Helsinsky: City Perks

 

 

This article is part of a series ”My Helsinsky and then some. Or why city-dwellers rarely if ever bother finding out what their city really has to offer besides the downtown core.”

 

City Perks

 

Haaga Rhododendron Gardens – Magical Mystery Tour

I used to live pretty much right next to this park yet failed to even acknowledge its existence. Which is all the more telling – and appealing – since this park is of quite substantial size actually.

In fact if I hadn’t share a flat with room mates, I might never have found it at all. One day – let’s just call him – Bob comes back home from his studies and/or work and starts enthusiastically ranting about some awesome park that is basically right in our backyard.

I was a bit skeptical – for he was somewhat younger than me and generally seemed to get excited rather easily – but of course I had to see it for myself if only to see he wasn’t just pulling my leg.

A sweet dude who I hope eventually got to move to Canada (or wherever) to live the kind of a life he wanted for himself.

Bob is probably another foreigner that Finland could have put to much better use than just scrubbing plates and pans in restaurants for the rest of his life because – in his words, being Russian and all – cops didn’t want to give him a permission to work as a DJ even when such a position was available to him.

If I recall correctly Bob said that he was told that Russians don’t play music. In those exact words. And that was the end of discussion. So, instead, he was allowed to try to find menial work such as scrubbing plates.

I guess someone wanted to show him his place. Even if – or particularly – when was studying business in a polytechnic.

Anyways Bob was the first person that I personally knew who expressed his dissatisfaction about Finnish immigration system and particularly the bureaucracy of it and – what I could only describe as – outright lawlessness of it, too.

Because I had myself personally lived pretty normal sheltered life that thought hadn’t even really crossed my mind that there would actually be racist practices involved – or at the very least – racist individuals in high places who could apparently decide more or less for themselves who are desirable and who are non-desirable immigrants.

Or in plainer terms: who gets to have a fair chance – or chance at all – in trying to better their own lives and move up in the society’s social ladder.

Despite his young age Bob was a self-assured guy – even a proud man some might say (which can seem like a crime in itself, for many Finns at least). And maybe this guy who got to play god with Bob’s life – whom he clearly didn’t much appreciate at all for some reason or the other – was just less self-assured fellow and wanted punish him for being one.

You know, one of those people who tend to aim for positions where they too could finally for once in their life possess some measure of power of influence on other people – and particularly on people who have little or no chances at all at defending themselves.

There are bad apples everywhere – of course – but I can’t help feeling like there would be more bad apples than on average amongst police force and immigration ”services” than we care to admit.

Not everything can be explained away just by stating that the cops and the immigration officers work under immense pressures. Or because they’d get to see too often the so-called dark side of the man and how this would automagically desensitize said officers.

They are taxed and they could get ”desensized”, but sometimes – sometimes – it would be just more intellectually honest to call it what it is: deep-rooted racism.

Tisk, tisk. Anyways, I was just as blown away as my room mate must have been after seeing this place for the first time – and he probably got to see it in full bloom, too. I probably took my time and therefore missed – I guess most would argue – the best part about it: rhodos in flower.

I think it’s still a cool, special, place even if you do miss that short early summer period when the flowers are in bloom.

Not saying you should, tough. :)

 

Alppipuisto – Summer in the City

So central location yet so secluded that you might pass by it unaware that it’s even there. The best outdoor venue Helsinsky has to offer. Note that people will be drinking and some will be smoking pot. Not a rowdy place however. People are – unsurprisingly – pretty mellow and happy-go-lucky here.