Translation of Leszek Talko's article at GAZETA WYBORCZA ( 19.12.2005, Poland ) made by Ula Grzywna and Kasia Bieron, Polish scout girls from Krakow who visited Halmeniemi in august 2007.
Translation of Leszek Talko's article at GAZETA WYBORCZA ( 19.12.2005, Poland ) made by Ula Grzywna and Kasia Bieron, Polish scout girls from Krakow who visited Halmeniemi in august 2007.
First Matti looked out of the window. No sign of snow. Strange. Snow should have already been everywhere. It was starting to get dark at 4 p.m., so when there was snow and it was reflecting moonlight, at least at night you could see something. Now there was only darkness behind the window. Somewhere there was the forest, further away the lake with black, soundless waves. Even the wind was soundless.
Well yes, without snow it's a bit easier. But even if it fell down, another Matti would come with a tractor and take the snow off the road. And at night it would be a little brighter, because now you can't go out without a flashlight.
First Matti shook his head again and went to the garage. He was supposed to go to Kouvola to pick up that journalist, the one with a funny name.
This journalist was very surprised when Matti told him over the phone that he will pick him up. The journalist said that it's very kind and that he thanks a lot, but why bother while he can come by himself. I wonder how: from Helsinki to Kouvola it's 200 km. By train it's two hours. But from Kouvola to Halmeniemi it's still 60 km. A bit on a good road, and later in the woods and on forest paths. So how could he get here?
Matti drove out of the forest, passed the "Helicopter bar" and turned left on the almost empty road. After an hour he parked at railway station in Kouvola. He still had fifteen minutes left, but he didn't like to be late. The phone rang. It was Leena, she was inviting to the meeting in the evening - and take the journalist- she said.
Matti nodded his head.
The train arrived. A few passangers got out, the journalist with a funny name as well. They were going back to Halmeniemi the same way. Nobody was driving over 80 km per h. Journalist said it's weird.
The foreign journalist was surprised again, generally he was surprised so often, that Matti felt uneasy. After all he was talking about the most obvious things on earth. It's normal that for one person 100 euros is a fortune, and for somebody else it's nothing. You can't punish everybody in the same way.
Lately cops caught a millionaire, who was speeding with his sports car. You can count all the millionaires in Finland in tens. It just the way it is. There are a few really rich people but there are almost no really poor ones - explained Matti. Everybody has just as much as they need, and the ones that have more pay more taxes. But the guy with the sports car happened to be a real millionaire, so he paid a few tens of thousands euro.
The journalist was surprised again and said that this millionaire must have been some kind of an idiot to state that he has so much money. In his country everybody would pretend to be poor.
Of course you can imagine lying to a policeman in Finland though it's forbidden. But the next day police will get information from your Taxation Bureau anyway; and if it turns out that you were lying, and you are a millionaire then your ticket will be even higher.
There is almost no corruption in Finland, every year it wins Transparency International rank of the least corrupted countries in the world. Maybe it's because there are so few Finss. Only 5 million. Office worker that took a bribe wouldn't find any job in the administration. Or maybe it's a long tradition of democratic deciding and avoiding understatements? Even now everyone can check what, how, and why office workers have decided.
The journalist just sighed and looked at the forest. He asked how is it possible that they are so clean and that there is so much of them. Because you see very often trucks full of cut down trees.
Matti was surprised again. Why the forests would be dirty? Animals won't make them dirty, and if people see any trash they pick it up. Owners take care of their forests and if they cut out some trees they plant they same number of new trees.
First Matti was sitting quietly in the corner and from time to time he was whispering interpretation of the most important news to the journalist. Marita thinks that there is a chance of starting a program of building new houses in Halmeniemi.
There is an agreement with two other villages that also fight for surviving. One of them is in the western part of the country and the other in Lapland, far up north. They prepared a business-plan together. Later everybody drinks coffee and makes plans for tomorrow. Marita's husband Mika calls. He won't come today either, that's because he is preparing a concert in a pub in Mikkeli and a money collection for the school.
First Matti gives the journalist a ride to a house by the lake, in which tourists live during the season and he tells how did he end up here. He had been living in Helsinki all his life. Maybe Helsinki isn't such a big city, a little over half a million, and if somebody has come from Paris or even from Warsaw, it may appear to him it is empty. It seems like most of the inhabitants have left, and the ones that stayed are just a group who are trying very hard, but hopelessly, to make an impression that the city is full of people that are rushing around.
In Halmeniemi it was totally different. Maybe 150 inhabitants, but to get from one end of the village to another you almost have to drive around the entire lake. From the first Matti to the second it is about two kilometeres. to Marita one more, and Leena lives just by the shore, one kilometer away. On foot it's hours of wandering around. If somebody prefers to, he might not see a person for a year. Dark, empty and absolutely quiet. Twice a week there is a bus coming with groceries and a library with books that you can order on the internet ( it's not a problem because here everyboy has internet, and last research has shown that seven in ten Finns use it everyday ).
And if somebody wants to look for somehing exciting, he can go kilometers further, to Ristiina. In Ristiina there are stores, a pharmacy and even a clothing shop, and a hill where there still is a base of a castle built by a nobleman Brahe.
If that is not enough, you can go to Mäntyharju, where they have an own newspaper, which comes out twice a week and a factory where nordic walking sticks, which are very fashionable now, are made. In Mäntyharju there is also an art gallery, almost the biggest wooden church in Finland and a school which kids from Halmeniemi would have to attend to if people could't have got Juha to do talkoo. School that kids from Halmeniemi would have to ride to, if there won't be seven more children, because that is the ultimatum of the local authorities that wanted to close the school at first but then they were encouraged by Marita's lobbying, Leena's phonecalls, second Matti's reasoning.
Moreover, they are very well behaved, except for the situations when they drink. But those Russians who come to Finland do not do it for drinking even as Finns like drinking. Well. Except for Halmeniemi. It is difficult to find someone here who likes alcohol, there are just non drinkers. The journalist is a bit sorry because he has brought a bottle of Polish vodka with a grass inside and there is no one to give it to.
This journalist is generally a bit lost. The second Matti gave him one cottage to live in. An ordinary cottage: made of wood, three bedrooms, a living room, a sauna. But the journalist is so much excited about it. And also he is very surprised that Matti told him not to lock it.
The journalist asks if he often goes fishing on the lake with his boat; Matti thinks and says no, now rarely. At least from the moment when a few months ago his daughter Veera was born. So now he goes only once a week or even less than that. But he is planning new projects related to fishing. People will come to catch fish.
Juha loves Citroens. Not just cars but Citroens. He doesn't really know why. Maybe because his parents had a Citroen and it reminds him of childhood. Maybe. Nevermind. Now he has Citroens, about 20 and a school. The school in Halmeniemi is such a strange place that probably all children dream about. Actually they would dream about if they knew it exists.
The only room has 150 square meters and everybody puts their desk wherever they want to. By the window, by the blackboard, and the ones that are always cold by the heater. In the smaller room there is a library and a computer lab at the same time. Juha is just sitting in this room right now with all the kids and they are just talking. Juha left to fetch some coffee. The journalist who just came in to see the school asks him what lesson it is. Juha explains that it is not a lesson. Every morning he sits with the kids in the library and they are eating cookies, drinking tea and talking about their day, what's new at home and what did they watch in tv. Sometimes someone will tell about his dream, someone else about his new idea, and Juha has just told about a Citroen which he had just seen. It's a pity that it's over the polar circle. Maybe it will be possible to talk first Matti into getting it from there.
Two moms are preparing lunch in a big kitchen. Every moment someone comes into school. And first Matti just came to chat with Juha. Kids are running in the corridor and it is really diffcult to explain to the journalist if it is a lesson or a break. There are 13 kids in the school, each of a different age. In Finland it's not surprising even in a big school. Just like it is not surprising that the school teaches not only how to count and write but also how to live. How to solve a problem at home, how to cooperate with friends. How to fix something that broke. Maybe this is why Finnish pupils are the best ones in the world. In PISA ranks, which collect data about teens from all over the world, it comes out that Finns are the best in mathematics, text understanding, sciences, and in problem solving they were beaten only by South Koreans. So it isn't surprising that Fins have the fourth place in the world in the number of patents per capita.
Juha is sitting behind the desk and checking if Aaron did his English excercises, a girl is making pictures for art and the rest are waiting till Juha will have time for them. Meanwhile they search the internet or pretend to be Indians. Juha was once a principal of a great gymnasium in Helsinki. Hundreds of pupils, a few dozens teachers and a feeling that something is missing. That there was too much of everything, the school was too big, and the classes were too big. There was also too many pupils and it's not good when there is so much that you can't remember their names and faces.
One day he told his wife that maybe they should move. Juha's wife Kaija is a movie director, she works here and there so she can live anywhere. When they were moving she was beginning to shoot a movie called "Valo" and she had interviewed three thousand candidates for the main character - a little boy named Valo. It could have been completely different with the school if not for the daughter which came a little suddenly. Well, at least Juha didn't plan it this way, the rest of children have already grown up and live on their own. And then Kaija and Juha suddenly found themselves far away from the city in which they have spent all their lives, far away from the job they knew, people they were meeting, and a small child. Juha took maternity leave, or rather a paternity one and that's when first Matti knocked on their door.
Well yes, he bought some wood and built it - Juha nods his head - every man should built a house.
Hmm - the journalist murmured - and this celebration...
Sometimes it's possible to write about an interesting person. Someone like a war veteran, who decided to reconstruct a trench and an underground cellar from the Finnish-Soviet war. He gathered a couple of other veterans and they did talkoo. So there is the cellar, along with trenches, an information board and exponats.
Youngsters can learn how it was back in the days, and it was really hard. The Soviets had planes, tanks, and transporters, and Finns had riffles, guns and skies on which they moved like ghosts, attacked the Soviet columns and disapeared like ghosts. Russians have put an ultimatum, they wanted a part of Finland, but Finns said no. Generalissimus Stalin was impressed: these Finns are courageous people, he said.
Now old veterans tell tourists and younger people stories about the weeks spent in snow waiting for the Soviets. About that when you lived here you had to help each other. Then they get into their new Volvos and Citroens C4 and leave with screeching of tires.
In the summer everybody gathered to renew the house. It is 3000 of working hours, overall and Marita is very proud that nobody stayed aside. The Asplunds, who hardly can find any time because they have the only mobile puppet show in Finland, have come. Ricky Asplund has been performing in the circus in Finland, which belonged to his father, and now he lives in Halmeniemi with his wife and goes on tournees. Raimo Nikki has came. He was an army officer and he has spent half of his life in distant countries. A few years in Cambodia, some in Ethiopia, some time in New York City as an connective officer of United Nations. He has lived in 36 countries, and now he is living in a small cottage by the lake, because there he feels the best. Leena's daughter, Päivi, has come. She lives and works now in Mikkeli but spends all her free time in her summer cottage by the lake.
Unfortunately, Marita still doesn't talk about herself. She has a farm, she harvests cumine. It's boring, not worth mentioning. This journalist will later discover that it is the biggest farm of cumine in Finland, that Marita invites children from all over Finland to stay at the farm for a few summer weeks. Someone else will say that she trains a girl dancing group and takes them all over Europe with talkoo money. The journalist surely openes his eyes with amazement, because Marita didn't even mention it. It is normal, that if she used to practise dance and gymnastics, now she coaches the girls - is's a talkoo job.
The girls also work to afford the journeys. Parents decided that it would be fair this way. After all, one can afford to send his child abroad, and the other can't. So all the girls work during the summer in the culture center, they bake cakes, they give out leaflets.
Ten years ago Marita came up with an idea of a celebration, which would unite the villagers. She planned a big winter party in a little valley near the village. Everybody came. They brought the small fish, which you cover with crumbles and fry, warm wine and lots of coffee.
It was fun. So they repeated it in the summer. And each winter afterwards.
Every day Marita prepares plans of development for Halmeniemi, she manages the budget. Mika, her husband plays voluntarily in the village band. They have just let out the third CD. It's now playing from the speakers. Nice rock.
First Matti was coming along and knocking on the door. Eventually second Matti said: - Just come in, for sake and don't knock.
And now they come and visit each other.
Second Matti sometimes even three times a day, because he is just passing by. He comes in, gets coffee, drinks it and dissappears - says first Matti, the journalist listens and writes it all down. He looks around the little living room. Maybe 15 square meters, where his wife is doing things around the house, six childres runs around, two own and the rest left for a while by the neigbours. They will do the shopping in the city in exchange. When you live at the end of the world you have to help each other. House is just like all the others in the neighbourhood. Wooden outside and inside, with a big stove and little rooms, maybe a 100 square meters altogether. The journalist was surprised that all the houses are so similar and that no one builds big mansions. Even though second Matti and Marita could afford it for sure. Or why does everybody drive ordinary old cars and no one has a big 4x jeep. Maybe it's the Lutheran modesty tradition. But they seem to be rich to the journalist.
Everybody has either a part of the forest, or cottages for rental, or a farm, and the older people big rents. For summer vacation they go to exotic places - you have to get some rest. At home they have new computers and laptops- because they are handy at work. But why would someone need a big, expensive house with marbles and exotic floors.
The jornalist isn't surprised and is already leaving. The couple with kids from Helsinki has called. They will take the cottage. So there are only five more kids needed to save the school.
Matti has just brought the Citroen for Juha. A good year - 1982 - he smiles. - A bit damaged but Juha will be happy. He loves to repair them.
Leena is going to Helsinki. The university invited her to give a lecture about integrating the newcomers to the local community.