Yes, to much surprise it’s about booze again. One would think that after living in the Nordic countries for almost two years now, I’d finally get used to all those things about alcohol consumption and everything that follows suit. Alas, I have not. Far from it. I still find the relationship between locals and booze too fascinating to be able to let go.

Alcohol consumption has a special status in the Nordic countries. Its consumption is not a taboo like it is in many other places. Quite the contrary, the media are usually relatively expressive about this or that problem related to drinking too much hooch and advising people not to guzzle as much as they do. Even though according to statistics inhabitants of many other European countries consume a lot more alcohol per year than inhabitants in the Nordics do, it is considered to be a big problem, at least in Finland.

Why then do alcoholic beverages have such notorious reputation around here?

My wild guess would be: the prohibition is to blame for everything. In what is today Finland, already in 1866 the state banned home distilling and begun regulating the sales of alcoholic beverages. I haven’t been able to find any statistical data (and even if I did, it would probably be quite biased as it would have to justify the ban), but I think that they did it just because the state thought their people were having too much fun. Because we are people, whatever you ban us from becomes our curiosity. So after 1866 things only continued going downhill.

First, in 1914 the state prohibited distribution of alcoholic beverages, only to completely ban production, transportation, sale and storage of alcohol in 1919. In plain man’s talk, everything containing alcohol was completely outlawed. The only approved use of alcohol was for the medical, technical and scientific purposes. All of a sudden everyone wanted to work in the medical, technical and scientific fields. One thing led to another, and that’s how alcohol kick-started the birth of Finnish high-tech society.

But for the rest of the population the next 13 or so years weren’t a walk in the park. It was only in 1932 that the ban was lifted and in the same year the population witnessed the introduction of state owned and operated company which was granted an exclusive monopoly on the import, export, manufacture and sale of everything containing alcohol. Believe it or not, but 75 years later Finland still uses the same system. They did rename it from Alkoholiliike to Alko (to make it easier on the pronunciation), made an amendment here and there, put up a trendy Web site, but three-quarters of a century later it is still state owned alcohol monopoly and one of the few state monopolies in the EU today. That’s what I call being true to the tradition. And Finland is as high-tech as high-tech can be.

The two wars that were devastating for the Finnish soon came into picture and were seen as a good reason to further curb the consumption of booze so the nation witnessed a slew of restrictions. But then in the following decade when things laxed down a little bit, we also get the first official national alcohol consumption statistic: 1,41 liters of pure alcohol per head. No, that’s not 14,1 or even 141, it is 1,41 liters per person, as in slightly less than one and a half liter. I know, you’re also wondering what was all that fuss about.

I see only four options here. The prohibition either straightened up the nation, or it never was as bad as they wanted us to believe, or these statistics are complete bollocks and the state had absolutely no idea how much fun their people actually had or they knew but just wanted to believe that they had everything under control. But wait, there’s more. According to the official record, it took a whopping 16 years for this official figure to double.

Let’s be smart alecky for a moment here. If we take this as a constant trend and consider that the consumption of alcohol doubles every 16 years or so, then today the consumption would be a little bit over 17 liters per person of pure alcohol per year. Which is, in other words, a lot more than in Luxembourg that is with around 15 liters the current reigning champion in the world of alcohol consumption. Despair or rejoice not. Currently Finns consume just a tad bit over 10 liters and again according to the officials the amount is in decline. This doesn’t only mean that they have not been keeping up, but are actually backing out all the time.

I sign-off now to make myself a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater to celebrate.

Kippis!

Mladen

Last week Finnish artist Kaisa Salmi outfitted the Finnish Parliament staircase with about 60.000 gerbera flowers in an attempt to show that this very same place could be the natural habitat of these tropical plants if the climate change continues in the direction of global warming.

The artist explains that seen from a distance her environmental piece of art also reveals a double rainbow. Possibly, although I tried approaching the work from various distances and no such thing as a rainbow revealed to me.

It is not only a great idea, but also a strong political statement. Especially since climate change has been a hot topic in Finnish media and politics for more than a year now. Reversing the current trend of global warming should also be one of politicians and citizens top priorities.

Already upon setting up the work Kaisa Salmi announced that people can come and collect the flowers once the exhibition was over. Even though the announced collection time and date were Saturday, June 9th at 9 o’clock in the morning, first flower snatchers appeared already during the night as they were returning home from clubs. Anyway, there was still enough flowers as more than thousand people came to collect them on Saturday. They emptied the monumental staircase in just a couple of hours. The work was on display for exactly a week.

It was nice to see flowers instead of manure, eggs or rotten tomatoes in front of a parliament.

Mladen

What you see above is one of the best recent additions to passenger transportation in Helsinki. Beginning with this spring these riders will take you on their bike rickshaws anywhere within the Helsinki city center. I have seen them in front of the main railway station in Helsinki and it seems that that’s where their main base is.

I think that both idea and realization are fantastic, but it seems that people in Helsinki still have to catch up with with it. Just a few meters away from where I have taken this picture at Helsinki main railways station was a 30 meter long regular car cab queue.

One of my first thoughts was that even though this manual cab is a payable service, I would still most likely have a feeling that I am exploiting the bicycle rider. I guess because one can immediately see the result of someone’s manual labor.

Nevertheless, these bicycle rickshaws are an excellent solution for the modern city. As far as I know, there are only five operating in Helsinki at the moment, but if there were more, they could definitely contribute to decreasing the downtown short-range traffic. Environment and citizen friendly mode of transportation. Whoever is behind this idea just needs to grab the opportunity here in Helsinki where for more than a year now there has been a serious shortage of car cab drivers.

Mladen

Moving is usually a straight-forward business. But there’s always a bit of uncertainty. Canceling everything connected with the old life and ordering everything anew. Although this can be exhilarating, doing such things in certain places can be a tad bit on the unnerving side. Sweden fits among such places. Sure, it could be a lot worse, but there is also a lot of room for improvement.

Canceling the apartment lease two months before leaving is still quite reasonable, but it strikes me as incredibly obtuse that in Sweden you have to literally beg to get the electricity bill. Not that I’m incredibly gung-ho about parting with money, but I cannot understand why the electricity company wants to send the bill in two months’ time and obviously to the wrong address as some complete stranger will live in the same place. And when it comes to Swedish bureaucratic thinking it’s not that difficult to imagine incurring huge debts and eventually being hunted by the international crime busting special forces.

Speaking of which, this is not even the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to Swedish slowness in processing things. What one would expect it would take a couple of key strokes or at most hours to resolve, takes literally months to accomplish in Sweden. Say, for instance, student registration. I arrived to Sweden in January as a visiting student at the Göteborg University. One would think that it would be only a matter of a simple formality to get the official stamp confirming me being a student. But no, after three months I became one and was entitled to everything students are, such as a library card. I mean seriously, think about this. It’s not like I get paid by the university to study. It’s the library card type of things that are at stake here.

I don’t want to get started again on the witless bureaucrats and their papers, but there’s just one more thing that I cannot resist mention.

One thing I was sure about when I was leaving Sweden was that I can stay if I desired to do so. Not just to study, but also with a working permit. Forever, if I wanted. Too bad I found this out two days before I left. Yes, just two days before my departure I have received a letter from the Swedish immigration office stating that I am allowed to stay, study, work or do whatever in Sweden. Thank you and good to know, although I would feel much more welcome if I were to receive it a bit earlier, nevertheless.

But what really kept me busy the morning of departure as I walked in circles around the only room in the apartment is, where the hell am I going to stuck all these papers, those few but only dishes and tons of tiny useful crap. There isn’t much choice as everything that does not come along goes to the garbage bin. And being the hamster I am, that would really be the last resort in desperation to catch that five o’clock train.

Even though the situation was a bit tense at that moment, I was at least happy that I could at least in theory take all my possessions with me. This time around the name of the game was carry all that you can carry and not 20 kg, without sharp objects, water, bare feet and in fear of latex gloves being prepared for inner inspection. That said, I am incredibly tired of flying and all the haste and unneccessary security crap associated with it. Trains are great. They might be slow, but people are more relaxed and I can take chef knives, water, wear shoes on my feet and as it turned out 108 kg of, well, stuff. Or to be more precise 54 kg per person: six backpacks and three boxes. Mind boggling, but it was actually hilarious.

Six hours of packing later, and finally, the last item gets to go into the box. Fridge is empty, stomachs are full. In the attempt to avoid wasting any food new culinary combinations are tried out. After eating sushi gari, truffles, pasta, pesto and mustard and washing everything down with milk, I didn’t wonder anymore why such dish is not on offer in any restaurant. I did, however, hope this last minute foolish experiment wouldn’t cause digestive problems on a three-day trip ahead.

The apartment is locked and stuff carried to the elevator with great amusement as this is the first time I actually lift my share of backpacks. All together they weight 44 kg and had to be carried to the train station. But once everything was on the train, the rest was pretty straight forward: sit down and enjoy the ride.

Mladen

Aaaaalmost there. Obviously not a first generation immigrant graffiti artist from ex-Yugoslavia.

Mladen