values for such a long time has left rather strong influences on the Finnish culture which are still visible today.

Since almost all the territory belonging to Finland today has been under the Swedish rule from the early Middle Ages (13th century) until the 1809, Sweden naturally left more impact on Finnish culture and society than Russia has. Not surprisingly the result of this long rule is also a love-hate relationship between Finns and Swedes.

In Finland there are six minorities: the Swedish speakers, the Sámi, the Roma, the Jews, the Old Russians and the Tatars. Of which the Swedish-speaking Finns are the most numerous and enjoy the most privileges.

However, there is something peculiar about this minority. It is a minority based on the language and not on nationality. Although which language people choose to speak in Finland today is a matter of personal preference, it wasn't always like that. It was not until 1892 that Finnish language became an official language as a result of the rising nationalistic movement. Only then it was considered to be equal to Swedish as both were, and still are used in both administrative and everyday matters.

Swedish was imposed on local population as Finnish has been the language spoken by the majority throughout the times of Swedish rule. But mere imposing wouldn't make such a strong presence. In fact, right after Swedish speaking people moving to Finland, the strongest support of Swedish came from the local population who adopted the language mostly for socially ambitious reasons. Contrary to common belief that this is still the case today, Swedish is no longer the language of the social elite. But quite the opposite as the number of Swedish-speaking Finns has been in constant decline for the last hundred years or so.

Nevertheless one can find practically everything marked in both languages: from food products to street names. Despite Swedish being a compulsory course for all schoolchildren for several years, its presence varies greatly depending on where in the country one is. Thus Swedish is strongest on the southwest coast and Ahvenanmaa archipelago where at the same time most of the Swedish-speaking Finns live.

In fact its presence is so strong there that the bilingualism is even reversed. If in the rest of the country almost everything is written first in Finnish and then in Swedish, it is the other way around in the southwestern part (and practically nothing is in Finnish on the autonomous archipelago of Ahvenanmaa). And if in the rest of the country one would (naturally) expect to be addressed in Finnish, here one is practically almost always addressed in Swedish. Which feels quite interesting especially since I'm still in the process of learning one strangely beautiful language, here comes another one to add to the confusion.

And to make things even more interesting Swedish-speaking Finns are not as one would think a uniform minority united by the same language. In Finland alone there are more than 80 different Swedish dialects among which many are so strong that speakers from two different dialect groups even cannot understand each other.

It doesn't end here. Quite often the people working in the service industry will even say the same thing twice, first in Swedish and then again in Finnish. Which then leaves me thinking should I say "Tack" or "Kiitos" in return.

Mladen

Long Time No Nothing

2006-07-26T11:00:00.000+03:00

Last two months have been quite busy, but mostly in the sense of traveling and meeting people. While at the same time I've tried to stay away from computers as much as possible. And it's been great.

I've spent whole June traveling throughout Slovenia and Croatia and made two trips to Venice. As you can imagine one month's time is enough to visit a lot of places. Thus I'll mention only those that have really made a lasting impression on me.

Istrian peninsula in Croatia is a gem. I especially like the northern part which is dotted with small, picturesque villages on hilltops. The towns of Motovun and Grožnjan are an absolute must if you are in the vicinity. Both have served as a settlement since the medieval times and still retained some of that spirit within narrow, cobbled and winding pathways between stone houses.

Another great place I've visited in June is the Croatian coast with its thousand or so islands. The nature is absolutely fantastic and in spite of the often unfriendly and even plain rude service, I've really enjoyed island hopping on the northern islands of Krk, Cres, Lošinj, Ilovik and Murter. The sea on all these islands is crystal clear and since I've been there in off-season period in most of the places I've visited it was not hard to find a quiet spot and a private beach.

On this same trip I've also managed to visit National parks of Plitvice lakes and river Krka. It's simply unbelievable how much water runs through these places and how green both of them are.

And the result of the similar geological processes and strucutres in Plitvice lakes and river Krka waterfalls is Križna cave in Slovenia. Now, in Slovenia there are around nine thousand caves of which I have visited only a few, but Križna cave is something special. As they want to keep the cave in as untouched state as possible, they only let in four people per day. And since it's a water cave it is not possible to enter it if there's been much rain in the preceding days. So it's not exactly easy to get in, but it was definitely worth the effort and schedule juggling.

You enter the cave in caving overalls, rubber boots, with a helmet and a head lamp, which all make you fell you're ready for a real adventure. And that's exactly what it was. In the cave there are more than a dozen lakes, so practically the whole four hour trip is done in small rubber boats. Besides plethora of stalagmites, stalactites and columns, you also get a chance to experience moments of total darkness and total silence. And believe me, such a place is a treasure today. Once you are 70 or so meters below the ground there's no way any light or sounds would get in ... except for those you bring with you. Although the feeling could be nerve racking (imagine being lost there!), it is absolutely relaxing.

I could go on and on about this and other places, but I'll rather let you enjoy some of the pictures from these short trips I've made in June--you can find them in the gallery.

Now I'm back in Finland ready for new adventures, so come back soon.

Mladen

Aurinko ei nouse eikä laske tänään

2006-05-28T00:29:00.000+03:00

Sun is a rather peculiar object here in Finland. I've already mentioned this peculiarity in several of my posts, but even when I have it was more or less a side note. But now things have become different, radically different. In fact, different enough to make me write all this.

Finland is a northern country. It's way up north. In fact, it's so far up north that one third of the country's land is located above the arctic circle. And people have still chosen to live there. Simply being there might not seem like anything, but I find it to be quite amazing. Why? Here's why!

One of the things I've been thinking about before coming here was winter. Not so much because it can be devilishly cold, but primarily because it is dark like in the cave. The temperatures can be really cold, or not, but the darkness is guaranteed every year. And I've lived through winter without being bothered by the lack of sunlight that much. It sure is weird to wake up at 10 o'clock in the morning and outside it's still practically night. The same goes for the noon when the sun is barely above the horizon casting long shadows like the evening sun usually does. And that's what it is: by local standards it is evening. I could almost say that from late November until late January the four hours of sunshine make the daylight time look an eternal evening. It was peculiar, unusual, weird, but I found it to be quite OK.

Now, where I am it's not even the middle of the country. Several hundred kilometers up north the situation is completely different. The sun there does not even rise above the horizon for full eight weeks. Which makes these places pitch black for quite a while. In this case no sun doesn't make it just look like the weather is bad, but it really is dark all the time. I think that would be pretty tough to chew and swallow.

However, the situation right now is completely different. Currently there is plenty of daylight and sunlight. But just how much is plenty of sunlight? Today in Jyväskylä plenty is 18 hours and 48 minutes as the sun rose at 3:52 am and has set at 10:40 pm. Even though the sun officially sets for five hours, the sky remains light all night. Which renders this short night into an eternal twilight which lasts for a few months. Hey, don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, but this has stirred me more than the darkness in the wintertime has. It's weird to go out for a run at 10:00 pm (which is a usual time for my runs) and the sun is still shining. One loses the sense of time and the need for sleep is skewed too.

So what's it like in the north where the sun doesn't rise in winter? I don't really know, but the newspapers that publish daily information about sunrise and sunset in three different locations in the country now show only two places. While the Finnish Meteorological Institute politely explains: "Aurinko ei nouse eikä laske tänään." or "The sun neither rises nor sets today." Now how cool is that.

Enjoy while it shines!

Mladen

A Brief Visit to Estonia

2006-04-15T20:09:00.000+03:00

Last weekend I've finally made that short trip to Estonia's capital Tallinn which I have written about when I came back from Stockholm. Thus below you can find a list of seemingly random notes and observations from this short trip.

Going to Estonia is simple, rather quick and Finns do it almost as often as they hop on a bus or tram. And judging by the frequency of ferries and boats floating between Helsinki and Tallinn, one would quite even easily find connections with city transportation. However, on a second thought this is hardly surprising as the whole travel business to Tallinn is mainly propelled by the alcohol tourism I've already written about when I went to Stockholm. Although going to Tallinn is so much quicker that there are several, often sold out, boats a day connecting the two capitals. Another big difference between Stockholm and Tallinn is that in Tallinn retail businesses have developed around the idea of people getting there to buy booze. Check out the gallery for more details on that. It's quite nuts, but I think I'm actually slowly becoming adjusted to this and might begin losing interest in booze amusement. Or maybe not.

I've never before been to either Estonia or Tallinn and I was pleasantly surprised with Tallinn. It's a wonderful medieval city of completely manageable size. I've spent two days there and it was definitely enough for a first impression, although I will definitely return for more as there are other interesting sites around Tallinn that need to be explored. While the surprising tidbit is that the first thing upon entering Estonia I was asked by a female border control officer: "When are you going back?" Back where? Oh, the idiocy of borders.

The city of Tallinn itself has an old part which is enclosed within medieval city walls where I found a mash of cobbled narrow streets and passages. A real gem for strolling and enjoying a surprising historical and architectural varieties. The heart of old town is a small knob from atop of which you can get a fantastic view of the city and beyond, if the weather is nice ... and weather-wise it was definitely a jump into the future (at least comparing to Helsinki, not to mention Jyväskylä) as there was no snow, anywhere.

Large part of the second day of my stay in Tallinn I've spent in the Kadriorg part of the city. It's one of the nicest and these days is becoming even a prestigious residential area. Otherwise Kadriorg is known for it's wooden architecture (similar to Puukäpylä in Helsinki). Just as I've mentioned the prestigiousness of Kadriorg I should mention that it is almost immediately evident that social differences are huge in Estonia. These are reminiscent of wild forms of capitalism based either on bad legislation or high corruption, or both. I don't know which is the case in Estonia, but the social differences are evident even to a tourist. And just as in any society where people got rich quickly, the first thing they do is that they go crazy with their big and expensive cars, while at the same time big parts of the city are literally deteriorating and it took Estonia more than ten years to build a single museum of art. And that museum of art is KUMU in Kadriorg. The average gross income in Estonia is 520€ (for comparison, in Finland that amount is around 2500€). Enough said.

Estonia has only around 1,3 million residents and it regained its independence in 1991 after the demise of the Soviet Union (it was already independent between the 1918 and 1944 when it was recaptured by the Soviet Union). Considering how few people live in Estonia and that the Russian government used to and still thumps minorities' rights including their languages, it is surprising that Estonians managed to preserve their language during the Soviet era at all. But even more surprising than this is that recently there have been quite strong tendencies in Estonia to reform the higher education with a brutish lack of understanding: the proposal was that the official language in institutions of higher education would be English. I have a really hard time comprehending such an idea.

There's a lot of talk that Estonian and Finnish languages are very close. True, they do belong to the same Finno-Ugric language group (actually, linguistically they are even closer, as both languages are Baltic-Finnic). But just how close actually are Estonian and Finnish languages? Not that close. I've spoken about the issue to both Finns and Estonians and both could point out similarities in words and grammar whereas on the functional level languages cannot be interchanged. Thus both tend to use English for straightforward communication. Both languages don't have a distinctive future tense, both use inflection of words and both lack grammatical gender, however Estonian words are usually much shorter than Finnish counterparts, while some words have completely different meanings in the two languages.

All in all I've really had a great time in Estonia and will definitely visit again. And if you get a chance, I encourage you to go.

Have a good one,

Mladen

Retkiluistelu

2006-03-24T00:52:00.000+02:00

Last week I wrote mostly about what's it like to be in central Finland in winter. But when I re-read the post after publishing it, it gave me this scary feeling of: "Don't you dare to come to this ninth circuit of hell (when it's hellish, anyway)!" So, now you'll have a chance to read about how cool it is during the early December to late April winters.

Yes, there are plenty of winter joys one can indulge in during the long winters here (even if you don't feel like playing football). Think about this: What do you get when you combine a country with no more no less than 187.888 lakes, 1.250 km of shoreline and damn cold weather? Well, what? A gigantic skating rink. And that's exactly what Finland is right now. Practically any larger populated area has a decent public natural skating rink on the nearest lake(s). These usually provide at least a few kilometers of clean skating ice and an area for playing various winter games (curling being the hit of this winter). The largest one I've skated on was a 25 km rink on Kallavesi in Kuopio, while Jyväskylä has only a measly 3 km rink. And I still cannot really get it out of my head that they have figured out the turn-lake-into-a-rink thing no more than just a decade ago.

But once they have figured out it has become the nation's second most popular winter recreational activity (right after the cross-country skiing). Meaning that practically everyone does it and that during the winter months even the national newspapers are running stories about the longest, the coolest and the baddest of skating places around Finland featuring kids, grandmas and everyone in between doing it. However, half of it (my rough estimate) is not really skating as it is known in the rest of the world, but rather retkiluistelu or tour skating. You put on your skates, preferably take the cross-country or walking sticks for propulsion, warm cocoa and something to eat with you and go on a few hour long skating tour. It makes perfect sense ... and it's absolutely fantastic. The air is fresh, the nature is beautiful and the ice is thick enough. These trips can vary from less than 10 km all the way to more than 100 km which can take you a whole day. During longer skating trips there are publicly maintained resting spots with fire places by the lake where people stop and take a break, roast a sausagge on fire and have a sip of koskenkorva. Thus besides being a great Finnish recreational pastime, it's also very touristy.

For those who plan a skating holiday in Finland go and check out the Suomen retkiluistelijat home page. While I still recommend that the real skating enthusiasts should plan their trip in time for Finland Ice Marathon. The enormous Gluteus maximus skaters gather annually in the city of Kuopio in the Finnish Savo region where they compete in races of up to 200 km. What really amazes me is not just the distance these skaters cover during their competitions, but also the speeds: the fastest in the 200 km race reach the average speeds of almost 40 km/h. And that's actually how lake skating came to Finland in the first place. When the Dutch who invented long distance skating on their channels had several misfortunate winters in their home land, they were looking for a substitute. They first went to Canada and then to Norway and finally discovered this small town of Kuopio in the middle of Finland in 1984. After that it didn't take many smarts to spread the idea to other places around Finland and organize skating on lakes when ice gets thicker than 5 centimeters.

As you see, I really got excited about this skating thing this winter. I mean, I haven't put skates on my feet in more than ten years, until a few months ago. And there's a reason for that too as I never really liked the measly skating rinks that are usually on offer in European or North American cities. The problem with those is that every few kicks you have to make a turn. Which eventually becomes extremely boring. So Finnish frozen lakes really do provide an unbelievably liberating experience: it's as close to running as it gets.

Glide on.

Mladen

PS: Check the gallery for some new skating images. And do drop me a line and tell me how you like your skating to be served.

In the land where talvi shouldn't be eurotalvi

2006-03-16T22:52:00.000+02:00

Whoever knows where Finland is (meaning that they can put a finger on the globe) knows that it must be quite cold that far up north. But just how cold is cold? Well, read on to find out about that and how Finns have developed clever strategies to enjoy the cold. Aha, you've just stumbled upon problem number one: do Finns even like their cold weather? Good question. And the answer is two-fold: if you ask them, the most likely answer will be a reassuring YES, but if you don't ask, then you might even hear them murmuring and complaining how DAMN cold it is and that they are sick of it. It's interesting to see how they have developed a myth about them liking all this harsh environment; they do and they don't, but mostly they don't like it. Although Finns do have a name for a wussy winter, indeed; they call it eurotalvi or European winter. No comment on that one.

But let's get a bit more scientific and tangible for a moment. The all-time lowest temperature record in Finland was measured on January 28th 1999 in a northern Finnish town of Kittilä when the temperature was -51,5°C. Does that look to you too that it would almost be feel warmer if it was expressed in Kelvin temperature scale: 221,65°K. There you go, much cozier. Serious business, so let's not joke about it. Anyway, so this year the lowest measured temperature was again in Kittilä, but this time only -43,6°C. Cold place this Kittilä. While in Jyväskylä we had nothing like that as it was a tropical -33°C one morning when I was cycling to school. Just one more statistical tidbit: this February the average temperature in Jyväskylä was -12°C and not a single say the temperature has risen above 0°C. It takes much more than non-sensitivity to cold in order to enjoy this.

Yeah, since the average temperatures are well below 0°C for 3 or 4 months a year, not very much changes around here because of the winter itself. It's actually no surprise to see even construction and road work to continue as normal. OK, if there are really some things guys want to dig in the morning with shovels, they simply set up one of the diesel heaters and cover with it the area they want to keep warm. As easy as that. Actually the only thing that broke down this winter (and I was told it happens every winter) were Italian Pendolino trains which were either dead in their tracks or the doors would not open and as a consequence no passengers could enter the train. And in a land where everything not only works but is also punctual to the atomic clock, no matter what, you can imagine there was a lot of fuss raised about the south European train manufacturer.

There are more interesting quirks on the way. It doesn't take much smarts to figure that when it's cold it also snows. And boy, it snows ... a lot. It's really nice to see how they deal with all that snow and keep the traffic running without any holdups. They don't try to melt the snow on the roads or pedestrian/cycling paths with salt which is a common, myopic and futile practice in Slovenia (and I believe many other countries). It's obvious that all that salt pollutes the environment, thus they use it only in some parts of larger cities and on the highways. Otherwise plain gravel is sprinkled for traction. And it works fine; I've been riding my bike whole winter long courtesy of gravel on ice and snow. In addition both bike and car owners use spiked tires, but you can do just fine without spikes (at least on bike tires) too. And at least to get a driver's license in Finland you need to complete a special driving exercise on ice.

What at first I found to be a tad bit more exotic were the almost obligatory electric outlets on the parking spots which are used for keeping cars' engines warm. Each owner of the parking spot has a key to a small gray box from which they pull out an electric cable and attach it in front of their car: the electric heater below the car's hood keeps the vital parts warm. Think wool socks for your car. I don't have a car, so I don't know, but I suspect that they add the cost to your electricity bill. The whole heating thing gets a bit weirder. The most frequented streets in cities around Finland have underground heating installed and are heated during the winter (to see this and other quirks in color, check out the gallery). But things do become really obnoxious too as it seems like in every city there is at least one football stadium where, now sit down, the grass is heated so that boys and girls can play football in -30°C. Let's see, they were probably thinking: "It seems like we can get far too much money than we really need from the state/EU ... how should we waste it?"

All this leads me to think (no, you're not the only one to think that) does spring ever come to this land? It seems it does folks. In fact today was the first day in roughly 8 weeks that the temperature rised above 0°C: to a whopping 1,2°C. Of course, there's a lot more to Finnish winter joys, but I will dissect those in the next edition of Suomessa.

Mladen

Helvetin kova krapula...

2006-03-08T14:07:00.000+02:00

Although I have touched a bit on the subject of the alcohol-nation relation in previous posts, believe me, I have barely touched the subject at all. And it is definitely a topic which I cannot cover in a single post. But since I've just yesterday experienced one of the holy grails of this relation, I thought, well, I have to begin somewhere.

The experience in question is a two day ferry trip between Helsinki and Stockholm (which actually spans three days). You might have noticed something peculiar in the previous sentence: a ferry trip /between/. At first I saw those daily cruises from Helsinki to Stockholm as a cool way to travel to Sweden, but boy was I wrong. For 99% of the travelers the trip has absolutely nothing to do with reaching the geographical, but rather a mental destination. People get on these ships not to travel, but, well, you've guessed already, to drink ... and buy cheap booze (courtesy of exploiting the international waters' taxation policies).

I can hear you saying already: "What the heck, what can a simple cruise change in people's relation to the capital A?" But there are at least a few things you need to understand before you can put these cruises into the correct perspective. One of them is that ships do not leave only from Helsinki, but at least from Turku (the former Finnish capital) as well. Another thing is that two ships leave from Helsinki each day. Yep, no matter what, sun or hail storm, calm summer seas or frozen Baltic sea, two ships embark on this roughly 19 hour trip each day. And on top of that these ships are huge. The one I was on can accommodate more than 2500 people (which is the number of beds on the ships, thus the number of passangers gets much higher especially in the summertime when people sleep, or rather, party on the ship's decks) and is 11 stories high. And the ship I took is not the largest one either. And above all the transportation is dirt cheap: if you make a reservation in advance the trip can cost even as little as 17 euros (that's how much it costed me). Of course, they don't really make money off of fares (as you've probably figured out already); it's the on board shopping that brings in the most dough.

What in the world is sold on such a shopping craze that can make these trips profitable for the cruise companies? As is extensively advertised in the on board catalogues and is quite obvious from the passanger behavior indeed, you can save as much as 72% on booze if you buy it on board: anything from regular beer to wine costing 130 euros per bottle, and needless to say, everything in between. No, it doesn't look like booze department of a duty free shop, it looks like a booze fair. And that's exactly what people do. In fact I am sure that they would buy much more then they do as there are restrictions on how much each passanger can carry away with them. And what are the restrictions? One liter of booze, two liters of wine, 16 liters of beer - and these are one way restrictions! If you are wondering who the hell buys this much, well enough passengers that the on board stores sell even the olutkärry, or the beer carriages where you can strap on all your newly acquired booze and pull it to your doorstep. Of course, the cruise companies make sure that you don't regret your amazing opportunity by reminding you on the back of the ticket: "Kannattaa ostaa suurin sallittu määrä!" ("It's worthwhile buying your full allowance!", allowance of booze of course).

True, a lot of that booze gets to go home with passengers, but you can imagine that huge amounts don't get to see the home fridge at all. You probably still remember that I've emphasized the word /between/ at the beginning of this post. And the /between/ for a lot of passengers means just that - they get so wasted that they don't even get to see any of the Stockholm, heck they probably don't even get to see the harbor at all. But those that do, well, it's no wonder that those Finns can be heard singing on the streets of Stockholm to the children's Christmas tune "helvetin kova krapula" ("a hell of a hard hangover") during the day.

Alcohol is one form of income on the cruises, the other being peliautomatti (the coin gambling machines). These follow you on your every step in Finland, but their population density on the ferries is much higher than the average. People mindlessly throw in tons of coins and banknotes, blinded by the fact that those machines are made for them to loose and for the owners to gain. Quite a site. People gather, sometimes several at a machine and cheaply sell their hopes. It doesn't take a lot of smarts to connect the dots between booze and mesmerizing sounds of gambling machines. You get the picture.

Let that be all for now. However, this is just the first part of my first hand experience of the floating booze relationship between booze and Finns. Today in the afternoon I'm leaving for Tallinn to experience the second part. Stay tuned.

Cheers!

Mladen

Niinistö Rocks, Not!

2006-01-22T23:30:00.000+02:00

As most of you have probably already heard from various media, there will be a second round of presidential elections in Finland next Sunday. Heidi Hautala, Bjarne Kallis, Arto Lahti, Henrik Lax, Timo Soini and even prime minister Matti Vanhanen were knocked out by Tarja Halonen and Sauli Niinistö who will run for the presidency in the second round of elections. Although for many the outcome of the first round came as a surprise as they expected Tarja to win, it is rather a surprise to read and hear that even Tarja as the first female president of Finland might be a one-time phenomenon. Recent polls show that Niinistö is mere 6% percent behind Tarja and has the support of 47% of voters.

Quite interesting but not really surprising as in the first round jettisoned and defeated current prime minister Matti Vanhanen announced the very same moment when it was obvious that he won't go into the second round that he personally and his party will support Niinistö in the second round. Extremely smart move at the exactly right time - election prime-time when the whole nation was watching. It gave right oriented Niinistö an immense boost.

I already wrote in my last week's post about the efficiency of Finnish voters. Now I can admirably say the same thing for their administration. All votes of the first round were counted and statistics available just a few minutes less than two and a half hours after the polling stations were closed. With one word: amazing. I have never encountered such efficiency of the administration.

That said it's interesting that the independent candidate Arto Lahti got only 0,4% or 12.989 votes, while it is necessary for independent candidates to gather 20.000 citizen signatures to become eligible candidates. I just wonder how and where did he gather those signatures. Friday and Saturday night at 4 am in a bar? And although there are again no data how many people voted for Aku Ankka, I should mention for all his fans that there were the total of 8.805 invalid ballots. Lucky Donald, as he is the only privileged candidate to run in the second round as well. For all the statistics geeks, the official statistics can be found on the page of Tilastokeskus. Go crazy with those numbers.

Another interesting Finland's presidential election tidbit is that the ABC talk show host Conan O'Brian discovered a striking resemblance (according to his opinion, of course) between himself and Tarja Halonen. Now, he openly admitted that he has absolutely no clue what her politics are about, but that he has decided to support her efforts running for the presidency. You can only imagine how far the lunacy of the US TV talk show can go: they have recorded a "Vote for Tarja" election advertisement in proper Finnish with strong American accent and even ad hoc performed the election song in support for Tarja. The show was broadcast on SubTV commercial TV channel in Finland with a delay of few days and Conan will come to Finland a few weeks after the second round of elections. I'm speechless.

OK, Conan is Conan and he's part of his own show. What a bit more unconventional for the topic at hand is Tarja's own election campaign events. The campaign is obviously geared towards younger generations as one of the events it consists of is a touring rock festival properly named Tarja Rock where, quite obviously, Tarja herself shows up as well. However, more out of this world is Tarja Rap: the official Halonen's election song rapped by, get ready for this, the SDP (Tarja's party) parliamentary candidates. It is the Social Democratic rap version of the old communist song "The slaves of work rise from the night of oppression" (translated from Finnish, so I'm not sure if that's the official name in English) performed by Nine for 9 & Jouni as the SDP parliamentary members call themselves. You can read more about it here, and of course the direct link to the video is here. Check this out. I promise that you've never seen anything like this.

Mladen

Suomen Tasavallan Presidentinvaali

2006-01-14T23:18:00.000+02:00

The third Sunday in January is at the doorstep and since it is the election year in Finland that means that Finns will be deciding who their president for the next six years will be. Or so it seems because in the super-efficient country of Finland a lot of people cast their ballots in the preelection period via snail mail and this year one third of population has already done so. I'm eager to see how many people will actually vote this Sunday, but nevertheless I think that in the current widespread political apathy in many western countries, Finland's heavy preelection voter turnout is a savior for democracy. But is it really so?

It is namely Donald Duck who is the main cause for this doubt as he gains ground among Finnish voters. I know, it's hard to believe, but it's not even a prank anymore as Donald the-cartoon-figure has a lot of followers who self-confidently add his name and fill the circle holding his number on the ballots. Although there is no official count of how many votes he got in the last election, but I'm pretty sure there's a good reason for non-disclosure of this data. (To all the Finns: no matter how much you like Donald, I hope you're aware that you'll have to change your laws before your votes will count as currently only a native-born Finn can run for the presidency - I guess it's obvious that Donald was not born in Oulu!)

But besides Aku Ankka (as Donald is called around here), there are other candidates running for the presidency. Eight of them (in alphabetic order, of course):

Social Democratic Party of Finland (Suomen Sosialidemokraatinen Puolue, SDP) Tarja Halonen,

Green League (Vihreä Liitto, VIHR) Heidi Hautala,

Christian Democrat (Kristillisdemokraatit, KD) Bjarne Kallis,

independent candidate Arto Lahti,

Swedish People's Party (Svenska Folkpartiet, SFP) Henrik Lax,

National Coalition (Kansallinen Kokoomus, KOK) Sauli Niinistö,

True Finns (Perussuomalaiset, PS) Timo Soini and

Finnish Centre (Suomen Keskusta, KESK) Matti Vanhanen.

Although the bunch is quite colorful, just like everywhere where there are more than two or three presidential candidates the rest don't stand a chance. According to various public polls Hautala, Kallis, Lahti, Lax and Soini are supported by less than few percents. Isn't it a bit sad when less than 1% supports a candidate and they still decide to run for the office. Thus the only serious candidates remain Halonen, Niinistö and Vanhanen - while the latter two reach only a tad bit above current president's Halonen knees who has more than 30% support lead over both of them. And since the winner of these elections is quite obvious, the only question that really remains is whether there will be a second round or will Tarja sweep the floor in the first round. Older Finns believe that Tarja will win in the first round, while younger population (18-35) is convinced that there will be a second round. I've not made my decision yet, but I will make some popcorn Sunday evening and follow the events closely. (If you want to follow the events too, check out the YLE Vaalit 2006 pages on Sunday, or later for results.)

But presidency in Finland has not always been a form of entertainment as it appears to be for many Finns today. Believe it or not, but there were unstable times for Finnish democracy when particularly one of the democratically elected presidents held the post for the whole 25 years refusing to resign (he was in the office from 1956 to 1981). Such political orientation is usually called dictatorship elsewhere, but Finns have somehow managed to keep calling it democracy during the 25 year presidency of Urho Kekkonen. The frosting on the cake being that Finns even loved him. And not just his political activity but his physical appearance as well as he was often regarded as the sexiest Finn. Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito, anyone? The ultimate dictator playboys.

Good question is why did Finns tolerate Kekkonen's practically self-extended presidency? During his 25-year tenure there were a lot of tensions between Finland and Russia. I'm sure that there were some serious and tough times too, but Kekkonen also had a few tricks in his bag that helped him get electorate support. While he was surfing in Hawaii in 1961 a sudden crisis emerged between Finland and Russia which Kekkonen single-handedly resolved by personally visiting the president of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. In minds of Finnish people Kekkonen possessed extraordinary skills of handling the issue and they rewarded him with another term in the office. Although it is a fact today that the crisis of 1961 was a prearranged deal between Kekkonen and Khrushchev and that the sole purpose of this crisis was to reassure Kekkonen reelection. I guess today we would call such dirty tactics the politics of fear which have striking resemblance to how the Bush family is manipulating their citizens.

But all that was during the time (from 1919 to 1988) when the president was elected by an electoral college which was made up of electors who were chosen by the voters in the presidential election (although many regimes have shown that it is quite easy to manipulate even direct elections). However the murky presidential election business changed to muddy in the 1988 when the indirect and direct elections were conducted in parallel. Thus the first direct elections were conducted in 1994 and since then the Finnish president is elected by the direct popular vote exclusively.

I was quite surprised to see how the presidential candidates tried to get voters on their side. Big part of every candidate's campaign is played out in the candidates' cafes. Each candidate set up a cafe in various cities and towns around Finland where they serve politically charged coffee. Although the coffee is free, I cannot imagine that you can sip it in peace and without the campaigners trying to brainwash you with political orientation du jour. Which bears a striking resemblance to churches in the US serving free doughnuts before and after their masses, of course to attract as many people as possible. And as this was labeled the doughnut religion, should the Finnish label their presidential candidates' luring the coffee presidency?

Another Finnish election specialty are the vaalikoneet (or the election machines). Vaalikone is a web form with a series of questions on various current political topics. After answering the questions and submitting the form the election machine scores your responses and spits the name of the candidate that is closest to how you think the country should be run. A brilliant idea for the hesitating. Have a peek at a few vaalikoneita yourself: YLE (the Finnish national broadcasting corporation), MTV3 (largest Finnish commercial TV station) and Helsingin Sanomat (the most widely read daily paper in Finland).

Dear readers, pick your favorite candidate, vote and cross your fingers.

Mladen

BTW: If you have time, please do check the web pages of the candidates and their parties. Not all have an English version, however those that don't speak volumes by the sheer layout. Brrrr. I had fun and I'm sure that the curious among you will too.

Joulu in the Land of Joulupukki

2005-12-22T20:19:00.000+02:00

Christmas time is here, and what other better place to spend Christmas then in the land of the real Santa, excuse me, joulupukki. Sure enough, in Finland time around Christmas is funky for many reasons: it's the time of longest nights, indulging in food and liquor is at its height and the number of close encounters with the old white-bearded men - yes, there's more than one, in case you're still wondering how could one man accomplish all of these deeds (spoil alert: all kids and tourists who believe in Santa, stop reading now!) - is at it's highest.

It always begins half a year earlier right after the summer solstice on June 22nd when the day is slowly eroded by longer and longer nights. For all the patient people out there this slow and silent takeover culminates on December 21st, the day (or more appropriately, night) when the sun is out only for a few hours. In northern Finland this is taken to such an extreme that sun doesn't come out for the whole 8 weeks. Please, stop doing whatever you're doing right now and think about this for a moment: imagine what it would be like to sit in a darkroom for 8 weeks! That's 48 days of darkness people. Admirable, I must say. At the same time, we in Jyväskylä can thus consider ourselves to be pretty lucky since the day today will be a bit more than four and a half hours long. But darkness is no reason for sadness or depression in the land of night and frozen lakes. Quite the contrary I must say.

Late December is one of the most joyful times for Finns. Surprised? Wonder no more. First, and probably most important is that Christmas is (besides being the day when the baby was born) the most awaited day in the second half of the year. By Christmas six months have already passed since the last official drinking day in Finland, the long forgotten midsummer's night, and Finns are eager to be able to officially grab their bottles and drink. What better reason to rejoice? And it's the time when both, consumers and retailers are happy too: consumers of booze, well no real need to explain why, and retailers because now's the time when they sell one third of year's worth of booze. But booze makers and retailers aren't the only ones with smiles on their faces. Around Christmas Finns like to enjoy their pork too. The traditional meal eaten for Christmas is the joulukinkku (the Christmas ham) 7 million kilograms of which was sold this year alone in a nation of 5,5 million people (including babies and the growing number of vegetarians, that is). The profile of the average joulukinkku sold is 9 kg in weight, raw and salted. Bon appétit, or more appropriately, hyvää ruokahalua!

I shall not mention Christmas without its precursor pikkujoulu, or Little Christmas. True, there is only one Christmas, but there are always several pikkujoulut (no exact number is set, but rest assured that there are many). Little Christmases are indispensable joyful social festivities which can begin as early as November and take place until the actual Christmas. These parties are organized by either friends, in schools, clubs, associations, organizations or at workplaces where people gather to eat, socialize and drink. Especially workplace pikkujoulu parties can turn into rather lively and even rowdy events as the consumption of alcohol catalyzes the release of stress and frustration accumulated during the whole year. And alcohol having such a balmy effect on social barriers, pikkujoulu parties are a real nest for promiscuity: it's the most likely time of the year when both the secretary and the boss get laid. According to statistics 17% of pikkujoulu goers (thus 17% of Finnish population) cheats on their partners on at least one of pikkujoulu parties. It for sure ain't a negligible amount.

Whenever I meniton drinking, I really mean drinking as Finns do know how to consume excessive amounts of alcohol. The amounts of consumed booze during all of these pikkujoulu parties and the Christmas indulging in alcohol for many people results in such an excess that they proclaim January to be 'a month without a single drop' (tipaton tammikuu, as Finns like to refer to it). January thus becomes a month when noses of many slowly begin turning from red to white and to add irony to insult, they even have a term for this slow healing process: nenänvalkaisu.

But even Finnish Christmas would not be complete without the Santas (or joulupukit as they are called around here) themselves. Of course there's more than one. Come on people, only British tourists who annually come to Rovaniemi (or Korvatunturi, to be precise) in flocks and little children still believe there's only one and only Santa. And it takes just a glance at the daily papers classified adds section where scores of adds offering Santa service can be found. Yes, there are numerous Santa's offering to show up on Christmas eve on people's doorsteps for minuscule monetary compensation. Sad news for all those who pay piles of cash to see 'The Real Santa' if you can get one for peanuts. Or even for free (Money for Nothing and Santa for Free anyone), as most Finnish kids get a visit from a relative or a neighbor Santa: kids' parents dress-up either one of their relatives or the nicest neighbor from their neighborhood as Santa and make them show up on Christmas eve. Although kids do love the presents they get, joulupukki does present a horror experience as well as lots of kids shit their pants when an oddly dressed old man intrudes on their privacy, makes them sing and drinks koskenkorva with their dad. Not funny at all.

Joulupukki being Finnish is thus in many aspects much more polite then his North American colleague. The North American Santa literally invades the family's house through a chimney, in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping, and on top of all that he comes completely unannounced. Judging by his actions, he could just as well be labeled as the real cowboy Santa. In comparison, joulupukki comes by personal appointment only and at an exact beforehand mutually agreed time. Now couple this with Finnish punctuality and politeness of ringing the door bell and entering the home of scared and excited children through the door and you get a real gentleman (Sober? As advertised!). Something to cheer about after all. The only thing that makes Finnish joulupukki so incredibly un-Finnish is that all joulupukki are men. Joulupukki job is completely overtaken and monopolized by men. The case here is not that representation of sexes is tilted just a little bit in favor of men, as is the case with many other jobs. It's worse as women do not even exist in the joulupukki domain. Finnish women, I therefore ask you to stand up for your constitutional rights and fight against this sex-based prejudice in workplace. I thus urge you to immediately contact your minister of labor Tarja Filatov and ask her to instantly act on this matter.

Dear earthlings, I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Mladen

Itsenäisyyspäivä or the Blue and White Day

2005-12-07T20:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Finns celebrated their 88th independence day. Finland gained independence and ceased to be a part of Russia on December 6th 1917. To commemorate the day Finns lit two blue and white candles on their window sills on the evening of December 6th and some even join the independence day marches in cities across Finland. Finland declared it's independence soon after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Since Finland's independence was approved by Bolshevist Russia there was no armed conflict between the now two countries. However, in 1918, Finland experienced a brief but rather bitter civil war. The war was fought between 'the whites', who were supported by the Imperial Germany (in Germany they have even already chosen the new Finnish king as the whites decided that Finland should be a kingdom), and 'the reds', who were supported by the Bolshevist Russia.

Another integral part of Finnish independence day celebration is the showing of the movie The Unknown Soldier (Tuntamaton Sotilas) - a three-plus hour movie based on a historical novel by Väinö Linna about the winter war between Russia and Finland in the winter of 1939. The winter war was an extremely important moment in the history of Finland when despite being greatly outnumbered, the comparatively small Finnish army beat the Russians. Without a doubt the winter war was an important moment in Finnish history, but it seems like showing The Unknown Soldier is also a good way to remind the nation of their national pride without touching the still rather raw wounds and memories of more distant civil war that followed the proclamation of independence. The civil war beginning in 1918 left an enormous wound in the Finnish nation as just in recent years has their been the beginning of public debates about the war and accompanying events that resulted in tens of thousands dead and hundreds thousands displaced people.

Nevertheless it seems that the most important event celebrating the independence is a large party held in the presidential palace in Helsinki by the president of Finland, currently Tarja Halonen. And in the mind of the Finnish people this party has become synonymous with the independence day itself as it is probably the single most important event for most Finns on that day. Of course there are other events, like the itsenäisyyspäivän juhlajumalanpalvelus (the independence day celebration mass) - the mass in the Helsinki cathedral which was attended by the Finnish president Tarja Halonen although she is not even a member of any church - but everything the people seem to really care about is the itsenäisyyspäivä linnanjuhlat (independence day party in the presidential palace).

For at least a month before the actual party takes place, the yellow press is preoccupied with speculations about who is going to be invited to the party and, of all possible banalities, they are discussing who is going to wear what dress (some celebrities even go so far as casting public polls asking people which dress suits them better literally asking them what they should wear). One can only imagine how long they are going to be writing about what happened at the party itself - who wore what, who came with whom and plethora of other gossip nonsense. As in the today's papers one could already read that the extreme right-wing member of the Finnish parliament Tony Halme drank a bit too much of the secret punch. Secret what?

Yep, the secret punch: the punch that is served at the itsenäisyyspäivä linnanjuhlat and the recipe for which is a closely guarded secret. One could easily call this the Finnish Coca-Cola recipe as the only thing that is actually known about it is that the beverage is of course alcoholic (come on people, this is Finland after all) and that it contains no more, no less but exactly 12% of alcohol (which again is a very important fact). I wonder if they have the same regime for the only two people who know the recipe as the infamous Coca-Cola company does that these two lucky people who have the privilege of mixing the secret punch at their home parties are not allowed to board the same plane.

Of course, it goes without saying that people spend enormous amounts of money for their clothes, makeup and hairdos all of which are really harshly criticized by Finns. Last year, for instance, the post-party talk of the event was the 'nipple scandal' (which the press labeled nothing less then 'nipplegate') when a pop singer Jonna Tervomaa wore such a dress that clearly her nipples were visible. The press grabbed it, not really realizing that it might have been a clever albeit stale marketing stunt and that the young chick just wants to sell more CDs. Duh!

Happy belated independence day, Finland!

Mladen

PS: Make sure to visit the gallery for the images from the front and linnanjuhlat.

Smokin'n'rollin'

2005-11-27T15:14:00.000+02:00

The snow has finally arrived and it came at exactly the right time too, since I was beginning to doubt in the notoriousness of harsh Finnish autumns and winters that everyone around here was making me believe in. Yeah, snow's in, but it ain't really cold yet, as it was colder in Ljubljana this past week than it was in Jyväskylä.

But that's not the point. The point is that the snow came in at the right time for us to role in it in between saunas. And if there's anyone who hasn't done it and wonders what's it like: it's fuckin' great. Having experienced that, I seriously can't wait for an avanto session (avanto = drilling a hole in the frozen lake and dipping in the water). But even rolling in the snow wasn't the only novelty for me; the other one being savusauna or smoke sauna.

Savusauna almost always a building in itself, or a small log house, if you like. What makes savusauna a savusauna is that the building doesn't have a chimney, thus the stove which heats up the stones releases all the smoke, and of course soot within the building. The result of which is that the interior of the building is completely charred. Yep, touch a wall and you're black. Cool. One of the differences I've found between the usual and most common electric sauna and the savusauna is that the heated air in the savusauna is much softer. And this savusauna was built by Hannu's father and grandfather who made the stove.

I have to say that the whole sauna culture is quite interesting. Over the past three months I've been diligently gathering all kinds of information regarding the Finnish sauna culture. Hope I find time to write it all down as a one cohesive piece which I could share with all of you.

I've spent the weekend at Hannu's parents' place in Haarajoki (a 45 minute drive north of Helsinki) where Hannu threw a party for a dozen friends. The place is practically in the country side surrounded by forests. But before we came to Hannu's Hannu, Olli and Mirja actually made it all the way to Jyväskylä and visited for two nights. Although they might have had fun, I think that they've seen pretty much all there's to see in Jyväskylä in these two days. So, yeah, this was definitely a fun extended weekend.

I'll be posting some pictures from these last several days sometime soon, but now I'll run to sauna for a short while before I leave Haarajoki for Helsinki where I have to catch the evening train to Jyväskylä.

Mladen

What's New Up North?

2005-11-16T10:54:00.000+02:00

True, I haven't written anything in almost a month ... and as all of you can imagine a lot has happened around here in all that time. I finally got to travel around Finland a bit, visited a couple of friends, met a whole bunch of new and interesting people, been to a brainstorming retreat as a part of my studies programme, had a few exams at school and experienced a plethora of other things. Which of course means that I have also been taking pictures, and a lot of them too, so do make sure you check out the gallery to get a visual glimpse of what I've been up to lately. OK, where should I start? Since I have not been updating the blog as things happened I will try not to think and write in chronological order but rather as things come to my mind. I hope that that won't spell confusion for you.

I've probably already written at least a bit about how the university school system works here. Well, there are two periods per term and this change of periods occurred within the last month or so which means that there was a so called self-study week during which there were not supposed to be any lectures but just exams - or no school work at all for some which is the reason they end up calling this a vacation week. But this was not the case for me as I had both some lectures and a couple of exams during that week and could not really leave Jyväskylä for more than a few days. Anyways, to cut the crap, I passed both exams (Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Methodology and Digital Arts and Culture classes) ... and yeah, it was interesting to see how examinations work around here. I especially preferred the open-endedness of examination as there are no multiple choice tests which was too often the case in my previous encounters with schooling. 'nuff said about that.

The more exciting part is definitely traveling, reuniting with old friends and meeting new people. It's been fun and I have done a lot of it recently. OK, first a friend of mine invited me to her hometown of Kuopio where I've spent a day with her and her parents. Kuopio is a town located about 160 km northeast of Jyväskylä in the Savo region of Finland. The town is of about the same size of Jyväskylä so there's really nothing too exciting there, but still, I have enjoyed the city as it has quite a few interesting galleries and museums. My friend's mom had a week off at the time of my visit so she took her time to show me around town where we visited the Korttelimuseo - literally translated as 'a block museum.' It's a block where they have gathered the most interesting buildings from the history of Kuopio, which almost inherently includes the history of town life in Finland as well.

But Kuopio was neither main nor the only attraction that week as I've spent the weekend in Helsinki. I was invited to spend a couple of days there with a professor that has been lecturing at our university about the Nordic archeology and prehistory (I wrote about him a bit already in the post about the trip to Saarijärvi in October if anyone can still remember that). As Brian is an extremely interesting and knowledgeable person I definitely grabbed the opportunity to tour the Helsinki with him. And yes, that was something as he knows a lot about the history of Nordic and Scandinavian societies, especially about Finns and Swedes, relations between the two nations and about many other local cultural peculiarities. As he is an archeologist, you can only imagine, that we have spend quite some time in the prehistory section of the Kansallismuseo (The National Museum of Finland). Yes, the artifacts are all there, and everything is neatly tagged and marked, but hey, how often do you actually get a chance to tour a an exhibition with someone who has actually researched these artifacts for several decades. Besides the Kansallismuseo I've also visited the Designmuseo and really enjoyed the exhibitions there as well. Of course, all the exhibitions had to do at least something with Finnish design: Nokia, Fiskars, Metso and contemporary Finnish designers. Overall impression: fantastic.

And as always, I do love to just walk the streets of any city and I have done a lot of that too just getting to know how Helsinki lives and breathes. It's probably because of all the Art Noveau architecture that Helsinki actually reminds me quite a bit of Ljubljana, well, sort of, but it is quite a bit bigger and more definitely more metropolitan. During that first stay in Helsinki I also paid a surprise visit to my two friends who live in there and whom I have met in Jordan this past summer. OK, one of them actually knew that I will be coming to town, but the other one didn't, so he almost crapped his pants when he saw me sitting in the bar with Olli. Imagine that. Yeah, we had a couple of beers together and as usual my evening ended up in the gutter ... just kidding, I found my way to hotel pretty easily since it was 0400am and the air was rather fresh.

Then less than a week later I again took off to Helsinki. Yes, as you could tell already, I enjoy this city. Well, come on, it has more than one street, and besides that I have not been in a real city for two months. This time I've left Jyväskylä with one of the first trains in the morning and was in Helsinki already before 1100am (it's a three and a half hour train ride). Finnish trains are really enjoyable, especially if you get to sit on the first floor from where you can really enjoy the landscape. Well, I did sort of, but since I had to turn in a paper on Tuesday for the Cultural Theory class, that also meant that I had to organize my time for writing the paper on the train - and yes, I have managed to finish it while traveling between Jyväskylä and Helsinki.

This second visit to Helsinki was rather different from the first one. In many ways, of course. This time I was actually visiting my friends Olli and Hannu (and stayed at Olli's place, which I really enjoyed a lot) and spending time with them. So on Friday I visited a couple of exhibitions (Ensi Valtaamme Museot in Kiasma and Japan Pop in Tennispalatsi) and the rest of the night I guess we were drinking, if I can remember correctly. And yes, these two Finns (OK, it was not just the two of them) actually managed to get me drunk. The only thing I was really happy about was that when I woke up in an unfamiliar place in an unknown bed, I woke up alone. What a relief, one might think. Yes that evening was loads of fun for all of us. Which doesn't mean that we did not have fun the next day as well. I am not really sure if I should admire these people or not, since the first thing they do in the morning after they have been drinking all night is, guess what, begin drinking the moment they get up and continue in this fashion until the next day. I was not able to handle that, but had fun nevertheless. But the weather was fantastic that Saturday and we visited Soumenlinna and had a few hours of fun there. Suomenlinna is located just outside Helsinki in the Helsinki archipelago and is one of the largest fortresses in the world and was built by the Swedes to show of their dominance in the Baltic region.

As I was in Helsinki at the time when the Helsinki book fair was going on I naturally visited the fair. I have to say that I was amazed and surprised at the same time that about 97% of all books exhibited there were in Finnish and that almost all (except for a few Swedish stands) all stands were occupied by Finnish publishers and book retailers. Finns really do read a lot, and I mean a lot. Just imagine this: there are a little over 5 million Finns and I have never seen so many specialized topics magazines in any other country, in local language of course. If you speak the language you can enjoy the numerous science, design, lifestyle, sauna, hobbies, literary, politics, computer, music and magazines on many other topics. And it is likewise for books: one gets an impression that if something was written, it was probably translated into Finnish as well. And that is one more motivating factor for me wanting to learn the language.

As I have already mentioned, the beginning of November the second period begun at school, which mostly means that I have some new courses. And this time I have actually decided to take a couple of courses in Finnish as well. To say the least, these really are amusing: I can sit in a lecture room, pay attention to what the lecturer has to say, read the slides and most of the time I type gazillions of words into my dictionary. It's hard as hell, but I don't think any of you can actually imagine how much fun am I having in those classes (aside from the fact that I can just chuckle when everyone is wholeheartedly laughing at some joke ... and I of course chuckle at the fact that most of the time I have no clue why they are laughing). And it is such classes that tickle my brain. Got carried away there and almost forgot to mention what these classes are about; they are the Introduction to Software Engineering (yep, rather basic, but let's not make it too hard, shall we) and Man and Machine or HCI. I'll definitely take more of these in next term as well and hopefully will be able to keep my sense of humor and understand at least a tad bit more.

All the other classes I'm taking are in English. Nordic Mythologies: now this one is really fun and I was really looking forward to it (and yes, it's exactly what the name of the class says it is). Then I am taking the Aesthetics of Everyday. A rather theoretical course, but I enjoy it immensely nevertheless. We're mostly discussing the works of Barthes, Benjamin, Crary, Maffesoli, Vattimo and Virilio. Then just this week I will be attending a Nordic Net Art conference also known as Live Herring. This period I'm also taking Scandinavian Film, Internet Research and Suomi Yksi classes. So, again my schedule is rather busy.

But the best of all so far this period was the Digital Culture brainstorming two day retreat at the Konnevesi biological research station some 60 km east of Jyväskylä. This research facility is part of the Jyväskylän Yliopisto. And it was pretty cool as we didn't really have to worry about much more than brainstorming itself: they cooked the food for us, the sauna was there and the company was enjoyable. Hm, I just hope that they will be organizing more of these kinds of retreats. Oops, almost forgot to mention what we were brainstorming on: about the topics of our MA theses. I guess it was more or less useful, but I already know what I want to research and write about and thus didn't really expect that I'll hear some revolutionary ideas about my topic.

I guess I could go on and on about what I am up to since there's so much exciting stuff going on here. Here's what I'll do (but I definitely cannot promise that), I'll try to write more often and thus include more details as they occur. Which means that you have to come back for more as there'll be more interesting stuff to read about soon.

Mladen

The Joy of Getting Drunk ... in Finnish

2005-10-16T15:48:00.000+03:00

It's not that I have had enough things to work on already ... so I had to add a few more classes to my busy schedule: Introduction to Finnish History and a Project Management workshop. Yeah, I was really surprised with the Finnish history class, since I have never seen such a bland and dumbed down introduction to any nation's history, ever. At best it's a high school approach to teaching history at the university: these lecturers are taking generalization and simplification of historical facts to such an extent that you begin to wonder what is wrong with them. I don't want to bore you to death here, so I'll just give one example: I've just learnt that paying taxes in medieval Finland was a privilege. 'Nuff said, seriously.

Now the other class, the Project Management workshop, has been fantastic (so 50% payoff on adding new classes to my schedule). The class is taught by a visiting lecturer Laurence Short who used to be an artist, but has been working for the last 25 years or so organizing, curating and planning art events. What shall I say, one can easily tell that he's a very pragmatical fellow and has a very open approach to novelty. Thus it comes as no surprise that his lectures are done in the same way: a vague structure, with lots of discussions and brainstorming. And he's got so much experience that it's actually quite enjoyable to listen to him speak about how he's been executing various art projects. Then again, the main aim of the workshop is to teach us how to prepare and think about an exhibition project from the concept to the exhibition. Hey, it really is a workshop. We've been divided into three groups and each group was assigned a task of preparing an exhibition. Out of all ideas, we'll all choose one and then actually set up an exhibition in the following months. It's every bit as exciting as it sounds. I'll keep you posted on this one as the ideas and projects evolve.

Addition of these two classes (with lively social life, of course) almost spells insomnia. But hey, as long as I can take it and have fun while doing it, I ain't going to wonder why, but rather why not!

Learning Finnish actually turned out to be a quite hard nut to crack. Not so much because of the language itself, but rather because of the lack of exposure to it. "What the ... but you're in Finland?" you might say. Well, I'm sitting 10 hours a day in the lecture rooms and am addressed in English and have to communicate in English all the time. So when I step out of the classroom in the evening, that's when I have to make a switch to Finnish and even then people around me speak the wrong language, again. But I ain't giving up. I'm writing my shopping lists in Finnish, try to get all my SMSs and emails done in Finnish (although at least one of my friends admitted that my Finnish is cryptic - a nice way of saying: "I have no idea what you are trying to say, pal.") and I try to communicate in verbally as well. This last one has proven out to be the hardest of all as it's almost like it's written on my forehead with all caps: FOREIGNER. But I do manage to acomplish some of the day-to-day tasks in Finnish, which means progress.

However, I do find the language to be both amazing and amusing. The amazing part comes from various peculiarities on how it is structured. For instance Finnish language does not have a future tense (now also means in the future), there's no word for please (which I find really perplexing, as I do like that word in any language; and on top of that my Suomi yksi teacher has been repeating that Finns are rude people and thus don't need that word), linguistically speaking there is no difference between masculine and feminine (that's why you often here Finns refering to women as he and him and vice versa), it has letters in the alphabet that are hardly ever or even never used (for instance, one rarely encounters letters C and W in any of the words). These are just some of the peculiarities. Other than that, I have to say that it is a very logical language, almost akin to a bit twisted programming language. And one thing I like very much is that you can say a lot with just a single word, and I mean a lot. Which is a result of something that in my opinion resembles German way of creating compound words, but Finnish takes it a step further by completely eliminating prepositions. I'm telling you, it's fun.

Now, the amusing part really is something. It surely is tightly connected to cultural nuances and peculiarities (which, of course, can be found in every single culture). It's the language that speaks about culture more than people are willing to admit if you ask them directly. But once I get them to talk about it in concrete ways (i.e. using the language itself) then a whole new avenue to both the language and the Finnish culture opens up in front of me. For instance, just yesterday I was at a party where a few tipsy Finns were telling me that there are more than hundred different ways to say drunk in Finnish. Sure, I believed it, as it is an integral part of their culture. Anyways, the host of the party picked on me asking in rhetorical way if I am trying to make fun out of their culture. Nope, not at all, since it was not me who brought up that linguistical aspect in the first place. And yes, in the next 15 minutes or so they did come up with 26 different ways of expressing drunkness. I am positive that they'd come up with a lot more if they were not so eager at hugging their beer bottles and sipping homemade wine - which again says a lot about how much they care about the subject matter we talked about.

Talking about being drunk, I think there's one more thing I should add. When people are drunk here, they do behave a lot different as to what I've been used to seeing in other cultures. They somehow seem to enjoy pronouncing their lack of sobriety with passers rather loudly in pissed Finnish and when they notice that you do not speak Finnish, then they are more than glad to switch to English and say the same thing again. Which can be fun to watch and listen to, only to a certain extent of course. Although I have not had any trouble with drunk people they can get annoying sometimes by thinking that you enjoy their company while the case is exactly the opposite. But then again, there's nothing special about that, as it seems that it's the inherent effect of alcohol on all human beings: it breaks all social barriers.

Here's to all of you strangers and friends: kippis.

Mladen

The Stone Age in Finland

2005-10-11T00:24:00.000+03:00

Ooha, just got back from the sauna. I don't see how a day could have ended better than it did. It began with a morning run, then studying for Suomi class, then lectures, lectures, lectures and finally a two-hour documentary session for one of the classes. So my 12 hour day ended with a sauna. I guess I deserved it.

Last week was just as interesting as any other, but the culminating point was definitely the excursion to Saarijärvi Stone Age village on Saturday. It is a site by the Summasjärvi lake where they have built a reconstruction of a Late Stone Age village. Saarijärvi is a village located about 60 km north of Jyväskylä. The excursion was organized for students attending Nordic history lectures, but as a Digital Culture student I could come along. The excursion was led by professor Brian Magnusson who is visiting Jyväskylä but is otherwise professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.

Of course, if it wasn't for him, the trip wouldn't have been as interesting as it was. It is amazing how genuine and knowledgeable he is and how many things he explains just by the way. For instance, as we stood by a museum building at the site he noted that the house was a typical Finnish building and outlined major characteristics of a typical Finnish building: saddle roof, eyebrow windows, symmetry, built out of beams, position of chimney in the center of the building, the completely covered porch, the lifted entrance, and of course the characteristic yellow ocher color (or red) to name just a few. And that was just about architecture, thus you can imagine what all we heard about the archeological findings and reconstruction at the same site.

After the Stone Age village we went to the actual Saarijärvi village where one of the largest wooden churches in Finland is erected. The church itself was established here in 1628, but was renovated and enlarged several times. It is just amazing to see a wooden cupola measuring 18 m in diameter. Yes, the church is made completely out of wood. There are a few things that I really found interesting. One is definitely that the church (like almost all churches in Finland) is a central building and thus although it's a protestant church really resembles an orthodox church. And it was the Russian Orthodox church architecture that influenced this change. Another characteristic that was immediately obvious is the scant decoration which gives one the sense of overall austerity. It was also interesting to see that stone is not used whatsoever, but rather, columns in the church are painted to imitate stone. And on top of that, there are no bells in the church building itself, but rather in a campanile located some 100 m away from the church.

I could go on an on about this ... so to make long story short, definitely make sure to check the gallery for some of the images from this trip.

Last week I bought my first National Geographic ... in Finnish of course. Yeah, I cannot really read it, but nevertheless I could not resist the temptation to get a copy and give it a try. It's challenging, but I should probably remind myself how long it took me to be able to fluently read that magazine in English. I have long ways to go, or to put it into the right perspective: my Suomi journey has just begun. Besides the Geographic I have also been trying to read some daily papers and am slowly beginning to enjoy content on Finnish web sites. Hey, if anyone wants to see what I am watching every night, and give it a shot at understanding here's a sample. Have fun and do make sure you let me know how it went or how you liked it.

As you all see I am having a great time here. OK, school is fine and things are finally picking up the pace so I've got quite a few articles/books to read and essays to write. But so far it's really been fun as everything is very dynamic.

Just before I finish off this entry there's one more thing I should say. One of the friends who is studying sports sciences (biomechanics to be more precise) at the University has made arrangements within his department to perform a few tests on me. Don't worry mom, no matter how taxing these test are, they are not harmful. If everything goes according to plan we'll do a VO²Max test next week (which we'll repeat every month or so to measure changes) and later we might do a gait analysis, LT test or anaerobic threshold test and so on. For those who have not figured out yet, yes I am basically talking about my running here. This is all exciting news for me as I have not imagined that I would actually have a chance of doing these tests ever. I'll let you know how things went.

Later.

Mladen

Weekend Cultural Programme

2005-10-04T01:26:00.000+03:00

Another fantastic weekend went by. Naturally, the weekend already begun on Friday when after morning lectures and short snooze in the main library I met with my DGL and NACS friends. We went to the movie theater to see Jali ja suklaatehdas. I can't really say I liked the movie, but it was the camaraderie that made me happy. Movie theater entrance fees around here are akin to those in New York, so one does shell out 9E for a movie. I know, it's obnoxious. But, let's say I was happy enough that as a student I saved 2E by buying student ticket from one of then well hidden elokuva lipput shops on one of the university campuses (I better not say which one, because then it wouldn't be hidden anymore).

And yes, it was my first real Finnish movie experience (OK, I've seen the actual Finnish movie - Nosukausi - in early September. This was organized as a part of the orientation week activities in Kampus Kino). And it was the experience itself that mattered more than the content. Since I don't have a TV, it was really interesting to see some of the pre-movie commercials as well. Then there was a real pleasant surprise: the movie subtitles were both in Finnish and Swedish (as Swedish is the other official language in Finland). The audience was also quite amusing to observe as they were laughing at stuff that wasn't really funny - or maybe it's just me that didn't get most of the 5-year-olds' jokes (There were mostly children in the audience).

And at first it seemed like that was it for the evening, but oh no, the movie was just the matinee, the prelude into the evening festivities. The group went to the local alternative music and culture bar Vakiopaine. I have to say that so far this is the coolest place to hang around in Jyväskylä. Not only is music normal and enjoyable, but they also stage all kinds of non-mainstream cultural: from poetry readings, comedy shows, plays, to concerts. And we just happened to drop in when a concert was about to begin. I have no idea what the name of the band was, but make sure you check the images in the gallery. The performers were a duo brought to the Vakiopaine by a time machine: it was glitter rock with factory preprogrammed synth rhythms on steroids. Believe me, the performance was one of a kind and we have on several occasion questioned ourselves how the hell does the duo keep straight faces during their rehearsals. Anyhow, the audience was all fired up so they actually did two anchors. It was cool and that night I ended up getting home quite early ... in the morning.

Then on Saturday in the early afternoon I went on a pleasant bike trip around Tuomiojärvi and Jyväsjärvi (with a short stop over at the Vesillina tower cafe on the hill in the city center). The weather was absolutely fantastic. After that ride a friend of mine introduced me to some Finnish music and I guess it was pure coincidence that one of the bands I was listening to was playing in town that night. So naturally we went to the concert. The name of the band is YUP and they played in the old factory turned into concert venue Lutakko. It's The concert place in town to go. I like the setting in that place and will definitely be coming back for more gigs.

When I come to think about it, the concert was really enjoyable and I really liked the show YUP staged. Now, I found it really surprising that the entrance fee was actually only 10E (after being charged 4.5E for a goddamn beer, admit it, 10E really isn't that much for concert). Later I heard that internationally acclaimed band The Rasmus played nearby and they charged 25E for the show. So I guess, concerts can are the only reasonably priced entertainment in Finland. Which is great news for me as I love going to concerts.

One thing that really surprised me is how alcohol consumers are treated in public venues when entrance is not restricted to 18+ years. In Lutakko where YUP played, there was a special fence, or almost a kind of a cage, and it was only within that confined space that the audience was allowed to drink alcoholic beverages. Yeah, I'm used to holding my beer can/bottle in the first row and I couldn't do it here. Oh well, I'll get used to the idea. But I do like their relaxed attitude regarding the show timing: the actual beginning time is not announced, they just let their audience know that their shows never start before 1100pm.

Make sure you visit the gallery to check out some of the images I took over the weekend.

Mladen

The Twilight Zone

2005-10-01T12:18:00.000+03:00

One can feel that daylight is becoming a precious resource as the amount of time the sun is above the horizon is slowly diminishing. However the activities are still pretty much on the red side of the scale despite the fact that being here for almost five weeks now means that quite a few activities have become a daily routine. And I have recently realized that where-is-this and how-do-I-do-this-here thinking has mostly become second nature by now. Which is good, because I can concentrate on other matters which have now become more interesting, thus replacing the initial euphoria moments with new ones.

At the beginning of the week I have joined a Buddy group programme the purpose of which it is to make Finnish and international students mingle and eventually become friends. By a series of fortunate events I became a member of two buddy groups that evening. It is exciting enough that in my original group there are people from Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Finland. But no, I suppose that wasn't enough for me, so after a few beers (for them) and a single tea (for me, the reason for which I'll explain later) in a local pub, another group of buddies made me their adoptee. Not only did I end up getting home at 0200am on the launching day, but have already met my buddies the second time this week two nights ago. We are a diverse and thus quite interesting group and judging by laugh-o-meter it looks like we're becoming friends. Let's hope this continues as well as it has started.

I know that at least some of you are wondering why in the world have I had tea the other night when everyone was drinking booze? I didn't see it coming, but I could have, I guess, because it looks like I began paying the interest for awake time borrowed from Mr. Sleep. But I ain't paying much since I only got a mild form of influenza which has not had a big impact on my day-to-day activities but has kept me away from my running shoes and outside the pool that I have enjoyed so much lately. And it looks like whatever it is, it won't last long in my body, especially after several therapeutic sauna-12°C lake cycles yesterday. It was an experiment for me, and it looks like it actually worked. And even though I haven't been sleeping much I have actually managed to pull it off and am now back where I was before I contracted the disease.

Yes, the Digital Culture program people have been really making sure that we enjoy our studies here as we have had a five hour sauna party at a nearby Vuorilampi lake on Thursday. The actual time we spent in sauna was probably around one to two hours and the rest has been pleasant discussion and socializing. And yes, in between sauna sessions we did go for a swim in the already quite cold lake. The water is cold enough that one cannot really soak in it, but still warm enough for a nice swim, nice if you run straight back to sauna, that is. After the sauna we enjoyed some roasted Finnish sausages we made over an open fire and Chinese dumplings made by a Chinese student in our group. It goes beyond saying that it was fun and as you can imagine I am looking forward to more of these DGL "meetings."

This week also lectures which I have been attending finally got a bit more active and interesting as we got our first assignments and readings to do. This doesn't mean that Suomi yksi isn't fun anymore, but it has definitely made important contribution to the morphing of Finnish from merely interesting or amusing to what is now a utility function of the language. It is slowly seeping into my gray matter which means that every single day I use it more in simple everyday interaction with people, myself and computers. I am eagerly awaiting the moment when I'll be able to move away from the what's-up-with-the-weather conversations and could engage in a real discussion about politics.

There's one more celestial observation I should mention here. I believe that so far I have not mentioned anything about the Finnish twilight zone. When I arrived to Finland one of the first things that I have immediately noticed was the length of the twilight time: it was much, much longer than what I am used to at around 45° latitudes. After the sunset the sky was really bright for about at least an hour, however not bright enough to illuminate the forest ground, for instance. It really was quite a sight. But now as the days are getting shorter, even the twilight zone has become much less pronounced. After seeing these changes, I really became interested in experiencing the long Finnish nights. Bring 'em on.

Mladen

Suomalainen Unennäkö

2005-09-25T17:55:00.000+03:00

Yet another exciting week went by. Last weekend (the 17. and 18. September) I went on another biking trip in Jyväskylä vicinity. This time I went to the hundred years old forest where supposedly the tallest tree in Finland grows. Never mind the tallest tree as every single piece of information for visitors is in Finnish there. Again, this biking trip wasn't interesting so much for the destination as it was for the trip itself. And as long as the weather is nice, I'll be doing these biking trips around Jyväskylä. So yesterday I went to Säynätsalo, Lehtisaari, Muuratsalo and Muurame. (You can do a bit of virtual map exploring yourself over at the Jyväskylän Karttapalvelu.) All three are small towns on islands. And although I've been here for a month now and have been actively exploring my still very new environment, I am still fascinated by all the lakes, forests and nature in general. It is amazing how pristine it is. And yes, make sure you check the Suomessa image gallery for some new images from previous and this weekend trips.

As school is supposedly one of the reasons why I am here, I have been attending various lectures during the week. And so far everything has been really relaxed and my schedule really isn't too packed. It might come as a surprise, but so far the most demanding lectures that I've been attending have been the Suomi yksi classes. I have six hours of quite intensive Finnish classes a week which are fun, but the teacher passes on so much information that it is hard to chew and digest it all before the next class. But at least I still have the feeling that I have learnt something new every time I leave that class. My program's classes so far have been OK, but really nothing special, which means that I am yet to hear something I have not heard or read before.

This past week I have also met a student who was an exchange student in Slovenia. Unfortunately she attended the infamous Faculty of Organisational Sciences or the Kranj Sorbonne as it is known where I used to live. Of course, it did not take her long to figure out that she is visiting the shittiest educational institution on this planet. And imagine this, when she went back to Slovenia to visit her friends a year or so later, the new dean somehow found out about her visit and wanted to meet her so that he could apologize for all the crap she's been through at that institution. Being smart as she is, she refused to meet him. Anyhow, as there were more interesting things to discuss, we quickly discovered our mutual interest: human-computer interaction and cognitive sciences. She promised she'll introduce me to the faculty staff in those fields, as I am interested in taking some of their courses. I'm really looking forward to meeting those people.

However, my week was not only about academe. I've already mentioned in my last post that I've been going to the pool, but now I think that I have actually rediscovered water. This past week I've been to the swimming pool twice and have had a blast each time. Yes, I am still learning how to swim, but the progress has been noticeable and I have actually began enjoying it. Yep, I got my swimming goggles and cap, and as simple as those two items are, they make a huge difference in the water. So far I have been working with my swimming instructor on my front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke techniques. If everything goes according to plan, they'll fill the pool with water for me next week ... oops, no, if everything goes according to plan, we'll begin working on butterfly next week. I'm really looking forward to that.

Now I can also say that I am reaching the point where I left my running at the end of May. Which means that I have not been running regularly for almost three months and am now picking it up again. During my first runs here I could really feel that I have lost my edge, but just two weeks later, I can say with confidence that I'm picking it up where I left it. It's an incredible feeling. During my runs I see so many active people rollerblading with poles, doing nordic walking or running, cycling, walking or just plain running. Finns really are active and outdoor people and it's hard not to be once you learn to appreciate what the environment has to offer. So, living an active life here is nothing special, which also means that I just don't get the stares for running as was the case all too often in Slovenia. The only time people stare a bit is when I go for my regular after-run legs soaks in the nearby lake ... well, they'll get used to that.

Another interesting thing about running is that I have actually already managed to fire up my flatmates and even my swimming instructor about running. I already took them out on their first test runs with me and will be preparing running plans for them soon, which means they will get proper introduction to the sport. As you can imagine I am definitely very excited about that.

As I do spend a lot of time on the roads (as a pedestrian, on my bike and running) there are a few things I have noticed about their driving that truly surprised me. As socially sensitive and civilized as Finns are, their driving is nothing like it (disclaimer: I've not yet done any driving here, so I can only relate to the way they behave behind the wheel as a pedestrian). OK, drivers are not as wild and arrogant as they are in Slovenia where you literally have to grow eyes on your back to be safe. But still, for instance, when you want to cross the street, drivers do not stop for you; you as a pedestrian have to patiently wait for the traffic to clear before you can proceed. So it is good that they have developed a quite good system of bike and foot paths.

Of course, I don't have a TV here, but I'm not really a TV person after all. However, there's one show I do enjoy very much and really look forward to it every Tuesday. It's the NerdTV. You don't have to be a nerd from head to toe to enjoy the show, but there has too be at least a latent geek or nerd in you somewhere to have fun watching it. Maybe you should try it out and let me know if you had fun or not; it could definitely be used as a geek-o-meter. Anyways, I've been baking chocolate-chip cookies for those NerdTV screenings for me and my flatmates - well, so far they have enjoyed only cookies and have yet to learn to appreciate NerdTV.

In spite of not spending much time in bed (yes, sleeping at this point can still be regarded as a waste of time, as there are many things to do and try), I did manage to experience my first dream in Finnish. True, the dream was nothing like my dreams in other languages are when I can actively engage in conversation in several languages, but still, I was trying to explain something in Finnish and using probably all the words I know at doing so. I was a bit confused when I woke up, but I finally figured, hey, I must be in Finland.

Pitää hauskaa,

Mladen

The Gallery, the Work and the Fun

2005-09-16T23:37:00.000+03:00

Yahoo friends, Christmas came early this year. As some of you might have already noticed, I've finally set up a gallery. Yep, it took me a while, but now its there which also means that I'll be finally posting pictures. To access the gallery, click the image located in the right column, sit back and enjoy the ride. And make sure you let me know how you like (or dislike, for that matter) the images. Currently there is only one set of pictures, but don't worry, I'll upload more soon.

I've begun this week with a very important meeting. On Monday morning I have met the Digital Culture program director Raine Koskimaa and we have discussed what I will be working on in the next two years. Of course we haven't discussed the details but have nevertheless roughly outlined my study path at the university. The discussion included my wishes regarding my minor studies and possible general topics for my master's thesis. To make a long story short: it looks like my minor will after all be information technology. To those of you who know what I've been up to in the last ten years or so, this decision probably isn't surprising at all. So, I will most likely be taking some programming , software business, user psychology, HCI (for non-nerds, that's human-computer interaction) and the like. So far this idea about getting a minor in IT sounds quite interesting.

As far as my master's thesis is concerned I will be working on relations between art, science and technology. Which again isn't anything new for me, but I will be taking my previous studies and research in this field a few steps further. I have to say that for me this is a very special and exciting moment because it seems like I finally get to do in school what I enjoy doing. I'll keep you updated on details as they develop. For now it looks like I'll mostly focus on my classes and other school work and will begin with further development of thesis ideas next spring and maybe even begin working on early drafts then too. Then in autumn 2006 I'll almost for sure begin writing the thesis and I should have ample time to get it done by the end of May 2007.

When I think about it, this is another unusual moment in my life as I have never really planned my life more than a few months ahead, quite often picking up projects and other opportunities as they came and went rather then definitely setting with one specific topic or job. So it does seem weird to know what has to be done two years from now.

Other exciting moments this week included the first few classes of Suomi yksi. Finnish has already been seeping into my brain by just trying to figure how society and culture around me function and it looks like this course will speed the process up a few notches. So far, I cannot really say that I have learned much more then just a few new words, but the way course is set, it looks like I'll be able puhua suomea pian. Which means that I won't have to look like an idiot during numerous simple everyday encounters with the locals. But on the other hand, I'm sure that this knowledge will open a whole new avenue in my life here as well. The fun part is actually just about to begin for me.

Since the weather got kind of nippy around here (during the day it's no more than 10°C and nights are around 0°C), I've temporally switched from lakes to the university indoor swimming pool. I have to say that all facilities here are absolutely amazing and this includes the sports facilities as well. OK, as far as pools are concerned they have an olympic pool, a 25 meter pool used as a diving pool too, and three other smaller pools ... and that's all indoors. Of course, this wouldn't be Finland if the changing rooms didn't have saunas which I happily visit after every swimming session. And all this for 1.70 Euros. Great stuff, I'm telling you.

Another interesting tidbit is that at the university language center they have a program called Each One Teach One. It is a loosely structured language learning program that primarily relies on one's own initiative to learn another language. Here's how it works: you look for a (preferably) native speaker of the language you want to learn, once you find the right person you both set your learning goals, meet as many times as you want during one term and you both receive official credits for doing so. It really is a good way to learn a language since there are at almost any time hundreds of international students who teach languages ranging from French to Swahili. And why am I writing about this in the first place? Well, I could not believe myself, but there's a Finnish girl who wants to learn Slovene. I was flabbergasted when I learned about her very unusual wish, but was not surprised anymore when she mentioned that she has a Slovene boyfriend who is not interested in teaching her the language. Weird, to say the least, but we'll see how it goes.

Well, in short that's it for now.

Mladen

PS: Hey Bajo, tnx for the space weather information. It has already been quite helpful ... if only I could say the same for the terrestrial weather.

Notes on Life in Jyväskylä

2005-09-12T14:49:00.000+03:00

In the previous week so many things have happened that there's absolutely no way to write about them all. OK, in my previous post I mostly wrote about what school is like here, so now I intend to write about activities that are not directly school related (although the two are really intertwined).

First of all there are a gazillion parties around here almost every day: from private parties to drinking fests which they call pub crawls and other group organized parties. There's no way that I could handle all of them. Now this may sound like I'm getting old, but believe me, I've been sleeping for an average of 5 hours a night in the last two weeks ... that's how hard I've been trying to fit everything in and try just about anything that's on offer out there. So, when it comes to parties, I usually do go, but have become quite selective about them, since there are other more interesting things to do outside of partying.

This previous Monday the Digital Culture staff organized a welcome party for all Digital Culture and Nordic Arts and Culture Studies (NACS) students. There are not that many of us there and programmes share a few common classes, so it was great to get to know people from my own and the NACS programme as well. This was also a nice chance to just chat with fellow students and professors. I really enjoyed relaxed and very informal setting. And I have to say that I am surrounded by a lot of interesting people. The other component that I really appreciate is diversity. In Digital Culture programme there are currently 13 students and I don't think that two come from the same country (OK there are two Finns). Students come from India, Ghana, Moldavia, China, Greece, the US, England, Finland and well, I'm from Slovenia. We really are a diverse group.

All in all there are around 250 international students at the University of Jyväskylä so you can only imagine what it looks like when most of us show up at a local club. You literally can talk to people from every corner of the globe. It is amazing. And that's what makes all those parties interesting in the first place, at least for me.

Then on Tuesday there was a reception at the university for all new degree students. I guess this was geared more toward Finnish students as everything that was said during the reception was strictly Finnish. Sure, I could listen and maybe even understand a word here and there, but otherwise I could not even chuckle when everyone else was wholeheartedly laughing. Hm, I guess I'll have to visit the same reception next year to entirely comprehend and appreciate it. Luckily the rest of the evening was a performance by an a cappella group of 20 male singers. They sung in Finnish, but their performance was so great that I could enjoy their singing even though I understood only words hyvää paivä which were repeated several times in one of their songs.

Then there was a movie night at Richard's place (Richard is one of the Digital Culture students) where we first ate almost half a kilogram of popcorn and drank beer before we commenced with a movie. We watched Closer. The movie was OK, but nothing really special. Then I was invited to a party in Helsinki on Saturday, but could not join my friends because I had to think about what am I going to work on in my master's thesis. Now so far this has all to do just with the parties. There's a whole lot more to life than just parties, as you'll see in a moment.

I must not forget to mention sauna. But before I go on I must mention that I've never been to any kind of sauna before and thus cannot compare it to any other saunas. Sauna in two words: broiling fun. I was amazed to learn that I can sit in 90C room for 15 minutes. Of course you sweat your guts out but it feels unbelievably relaxing. And I guess the whole point is that when you are in sauna you cannot do much more than just sit and enjoy. In sauna sometimes even talking can be too demanding. You must bear in mind who's saying this: a person that too often talks even while asleep! So there you go, if you really want to shut me up and make me happy at the same time, I have a solution for you: stick me into a Finnish sauna. I know I'll be quiet only for an hour or so, but is better than nothing, right.

Sitting in sauna is just half of the fun. The other half is definitely going for a swim between three or so sessions that you do in a single sauna visit. There are always showers to do the cooling, but then again, I am in Finland, and I guess that there are just as many lakes as there are showers. In the last week I've been to sauna three times, and I've been using lakes to cool off twice. Yeah, the lakes are cold and that's the whole point. My friend Heather who's been working for years at pools and is a swimming buff, expertly pronounced that water in those lakes is no more than 14C. But I would be wasting precious fun if I used the lakes only to cool off in them, so I did go for a swim a few times already and so far I swam every time in a different lake (except once). Which wasn't exactly hard to do, as there are almost 180.000 lakes in Finland. Three down, 179.997 to go.

In my previous post I mentioned that I got myself a brand new mountain bike. Yep, it is a red little beast. I guess the bike is nothing special in the MTB world, but it is special to me, because before I got a bike, I was walking at least 15K every day and since my cargo was a week late, that means I did all the walking in the same pair of shoes. My heels and feet couldn't take it anymore. And then I got a bike. True, it cost me 200 Euros, but it's a flying machine too, especially if you ride it down a skiing slope, which I did last Saturday. This feat was part of the little mountain biking excursion around Jyväskylä with Heather (who coincidentally got her bike on the same day as I have). Wanting to explore Jyväskylän surroundings meant riding through forests which from time to time meant carrying the bike as some trails were obviously not made for riding, if there was a trail in the first place. I will be doing a lot more of those biking trips around Jyväskylä and hopefully around Finland too. Let's just hope that the weather doesn't get too wet too soon.

Because Finland has rather pristine nature it is not that surprising to see lots of animals. I quite often observe squirrels jumping from tree to tree right outside my bedroom window. True, I live in an apartment house located on the top of the hill in the forest. And then, when I go for a run around one of the Jyväskylän lakes I see hares on almost every run. But last Friday when I rode my bike to the city center at around 1000pm I was taken by surprise when a moose was standing in the middle of a bike path. I think we were both equally surprised and scared as we were only about 20 meters away from one another and I have to admit that the animal was of respectable size: it was as tall as I am, maybe even taller. We both stood there for a few moments, but not long enough for my camera to react and make the snapshot. Now, that day I've seen squirrels in the morning, a few hares on my evening run and a moose when going into town. So when I was on my way home later that evening I thought to myself: I only have to meet Snow white and it'll feel like I live in Disneyland.

I guess I wrote about quite a few firsts already, but there is definitely one more that I absolutely must mention. On Saturday night I saw an aurora borealis. It is one of those phenomena that is extremely hard describe, you have to see it for yourself to enjoy the stunning beauty of moving colored veils in the sky. Even if the occurrence was static it would be jaw dropping, but no, these northern lights actually move and change pretty quickly too. I did take some pictures with my digital camera, but they are really crappy. Anyways spotting an aurora borealis was definitely one of my wishes ... and I guess that wish was fulfilled sooner than I expected.

This has been a pretty long post. I hope that I'll be able to find time for posting here more often and write about things as they happen and not a week later. Well, I hope you enjoy reading it and that you'll come back for more soon.

Have fun, everyone.

Mladen

The School

2005-09-08T15:58:00.000+03:00

Life is fine in Jyväskylä: running trails are terrific, tap water is unbelievably clean and tasty, the city is lively, youthful and diverse, people are nice, weather has been quite warm, even university cafeteria food is decent, after two weeks of quite tiresome walking I finally got myself a bike which means that I do not have to take a single step from now on and today I even received the long awaited cargo. Yippee!

Since the beginning of the last week I've mainly been busy with various orientation courses at the university which have helped me with getting to know how Finnish educational system in general and the university in particular work. And I have to say that almost everything runs smoothly here. One of the major differences between the Slovene (which I've got to know down to absurd details over the years) and Finnish school systems is that in Finland the purpose of administration is to actually make things work as efficiently as possible, whereas in Slovenia they tend to complicate even the simplest tasks and thus just frustrate people. Here university employees at least know what their responsibilities are and are even eager to help.

Based on the lectures I've had so far, it also looks like I will be enjoying my studies here a great deal. The lectures so far have been quite lively. One thing that I really enjoy is that a lot of time so far has been dedicated to group discussions. And attendees come from so many different cultural and professional environments that it is really interesting to listen to what they have to say. And on top of that the variety of courses at the university is absolutely enormous: from The Cultural History of Western Madness to Accelerator Based Condensed Matter Physics. I also really appreciate the fact that all classes are public, although a great majority of lectures are delivered in Finnish, so I'll have to stick to English ones for now, but will hopefully be able to actively attend some of them next year.
In Finland the school year is divided into two terms and each term is divided into two periods plus a fifth period which takes place during the summer months. Which means that courses usually begin at the beginning of each period, last a few weeks and then there is an exam week before the next period begins. So you're really not stuck to one and the same lecturer and subject throughout the whole year and are thus exposed to loads of variety. And on top of that I was told that at least in programme that I attend students can expect loads of guest lecturers, artists and business people. All this means that I will be exposed to a wide variety of subjects and will hopefully even develop new interests.

Just for the taste of what I'll be doing in the first two periods, here's a list of my courses: Theories of Digital Culture, Digital Art and Culture, Documentarism, Man and Information System, Cultural Theory, Analyzing and Interpreting Visual and Textual Materials, Forays into Nordic Archeology, Research Communication and, guess what, Suomi Yksi. That's a list as of today, but since their system is really flexible, you can register and unregister from all courses whenever you feel like it and you can take exams as many times as you want. So hey, I'll probably be sampling a whole bunch and then just attend those that I really like. The only problem might be that there are so many to choose from that good ones can be easily overlooked.

Another thing that I really appreciate at the university is how well the computer system is organized. Not only did they set up Internet connection in my room only two hours after I have applied for it, but computers are spread throughout the campus. You can login with the same user/pass combination on all of them and can access your private folder on the server which can also be accessed via net. And each student also get 50 MB on a web server, naturally. There are also quite a few wi-fi areas on the campus, but I am yet to check that out, since I do not yet have a wi-fi card for my computer (but I've heard that those can be borrowed from the university). Another neat thing is that materials for all core lectures that I'm taking are available after the lecture on a system called Optima. Which basically means all presentations, related readings lists, links to interesting materials on the web and discussion forums. All information is extremely easily accessible to students of the courses. I've been waiting for something like that for years and it probably won't happen anytime soon either.

So far the only truly unpractical thing is the access to the main library which is open only during weekdays and for a short time during the weekend. I'd expect that at least the main library would stay open 24 hrs a day, but I guess that has a lot to do with Finnish work morale: it seems they work a lot, but within reasonable limits which means that free time is an important and respected asset of every Finn. But practically anything regarding Finnish work culture and attitude is still out there for me to explore, so I cannot really say much about it just yet.

Lots of interesting things have been going on around here, but each day only has 24 hours which means that so far I couldn't really find much time to set up the image gallery. Now, I am finally working on it, so you can expect to see some images from Jyväskylä soon.

Anyways, Uroš thanks for the comments. Keep it up, because it is cool to hear from you. And this can also serve as an invitation to others: let me know what you've been up to. If you don't feel like posting a comment, than just drop me an email and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Mladen

North by North-East

2005-08-31T01:56:00.000+03:00

I know, I should have written this post a few days ago, but there is so much going on in my life at the moment that it's a bit hard to stare at the computer and write while there are so many other more exciting and engaging things to do around here ... so, finally, here we go.

Touchdown! I arrived to Jyväskylä on Saturday night. Yes, it was a long trip considering that both Slovenia and Finland are in Europe, but time wasn't money so the trip with Ryanair, Appartmenthaus zum Hahn and VR costed me roughly two days and 120 Euros (instead of one day and 800 Euros if I were to fly from Ljubljana to Jyväskylä). The journey itself was nothing extraordinary: late planes, punctual trains and lots of waiting. The decision to fly to Tampere and then take the train to Jyväskylä wasn't bad at all because I first got to see Finland from the air and then enjoyed the countryside from the ground.

Actually, before I go on here are my immediate impressions and associations about Finland and Finns (after being here for a few days): reserved but very friendly, language challenge, lots of space, green, tidiness, expensive and definitely, water, and lots of it too ... in all forms and directions.

Jyväskylä is located in the central Finnish region also known as lakeland. Now, this is interesting, because Finland is full of lakes, so from the perspective of practically any visitor, whole Finland could be called lakeland. It's really hard to believe, but there are 180.000 lakes in Finland. There are numerous lakes in and around Jyväskylä, which also means that there is one right next to the building where I live. One might wonder where does all this water come from, but once you spend a few hours here, you simply cannot miss the biggest source of lake water: it rains on and off every single day. Even so that practically no matter how hard it rains, there are a lot of people walking on the streets who simply don't pay attention to all this rain. At first it looks weird to see people strolling without umbrellas through the city while the rain is literally pouring on them. But you do get used to all this water pretty quickly. I can't wait to see what the real autumn looks like when there's supposedly even more rain, because, mind you, now it's still August.

One other thing that made much more lasting impression on me is Finnish language. Although I've tried to learn some Finnish while I was still back in Ljubljana, I think that no matter how hard I tried back then I'd still be stumped upon arrival. It is downright amazing how different this language is; it doesn't even sound familiar and on top of that Finns speak it in quite peculiar manner which makes it practically impossible to distinguish between words. So it is not surprising at all that they have a hard time with consistency in writing. Also, I have never seen so many meaningful long words in my life: they quite easily reach 20 characters and beyond. So what I am doing right now is learning how to read completely from scratch. All my Finish friends are laughing their asses of when I am tackling one word at a time, almost a letter at a time - and on top of this not even pronouncing words correctly. But I think we are both having a great time: they get a good laugh and I get to learn something from their linguistical guidance.

Now, as far as their silence and reservedness is concerned: yes, they are a bit quiet and reserved, but when approached can be very friendly and helpful. But, for example, when I walk into a store and try out my Finish on them, they just stare at me and almost ignore me half of the time. As if they want to say that it is OK if you speak English, just don't touch our language. Finns below 30 are an exception, because they can be very talkative once they engage in a conversation.

Another thing that really stands out is nature and their utmost respect for it. True, Finland is one huge forest by the lake, but they also know how preserve their nature or not do any harm to it in the first place. It starts with their meticulous recycling of trash (they separate it into five categories) and extends to cleanliness. But there is one very important detail: they don't overdo it, so it isn't kitsch like in some Alpine countries like Austria and Switzerland.

But life has a price tag here, and a hefty one too. Some prices are just obnoxious. Here are a few examples: a beer in a pub can cost you 4,5 Euros, a packet of cigarettes is anywhere from 2 to 5 Euros, daily newspaper 2 Euros, a bottle of water 1,5 Euros, a liter of gasoline 1,3 Euros, rent for a 24 sq m apartment in Jyväskylä runs from 350 Euros on, and so on. Finns seem to be happy and relaxed people in spite of all those expanses because it looks like they earn enough so they can afford to live a normal life here.

Although I've been in Finland only four days now, I must say that so far I really like it here. The nature is spectacular, people are friendly and relaxed, the city is rather quiet and it's extremely easy to get all sorts of bureaucratic things done in an instant. It's amazing how easy life can be if there are no ill intentions, greed or envy.

Well, that's it for now. Check back in a few days when I'll write more about my continuing Finnish experience. And in meantime I'll also upload a few photos, because I know that some of you out there are anxious to see those.

Mladen

Jet lag

2005-08-26T01:59:00.000+03:00

Not that I've gone somewhere, but I did manage to get a jet lag - a packing jet lag, that is. Aside from rather brief moments of meeting various friends, I've been packing non-stop since Monday. The busy packing schedule left almost no time for sleeping, which finally resulted in a real jet lag. Although I must say all sleep deprivation doesn't bother me that much after all, because I am satisfied with completion of this more-than-I-innitialy-anticipated complex task. Just imagine: I won't be able to come back and grab that little something I've forgotten to take with me. And now try to imagine every possible situation that you could find yourself in the years to come. Hm, for me it resulted in 97 kg of impedimenta which will be on its way to Jyväskylä around the same time I'll take off tomorrow. And then there is the burden of gazillion smaller tasks that needed to be done, dealing with bureaucracy not excluded.

Moving is supposed to be one of the most stressful situations that can happen to you. But I did not find it to be too stressful, I just got fed up with it really quickly. Actually, most of the time I was even having fun: picking out which books should I take with me (yes, for those who want to know, almost 70% of those 97 kg are books) and rearranging the contents of the packages so that everything will fit in the boxes. I guess it wasn't all that stressful because I am really excited about the whole idea of going somewhere I've never been before.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this enjoyable experience in the last week or so: Ondina for passing on the boxes and moving experience, Črt & Maja for the pleasant under-the-doormat surprise - the Scandinavian phrasebook, and of course Uroš for dropping by for a late-night popcorn and beer session. It was fun spending time with all of you and everyone else I've managed to see before leaving.

Anyways, this is my last night in Ljubljana. In the morning my parents will take me to Klagenfurt where I'll catch a flight to Frankfurt. I'll spend the night in Frankfurt-Hahn (yep, you can almost forget about efficient flight connections if you are traveling on a budget) and then leave for Tampere Saturday afternoon. Once I get to Tampere I have to catch an evening train to my final destination: Jyväskylä.

I'll write my next post from my room in Jyväskylä as soon as I get the Internet up and running. I can hardly wait to get there. Make sure to tune in for all the details.

Mladen

La Biennale

2005-08-21T13:09:00.000+03:00

I guess Venice never fails to impress me. No matter how many times I've visited this small city, there's always something there that turns the trip into an enjoyable experience. And this time around it was no different. When we (my mom accompanied me on this trip) arrived at around 9am we headed straight for the Giardini where the national pavilions are located and afterwards we went to Arsenale - a venue that was added to the biennial not too long ago - where individual artists display their works. There's also a whole bunch of locations spread throughout Venice that either host performances or exhibitions that are directly tied to the biennial, but we've managed to visit only a few of those.

At this year's biennial there were quite a few interesting and creative works on display that I really enjoyed. And I was taken by surprise to see so many video works. Now, I am not gung ho on painting, but I really enjoyed Ed Ruscha's project Course of Empire (read an interview with Ruscha here). It consists of a series of black-and-white paintings entitled Blue Collar that he did in the 1990s which epitomize the American industrial culture and paintings that he did for this Biennale which respond or reflect on those earlier paintings. The black-and-white paintings speak about times long gone, while his new color series speaks in Ruscha's words about his "doubts about progress in the world, and hopes for the world." It is striking to see those images juxtaposed.

I'd also like to point out aero and sound installation Idiot Wind by the ProvMyza duet (Galina Myznikova and Sergey Provorov). It's a series of dimly lit halls with varying degrees of wind force which escalates to strong wind at the end of the last hall where a small room is positioned. Ultimately this tactilely-aural experience (the halls are lined with hidden speakers emitting various ambient sounds) is the interplay between reflection on our immediate personal space and playfulness of audience that actively participates and cocreates this work. Idiot Wind is both contemplative and amusing at the same time.

Then there was also a piece (if it can even be called "a piece" since it is immaterial) by Tino Sehgal who has developed a specific form of art which takes shape only at the moment one’s encounter with it. At first, I was taken by surprise when I was approached by one of the pavilion attendants who offered to refund half of the entrance fee if I speak about market economy for several minutes. After she made that offer I peeked into a huge empty space behind the passage where she was standing and I immediately realized that it us at this very moment that are Tino's work of art. His work thus presents the climax of Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel's raison d'etre which they expressed in their manifesto published in 1963: "We wish to put the spectator in a situation which he initiates and transforms. We wish to develop in him an increased capacity for perception and action."

Here's a list of links to a few other artists whose works I particularly recommend at La Biennale 2005:
- Guerrilla Girls
- Eija-Liisa Ahtila
- Regina Jose Galindo
- Antoni Muntadas
- Robin Rhode

I mean I could go on at length about these and other works I liked, but I really think that these works speak best for themselves. So if you've got a chance to visit La Biennale, you should (it is open till November 6th 2005).

Mladen

Not just yet suomessa ...

2005-08-17T18:48:00.000+03:00

Although I do enjoy reading some people's blogs, I've never really put much thought into having one myself. I don't know, but I am just not that much into writing diaries because I can imagine how stupid I would feel reading even about what I thought was interesting yesterday. Anyway, when I found out that I'll be moving to Finland I thought quite a bit about how am I going to keep in touch with all of my friends and family and what would be the most convenient way to tell them about my experiences and about my new life. So starting a blog was an obvious solution and here it is.

Since this is the first post, there are a few things I think should be said - the where, why, when and how (what has already been covered, I guess) of the whole moving to Finland deal. Where? I'll be changing my location from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Jyäskylä, Finland. Why? Primarily because I have enrolled to the University of Jyväskylä's Digital Culture master's degree program. When? I'll be heading north on the August 26th. How? Hmm, let me see ... by plane. Nevertheless, this question would be unimaginably more interesting if it were: For how long? I have no idea, but let's say for starters it will be two years.

The preparations for my relocation have been underway for a while now since there are unbelievably many things that need to be taken care of before I go. However nothing has been too stressful so far. Quite the opposite, the feeling of canceling my at all times annoying ISP, even more so annoying landline and mobile operators, was downright cathartic. I'll spare you the details, but should definitely mention that part of the preparations also included me going digital in one more aspect: I've gotten myself a nifty little digital camera so that I can enrich this blog with images which might even play more important role for those readers who'll want to see what I am doing and not just read about it. Some might think that I've made the switch long time ago ... well there'll be plenty of time to explain why it has not happened before.

OK, that's about it for now. Tomorrow I'll be heading to Venice to check out the biennial and to enjoy the city - it's been a while since my last visit. I'll let you know how it was when I get back.

Anyway, I expect this whole Finnish experience to be very enjoyable, so come back regularly, sit back and have fun.

Mladen