Welcome to the Metropolitan area 6 Tracking the snow 8
Heli Laaksonen on nature and humour 10 Map of metropolitan area 14
Hotels providing Metropolitan Times 16
Sinebrychoff Art Museum: In the footsteps of Caravaggio 19 Finnish gastronomy as a religious experience 22 The most horrifying hotels – Column by Marko Hautala 24
Metropolitan Times Magazine for Visitors Issue 2/2024
Published by Mobile-Kustannus Oy Brahenkatu 14 D 94 FI-20100 Turku, Finland
Member of Finnish Magazine Media Association (Aikakausmedia)
Publisher Teemu Jaakonkoski
Cover photos
Helsinki archipelago in winter . Photo: Yiping Feng & Ling Ouyang / Helsinki Partners Ice swimming. Photo: Mika Ruusunen / City of Helsinki Think Corner – University of Helsinki. Photo: Jarvis Lawson / Helsinki Partners Girl at Heureka. Photo: Laura Dove / Helsinki Partners Marko Hautala. Photo: Veikko Somerpuro / Tammi
Metropolitan Times map application for mobile phones and tablets: m.metropolitantimes.fi.
The magazine is available in selected hotel rooms and lobbies in Espoo-Helsinki-Vantaa metropolitan area (see pages 14–15 and 16). Next issue will be out in May 2025.
Welcome to the Metropolitan area
Urban culture and experiences in nature!
Located just a metro ride away, Espoo is a vital city that offers everyone interesting things to see and experience. We have a lot to offer for those craving culture: visit a fascinating museum at the Exhibition Centre WeeGee or participate in one of our city’s many events.
Large natural areas are characteristic of Espoo: seashores, the archipelago, the wilderness in nature reserves and the waterways of the lake highlands. The cultural landscapes, built environments and natural areas of Espoo are like Finland in miniature.
The special feature of our city is an urban structure that relies on five different centres, all of them along the railway or metro line.
Espoo is growing fast and the growth is strongly focused on the areas along the railway and metro lines. We have made an ambitious commitment to achieve climate neutrality by 2030 together with 25 partners, including Aalto University. As one of the leading cities in localising the UN 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals and receiving the EU Mission Label for Climate-neutral and Smart Cities in 2024, Espoo has been recognised as a forerunner in innovation that benefits both people and the planet. We want to ensure that our city continues to grow in a sustainable manner..
Welcome to Espoo!
Jukka Mäkelä
MAyor of eSpoo
Welcome to Helsinki!
Congratulations! Your travels have brought you to the capital of the world’s happiest country. Helsinki is a dynamic city with something special for everyone.
Interest in Helsinki is growing quickly. In 2023, our revenue from tourism grew by over 25 per cent on the previous year, and the trend continues in 2024.
We are very proud of our cosy cafes, design lunch venues and world-class restaurants, but there are many factors –our peaceful Nordic lifestyle, respect for nature and beloved sauna culture, to name a few – that truly make our city stand out from the rest.
Our uniqueness naturally extends to our food and drink. The restaurant scene has once-in-a-lifetime fine dining, traditional classics, and a myriad of amazing ethnic options, each with a special Helsinki touch.
Take the time to visit our charming bakeries, ground-breaking distilleries and microbreweries, and historic market halls and squares. If you are lucky, you will come across Helsinki artisans who specialise in handmade ice cream, select coffee roasts and first-rate chocolate.
I hope you will enjoy your time in Helsinki! You can find more inspiration at myhelsinki.fi.
Mr Juhana Vartiainen MAyor of helSinki
Welcome to Vantaa!
All roads lead to Vantaa. It is situated at the hub of national major roads, main railroad, local and long-distance transit, as well as international air traffic: well-functioning transport connections bring tourists to Vantaa from all over Finland and from everywhere else in the world.
Passengers again chose our airport to be the best in Europe of its size, and the service level will yet improve when Finland’s biggest hotel – Clarion Hotel Helsinki Airport – was opened right next to the terminal on June 1, 2024.
Vantaa is aiming at carbon neutrality, for instance, with the help of light rail that will further bolster green mobility options. The light rail, which is scheduled to start operating in 2029, will take you to our seven lively urban centers.
Vantaa, the fourth biggest and most international city in Finland, celebrates its 50th anniversary as a city in 2024. We welcome you to Kuusijärvi Recreation Centre Vantaa to enjoy sauna and swimming throughout the year and to hike to Sipoo National Park, which is situated right next to the lake.
Pekka Timonen MAyor of VAntAA
photo: olli urpelA
photo: SAkAri röySkö
HELSINKI
VANTAA
photo: SAkAri MAnninen
Sotamuseo
Krigsmuseet I Military Museum
Welcome to the Military Museum
Discover the colourful phases of Finnish military history. In our exhibitions come face-to-face with historical objects from the Second World War, explore the wonderful collection of trench art and frontline illustrations and learn more about the Finnish conscript service and training.
Explore trench art
Shattered tree stems standing lonely in a ghastly moonlight, gentle waves glistening in a sunlight across the shores, a solitary soldier looking at the ruins of his destroyed home – these are some of the images captured by the Information Company illustrators during the Continuation War.
The Continuation War began in the summer of 1941 and ended in the autumn of 1944. As the front line advanced deep into the lost territories of Karelia, art was used to record a land and people shaped by the battles fought there.
The exhibition Altered by War explores the history of Continuation War through art and follows ordinary soldier´s journey from home through the battles of war to an altered reality of life after the war.
VISIT THE MILITARY MUSEUM
Opening times Wednesday-Monday 11.00-16.30, last entry 16.00 (closed on Tuesdays)
The Military Museum
Suomenlinna C 77, 00190 Helsinki I www.sotamuseo.fi
Tickets 7/4 €, children under 18 years free of charge Hope to see you soon!
Tracking the snow
In Finland, snow is such a commonplace thing that we seldom stop to think about what it really is.
IS there Anything more beautiful than dusk when the temperature is just below freezing and white snowflakes float down from the sky, sparkling like diamonds under the glowing street lights? Soon the ground is blanketed in white, and it’s so lovely that you almost want to eat it.
But is eating it a good idea? Ultimately, snow is water, after all, or more precisely, snow is ice crystals formed in the atmosphere that have fallen to earth. That can’t be very toxic, can it?
Snow scientist Sirpa Rasmus from the University of Lapland points out that even though snow looks clean, the crystals actually form around impurities, meaning microscopic bacteria or other particles floating in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, this doesn’t alarm the snow
scientist herself, and she would very well eat snow. At least sometimes:
“In general, it’s not a great idea to eat snow in cities because of exhaust fumes. If you do want to melt water for drinking, for example, on a hike, it’s best to dig down to the depth hoar, which is usually the cleanest.”
Many kinds of snow
Depth hoar is a particular type of snow – because snow is never just snow. Instead, snow always has distinct characteristics. Finns can list a dozen names for different types of snow off the top of their heads.
Written by roope Lipasti transLated by Christina saarinen
For example, suojalumi is the wet snow that’s good for making snowballs. It occurs when the temperature is above zero and the snow doesn’t melt right away, but does become wet. Conversely, pakkaslumi, dry snow, doesn’t stick together very well.
Tykkylumi is snow that accumulates in stunningly beautiful drifts on the branches of trees. There can be up to three tons of snow on a single spruce.
Loska, on the other hand, is halfway between snow and water. Hankikanto is a phenomenon that usually occurs in the spring, where the surface of the snowpack freezes and can be walked on as easily as walking on the street. And so on: a loved child has many names. Paradoxically, however, the international world of snow science operates in English, which can be difficult because there are not as many snow terms on offer in English. So words are borrowed from other languages as needed. For example, there’s no term in English for the season when roads are impassable due to melting snow and ice, so the Finnish rospuutto or Russian rasputitsa are used.
When snowflakes end up beneath the surface layer of snow, their crystal structure immediately starts to change, affecting factors such as the hardness and density of the snow. You can see this in practice by how easy or difficult the snow is to walk in.
It is a common belief that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. According to the snow scientist, this is not quite true:
“Or it kind of depends... If you look at them under a microscope, no two are the same because no two conditions of formation are exactly the same. But if we look at them with the naked eye, it’s easy to divide them into a few generic categories. It always depends on what the cloud where they originated was like.”
There is always at least enough snow that Finns are used to getting around in it, although we may curse the sheets of ice we have to cross to get to our cars.
Though there are countless different kinds of snow, distinguishing between snow and ice is easy enough:
“As long as there is airflow between the ice crystals, it’s snow. And when there isn’t, it’s ice. Of course, there can be air bubbles in ice, but they aren’t going anywhere until the ice melts,” Rasmus explains.
Some snow is born on the ground
About that depth hoar – it’s snow scientist Rasmus’s personal favorite type of snow, “because of how depth hoar is formed. It doesn’t fall from the sky – it’s born on the ground, inside the snowpack. It’s a useful snow for animals, too, though in the mountains, it’s a risk due to avalanches,” Rasmus says.
Depth hoar is also called sugar snow because of its sugary texture, and every child who has ever made a snow fort knows that you can’t make it stick: it slides down the walls to the bottom of your hole. That’s because the bonds between the crystals are not very strong. Forest animals, on the other hand, like sugar snow because it is easy to walk on.
Sugar snow is created as the snowpack lives and changes. It turns out that snowpack is very dynamic, though it might not look like it. There are a variety of temperatures in snowpack: it is warmer lower down than at the surface, which causes air movement, evaporation, and deposition, changing the shape of snow crystals.
“Depth hoar crystals are formed as a result of that movement. Instead of being star-shaped, they’re hollow pyramid-shaped cups, kind of like diamond pyramids,” Rasmus says. And since they aren’t the typical six-pointed crystals, they don’t stick together easily.
No two snowflakes alike?
The most common form of falling snow is indeed the six-pointed so-called stellar crystal. As they fall toward the ground, crystals stick together and form beautiful snowflakes.
Experts on slippery conditions
There are many reasons to study snow, but one of the oldest is the desire to be able to predict avalanches.
The amount of snow is also closely monitored:
“These days, it’s done with satellites, but it still takes traditional fieldwork to know what the snowpack is like. That way energy companies can predict the following spring’s water volumes, for example. Or animal researchers can predict mole populations. Snow information is also useful for reindeer husbandry,” Rasmus says.
Climate change can be seen in the snow as well. Winters are milder these days, resulting in periods of rain between freezing temperatures, causing the snow to freeze, melt, and freeze again. This creates ice layers in the snowpack, which makes it difficult for animals to survive. It’s also a risk for reindeer husbandry.
In the end, on a global scale, Finland is not an exceptionally snowy place. In California, for example, the snow depth record is no less than 12 meters, while Lapland’s record is a measly two meters.
But there is always at least enough snow that Finns are used to getting around in it, although we may curse the sheets of ice we have to cross to get to our cars. When it comes to the penguin walk – legs wide, center of gravity evenly over your feet, short waddling steps – Finns are highly skilled!
“We once had an Italian exchange student, and he was constantly falling in the snow. He simply hadn’t learned to walk in it. Only then did I understand that, for us Finns, it’s just what we grew up with. We’re used to slippery conditions,” Rasmus says.
P.S. One more tip for tourists: If the snow is yellow, you definitely don’t want to eat it! s
What can you do with snow?
Build forts, sculptures, shelters, lanterns, balls (for a snowball fight).
In the snow you can also:
Walk, sled, and cross-country or downhill ski – plus, of course, skate on the ice!
Poet Heli Laaksonen is known in Finland not only for her bright sense of humor, but also for her Western Finnish dialect, which she uses in both her speech and her writing. She is one of Finland’s best-selling poets and also a popular performer. Slightly less well-known is her love for Finnish nature, which has found its way into a couple of books, including her recent foray into English-language publishing.
The Nature of Finnish Nature takes a humorous approach to describing the basics of Finnish nature.
Actually, we have COVID-19 to thank for the book: the pandemic put a stop to Laaksonen’s poetry performances and gave her time to think about what to do next in life.
“A writer’s work always involves a certain amount of ongoing struggle with the profession, so I thought about what else I could do that would make people happy,” she says.
So Laaksonen studied to become a nature and environmental advisor. The first six months went quite well without writing, but in the spring semester, she experienced a relapse, and a book called Luonnos was born. Laaksonen herself describes it as a “literary nonfiction nature book.” And she continues with the same humorous take on nature in the recently released sequel, Jatkos.
“In school, we did traditional presentations. We got a reference book and found out about something we didn’t know the least about beforehand, like pygmy shrews. Nature books are really nice, and they contain a lot of information, but they can often be a bit dry, so I wondered if it would be possible to tell readers about these things in a fun, yet informative way.”
Heli Laaksonen is Finland’s only professional poet-naturalist
Nature, with a sense of humor
As it turns out, it is possible.
In Luonnos, Laaksonen discusses things like “The Sun,” “Bream” (a fish), and “Orpine” (a wildflower). The word luonnos has two meanings in Finnish: on the one hand, it means “in nature,” and on the other hand, “a sketch” or “a draft.” From this starting point, The Nature of Finnish Nature was born, which not only makes for a great souvenir, but also serves as a small and funny – not to mention poetic – information package for foreigners coming to Finland.
The world’s shortest nature trail
Nature has always been present to a certain extent in Laaksonen’s poems, so perhaps it was only natural that she would land on the profession of nature advisor. And it’s good that she did because her way of explaining things is not only entertaining, but also informative.
One of Laaksonen’s nature innovations is a six-meter-long nature trail. It has proven so popular, however, that she has expanded on the concept, and the trail is now seven meters long.
“So you had better put on your hiking boots,” she recommends. The nature trail itself prompts you to look closely and walk along it slowly.
“It’s fascinating to think that everything is something and belongs to the same system. For example, if I scrape my finger along a windowsill between the panes of glass, it’s easy to call the stuff there gunk, but actually, it’s made up of things like spider webs, birch seeds, and a couple of insect wings. If you scooped up a handful of earth the same way, you would find a thousand times more of everything. And all
Heli Laaksonen.
Written by roope Lipasti transLated by Christina saarinen
that stuff has a name too, which is amazing. Or if it doesn’t have a name, then that’s really amazing!”
Though the loss of nature is alarming in many places, in Finland as elsewhere, Laaksonen doesn’t want to be an end-times prophet:
“I don’t want to make people worry – I want to inspire a love for nature. So that in the decades to come, when you google the word ‘moss’, the first ten answers won’t be how to get rid of it, but instead about all its benefits.”
Blueberries and the flying squirrel
For The Nature of Finnish Nature, Laaksonen has chosen plants, animals, and natural phenomena that occur in Finland in particular.
“Some of them I did specifically for this book, since I thought they might be interesting for foreigners. Like light, for instance. In Finland, the light is awfully unruly: in the summer, it won’t go out, won’t go out... And then in the winter it won’t turn on, won’t turn on. The contrasts are huge.”
To find out which parts of the book were of particular interest to foreigners, Laaksonen asked a group of ten tourists to look at it and tell her what stood out to them.
One thing that made an impression was the ordinary blueberry. Or perhaps, more specifically, the idea that you can just pick them and eat them and make a blueberry pie, if you like! In other words, the fact that anyone in Finland can go into any forest and pick berries. It’s something that Laaksonen also finds appealing about Finnish nature:
“That you can sneak off into nature wherever you are. You can just go. You have permission. It has a Native feel to it, that no one can own the land. Of course, someone does own it, but anyone can go lean on the trees and smell them.”
In addition to blueberries, the tourists read about the northern lights and were fascinated by the flying squirrel:
“The flying squirrel is a Finnish oddity. It’s a creature that lives in the east and the north: it exists in Russia, but Finland is the westernmost place – they don’t have it in Sweden. And the flying squirrel is pretty amazing!”
Pigeons and elk
Of course, Finnish nature can also be found in the city, so nature guide Laaksonen also has tips for travelers who won’t have the chance to visit the real forest:
“In the city, I would take tourists to marvel at completely ordinary pigeons. There are tons of them. They’re fat and greasy and meaty-looking. They have funny, rosy-pink legs and lively eyes. When they walk, the chest comes first, and the rest of the pigeon follows. We would observe how they take an interest in us and then lose interest if there isn’t any food.
“After that, we would use a magnifying glass to look at tree trunks and their mosses and lichens. We would look for red sandspurry in the cracks in the pavement. It’s a small plant, a bit like dill, about the height of the first joint on your little finger. It’s cute and delicate and looks a little childish. We would get down on our knees to admire it, and the tourists would of course have good cameras, so we would get great pictures. If we were lucky, we might see a black-backed gull. A large part of the global population lives in Finland. It’s very endangered, even here, but you might see them anyway.”
Heli Laaksonen, if you were a plant, what plant would you be?
“To be completely honest, I would be a bindweed. It’s a weed of course, and people hate it, but it’s cute. It has flowers that look like a pink ballet skirt, and beautiful leaves that it uses to decorate everything. Something like a mugwort, for example, looks quite scraggly, but bindweed will wind around it and make it pretty.”
If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
“This might be a little boring, but I’d be a female bear. It sleeps from November to March, which I would be interested in as well. It’s got a pudgy shape, but it also has explosive power. The downside of being a female bear is that, because they’re so rare, every time you would go to wash in the morning, there would be a nature photographer ready to post the pictures on social media. I would want to know in advance, at least, so I would know to wash elegantly!”
In the forest, the nature guide would point out things like the rock formations known as roche moutonnée:
“They were formed during the Ice Age, when the mountains on top of them more or less took off, and all that was left was the root of the mountain, the root of the world. And of course, you can always hope to see an elk. A friend of mine held glasswork classes, and the French women who took the classes always wanted to make an elk. I’m not a bit surprised. It’s a wonderful animal – strange-looking, like it was crudely shaped with a Stone-Age mallet, quite different from, say, a graceful roe deer.” s
Heli Laaksonen: The Nature of Finnish Nature, 2024, Otava.
Helsinki became the capital of Finland in 1812. Back then, it was merely a village, although it was founded as early as 1550. Nowadays Helsinki has got 675,000 inhabitants and is the largest city in Finland. More information: myhelsinki.fi.
Espoo
The first mention of Espoo dates back to 1431, but it was not granted city rights until 1972. There are several centres in Espoo, of which Leppävaara is the largest. It is the second largest city in Finland with 314,000 inhabitants. More information: visitespoo.fi.
Vantaa
Vantaa is Finland’s fourth largest and the oldest city in the capital region: the first mention of it dates back to 1352. Helsinki Airport is located in Vantaa. Just like Espoo, Vantaa has several centres. Inhabitants: 247,000. More information: visitvantaa.fi.
Greater Metropolitan Area
The metropolitan area and the municipalities or cities of Hyvinkää, Järvenpää, Kerava, Kirkkonummi, Nurmijärvi, Sipoo, Tuusula, Mäntsälä, Pornainen and Vihti form the greater metropolitan area with a population of about 1.4 million inhabitants. Together with the cities of Porvoo, Lohja and Riihimäki, the population of the greater metropolitan area rises to about 1,600,000.
Metropolitan Times is available in these high standard hotels
01 breAk SokoS hotel flAMingo
Tasetie 8, 01510 Vantaa
Tel. +358 20 123 4605 www.sokoshotels.fi
02 clArion hotel helSinki Tyynenmerenkatu 2, 00220 Helsinki
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03 crowne plAzA helSinki Mannerheimintie 50, 00260 Helsinki
Tel. +358 30 030 8480 www.ihg.com
04 hilton helSinki Airport
Lentäjänkuja 1, 01530 Vantaa
Tel. +358 9 732 20 www.hiltonhotels.com
05 hilton helSinki
kAlAStAJAtorppA
Kalastajatorpantie 1, 00330 Helsinki
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06 hilton helSinki StrAnd
John Stenbergin ranta 4, 00530 Helsinki
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07 hotel AnnA
Annankatu 1, 00120 Helsinki
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08 hotel Arthur
Vuorikatu 19, 00100 Helsinki
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09 hotel hAAgA
centrAl pArk
Nuijamiestentie 10, 00320 Helsinki
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10 hotel helkA
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11 originAl SokoS hotel
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Albertinkatu 30, 00120 Helsinki
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12 originAl SokoS hotel preSidentti
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13 originAl SokoS hotel
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14 originAl SokoS hotel triplA
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15 rAdiSSon blu AlekSAnteri hotel
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17 rAdiSSon red helSinki
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18 ScAndic grAnd MArinA Katajanokanlaituri 7, 00160 Helsinki
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19 ScAndic helSinki hub
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20 ScAndic kAiSAnieMi Kaisaniemenkatu 7, 00100 Helsinki
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22 ScAndic SiMonkenttä Simonkatu 9, 00100 Helsinki
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23 Solo SokoS hotel pier 4 Katajanokanlaituri 4, 00160 Helsinki
- Valentin de Boulogne's rare baroque masterpiece visits the Sinebrychoff Art Museum
Written by ira Westergård the Writer is the sinebryChoff art MuseuM’s Chief Curator
The monumental painting Allegory of Italy (1628-29) by Valentin de Boulogne is on display at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. This is a rare opportunity to see the masterpiece by one of Caravaggio’s closest followers. The mini-exhibition also puts the painting in its unique historical context.
The Sinebrychoff Art Museum is the only museum in Finland specializing in pre-19th century European art. Visitors can enjoy its exciting collection, which spans from the 14th century to the mid-19th century. Besides the permanent collection on the second floor, the museum currently exhibits Valentin de Boulogne’s unique, monumental Italian masterpiece Allegory of Italy.
The painting Allegory of Italy at Sinebrychoff Art Museum.
The painting is usually on display at Villa Lante in Rome, home to the Finnish Institute – Institutum Romanum Finlandiae – a centre for humanities research and teaching. The magnificent Renaissance villa on the Gianicolo hilltop is currently being renovated. The temporary closure of Villa Lante offered a rare opportunity to transport the painting to Finland. Allegory of Italy is a prime example of early Baroque art and represents the highpoint of Valentin de Boulogne’s career, which ended with his untimely death in 1632. The painting will be on display until the end of May 2025.
Valentin de Boulogne - follower of Caravaggio
Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632) was born and trained in the village of Coulommiers in France but left his native land early in his career. He settled in Rome around 1614 and lived there until the end of his life. Rome offered the young artist an inspiring environment at a time when the city’s artistic life was at its most active. Popes and powerful families used their wealth to build palaces and churches there, creating ample opportunities for artists from all over Europe.
At the same time, art was reinvented. The new style of the Baroque gradually replaced the classical ideals of the Renaissance. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) became famous for his emphasis on drama and realistic treatment of any subject, even in religious paintings. Caravaggio had already died by the time Valentin arrived in Rome, but a group of artists known as caravaggisti followed in his footsteps. Valentin immediately joined them and adopted both the new style and the bohemian life of his fellow artists. He received commissions from private clients for both religious subjects and numerous works featuring tavern card players, musicians and fortune tellers.
Allegory of Italy stands out as a rather unique painting in Valentin de Boulogne’s body of work. It represents the pinnacle of his career, when he received his most important commissions from the powerful Barberini family. In 1623, Maffeo Barberini was elected Pope and took the name Urban VIII. The family’s social status was prominently displayed in the magnificent new city palace, the Palazzo Barberini. The Pope’s nephew Francesco commissioned the painting from Valentin, and we know from archival evidence that it was installed in a place of honour in the Palazzo Barberini in 1629.
A painting filled with symbolism
During the 17th century, allegorical subjects became increasingly popular in art. Allegorical paintings could combine personifications and widely known symbols with details that conveyed a more personal message. Consequently, an artwork could be crammed with multiple layers of meaning, which were not easily desciphered by all viewers, but which were intended to be open to more than one interpretation. Valentin de Boulogne’s Allegory of Italy is a prime example of such an allegorical painting.
The painting’s title refers to Italy, but the allegory as a whole is actually a tribute to the Barberini family at the peak of its glory. A young woman representing Italy stands on top of two cornucopias symbolising wealth and fertility. She can be identified as the personification of Italy by her crown, which resembles a fortress or walled city with a five-pointed star shining over it.
In her right hand she holds a spear, while her left hand supports a shield decorated with symbols of the Papal throne and the Vatican City
State. Her stance and her costume, with its billowing red fabric, provide visual clues linking the figure to the goddess Minerva – well-known to all Romans as the goddess of wisdom, justice, art and warfare. She seems to embody the promise of a successful, prosperous future.
The lower section of the painting is occupied by two seated male figures, easily recognisable as river gods – the Tiber and the Arno – representing the cities of Rome and Florence, respectively. Rome is represented by the figures of Romulus and Remus with a she-wolf and Florence by the emblematic lion of the Medici family. The stunning realism of these two male figures is a highly unusual feature of the painting and must have made a lasting impression on viewers of the time. Valentin has developed Caravaggio’s realistic style a significant step further. In the context of the painting as an allegory, the two river gods, i.e. the cities of Rome and Florence, literally provide the support on which the figure of Italy is standing.
All the various elements of the painting have links to the Barberini family. The Barberinis traced their history to Tuscany, but made their fortune in Rome. Eventually, worldly and spiritual power merged, culminating in the election of a family member as Pope. To further emphasize the painting’s connection to the Barberinis, there is a swarm of bees on the left side of the painting. Bees were the emblem of the family: three bees are depicted on its coat of arms, but also on objects and artworks connected with the family. Bees also adorned the painting’s original frame, which has since been lost.
Ultimately, Valentin de Boulogne’s masterpiece did not occupy its original location for very long. It was first incorporated into the vast art collections of the Colonna family and later, in the nineteenth century, it ended up on the Roman art market. By that time, the information linking the painting to the artist had been lost. Finally, in 1958, a French art historian was able to correctly identify it, and in recent years it has attracted unanimous praise as one of Valentin de Boulogne’s most important paintings.
This magnificent masterpiece is being exhibited in Finland for the first time. Museum visitors can now have the pleasure of seeing the painting up close and uncovering the secrets behind the allegory. s
Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632): Allegory of Italy, detail, (1628–1629). The Finnish Institute in Rome.
Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632): Allegory of Italy, detail, (1628–1629). The Finnish Institute in Rome.
Paul and Fanny Sinebrychoff House Museum
The heart of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum is the unique home of Paul and Fanny Sinebrychoff, which is permanently displayed on the second floor of the building.
Jacopo Bassano – Venetian Renaissance Master
12.9.2024–12.1.2025
Jacopo Bassano (c. 1515–1592) is one of the most important painters of the Venetian Renaissance. He was a virtuoso master of colour and light and a creator of pastoral paintings with biblical motifs. This monographic exhibition is the first extensive presentation of Jacopo’s work to be shown in Europe outside of Italy.
Classical Heroes
13.2–10.8.2025
Stories of ancient heroes involve strength, wit, beauty, sacrifice, misfortune and, above all, incredible plot twists. Those ingredients are very much alive in Western culture and lure us into the world of hero tales. The exhibition examines the mantle of heroism and what lies beneath it. What makes a hero a hero?
SINEBRYCHOFF ART MUSEUM
The Sinebrychoff Art Museum belongs to the Finnish National Gallery. It specializes in old European art from the 14th to 19th century and is home to Finland’s most valuable collection of paintings by the Old Masters. On the second floor, you can enjoy the atmosphere of the brewery owner’s splendid home in the Paul and Fanny Sinebrychoff House Museum.
TICKETS
Standard admission at the ticket office €20
Standard admission online €18
Discounted admission €12
Under 18-year-olds €0
Museum Card: free entry
Free admission to the Paul and Fanny Sinebrychoff House Museum and the permanent collection on the 2nd floor.
OPENING HOURS
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 11–18
Wednesday 10–20
Saturday, Sunday 10–17
Monday closed
Bulevardi 40, 00120 Helsinki www.siff.fi
Sinebrychoff Art Museum.
Paul and Fanny Sinebrychoff House Museum.
Jacopo Bassano (1515–1592): Sleeping Shepherd, c. 1568. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
Ellen Thesleff (1869–1954): Medusa, 1908–1910. Finnish National Gallery / The Ateneum Art Museum.
Finnish gastronomy as a religious experience
Written
Matti
Finland is still the most Lutheran country in the world relative to its population. How are Lutheran ethics visible in Finnish food culture, past and present?
InLutheran – or more broadly, Protestant – ethics, work has intrinsic value and can even be seen as asceticism, in which the focus is industriousness, not happiness. Work is also seen as a way to keep people from sin and frivolous pleasures. According to defenders, this interpretation is too strict. Seppo Simola, the editor in chief of Kirkko ja kaupunki (Church and City) magazine, writes that the Lutheran work ethic has often been distorted and that “all kinds of problems have been blamed on it, from workaholism and the glaring flaws of capitalism, to the gloomy disposition of Finns and their vulnerability to suicide.” Simola states that, though Lutheranism values hard
by
MäkeLä transLated by Christina saarinen
work, “It is good to observe moderation in everything, including in work.” Bishop Jari Jolkkonen has also pointed out that already at the time of the Reformation, Calvinists were considered uptight drudges and Lutherans were mostly known for their princes “degraded by drunkenness.”
In any case, the difference between the Lutheran and Catholic worlds in terms of gastronomy can be summed up in two phrases: while an Italian might say, “Man does not eat to live, but lives to eat”, according to Martin Luther, “As the birds to flying, so is man born unto labor.” What better explanation do we need for one of the best cuisines in the world originating in Italy and not in Finland?
This differing approach is also evident in the fact that in Finland, breakfast is said to be the “most important meal of the day.” Every Italian (or Spaniard or Greek or…) knows that the most important meal of the day is dinner, when a person can linger over good food and wine and spend time with friends and family. The Finnish point of view makes sense only if you see food as a mere tool to keep you fit for working, with no value in and of itself. More proof of this attitude is the fact that in Finland, a person can say “food is just fuel for me” without incurring the ridicule and condescension of all decent people.
acquiring better seed. In the end, his hard work is rewarded, and Paavo and his family reap the best harvest of their life. However, Paavo’s unfortunate neighbor has lost his harvest to frost, so in a fit of fairness, Paavo shares a portion of his own harvest, and – despite his wife’s objections, which seem reasonable – they once again add pettu to their bread.
If hard work ever hasn’t been enough to keep people away from frivolous pleasures, the government has been happy to help. (After all, according to Luther, worldly power also comes from God.) Until 1995, restaurants had to seek a permit from Alko, the Finnish state-owned alcohol monopoly, one of whose principles was that there should not be too many restaurants relative to the number of residents. So if there was already a restaurant serving beer and sausage on the block, it was pointless to dream of getting sushi and sake anywhere nearby. Until 1969, establishing a restaurant in a rural area also required approval from the municipal council, which on top of everything else, would annually decide whether the restaurant could continue to operate.
Finland has taken huge steps in gastronomy in recent decades. Statistics show that there are around 10,000 restaurants in Finland, compared to only 1,500 in the 1960s and 2,700 in the early 1990s.
In the same way, a rather Finnish conversation starter was the view of nutritionist and TV personality Hanna Partanen, who claims that the easy availability of delicious food is the largest cause of Finns being overweight. “I meet people who are such good cooks that they can’t stop eating after just one plateful,” Partanen said with dismay in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat. As a solution, she suggested that people should intentionally start making inferior food at home. (If Partanen were Italian, her grandmother would cross herself in horror.)
In the interest of accuracy, it must also be said that the development or lack of development of Finnish gastronomy has been influenced not only by general morality, but also by the climate and poor availability of ingredients. This dire triad is described in national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg’s (1804–77) poem Paavo of Saarijärvi, whose title character – a hardworking and pious peasant – is Lutheran to the point of being infuriating. Frosts and hailstorms repeatedly take most of the harvest, and Paavo and his family have to add pettu (flour made from the inside layers of pine bark) to their bread to keep away the hunger that’s knocking at the door, or at least push it a little further off. Paavo never loses his faith in God, but he also doesn’t wait for a miracle, like Job of the Old Testament. Instead, he works tirelessly against the hostile conditions, draining and fertilizing the land and
In spite of everything, Finland has taken huge steps in gastronomy in recent decades. Statistics show that there are around 10,000 restaurants in Finland, compared to only 1,500 in the 1960s and 2,700 in the early 1990s. Today, Michelin-starred restaurants can be found not only in Helsinki, but also in Turku, Porvoo, and Ruka, where the world’s northernmost Michelin-starred restaurant is located. The number and quality of ethnic restaurants has also grown dramatically over the last 20 years, especially in the larger cities, as Finland has become more international. In addition, more and more people have taken up cooking as a hobby, which is evidenced by the fact that the most recent seasons of Master Chef Finland are no longer embarrassing to watch.
Still, if you’d like to enjoy a glass of wine with your Sunday lunch at home, you’ll have to remember to visit Alko on Saturday. Another option is to pick up a wine with a maximum ABV of 8 percent from a grocery store, which has been allowed since June 10, 2024 (the attractiveness of this idea is somewhat diminished by the fact that in an interview with the Finnish Broadcasting Company, a manufacturer who produces the wines in question for the Finnish market said he would never even dream of selling them in his home country of Spain). The low-proof wines also demonstrate the slow pace of Finnish deregulation, as 4.7 percent beer has been available in grocery stores since 1969. At the current rate, regular wines will arrive in Finnish stores at the beginning of the 2100s, and Finland’s favorite vodka, Koskenkorva, in 2495. s
Restaurant Savoy's spring dish.
METROPOLITAN TIMES COLUMN
The most horrifying hotels
A horror writer’s idea of a comfortable hotel differs from the norm. A view onto a dilapidated courtyard is always nice. In the corridor, a buzzing and flickering bulb and photos of better days gone by are a welcome sight. Ghosts never hurt.
I wAS An adult when I spent my first night in a hotel, but my concept of them had already been formed in my early teens. I knew that at the Bates Motel, you have to lock the bathroom door, and that it was better not to go to the Overlook Hotel at all, at least not to be the winter caretaker.
My first real experiences were more mundane, of course. The closest I came to shivers of horror was as a young budget traveler in faraway lands, when my windowless room had a decorative border of rather thick mildew, or when an uninvited epicure helped itself to my bag of nuts at night – by all evidence, a rodent.
In the latter case, I informed reception that a mouse was visiting our room. The clerk corrected me: it wasn’t a mouse, but a rat. Apparently, it made the rounds in the hotel kitchen every night, too, so there was no reason to be concerned. Horror is a very culturally specific thing.
I will never forget another experience I had a few years ago. I got lost in the corridors of the Victorian seaside resort built by legendary horror writer Ramsey Campbell and his wife Jenny. There were no staff or other guests to be seen anywhere. The labyrinth went on for so long that I started to truly worry, but of course we did find our way back to civilization. And it was a good thing too, because the rundown hotel hardly needed any horror writers added to its selection of ghosts.
Luckily, you don’t have to worry about the worst kinds of surprises when staying in Finland. The hotels here are usually so uniformly clean and safe that you even find yourself starting to long for cracks in the ordinariness.
Fortunately for me, my wife, Tiina Hautala, collects ghost stories, and one of her books is specifically about hotels.
Hotel ghost stories have long been an unspoken part of Finnish folklore. The staff might tell stories to each other, often half-jokingly, but there was strict radio silence about the stories outside of hotels.
In Britain, for example, the situation has always been different. It’s hard to find a place to stay on the moors of Yorkshire without at least one anemic maiden or headless lord haunting it, and ghosts are even included in hotel descriptions.
As recently as ten years ago, ghost stories were seen as oddities in Finland, something that suited the no-nonsense Nordic culture about as well as cherubs would suit Alvar Aalto’s architecture.
These days, it seems people have realized that telling stories is a good thing, especially in the case of an older hotel, and certainly not a disadvantage.
I myself have not gotten to witness any hotel ghosts, despite serving as a wingman on my wife’s story-gathering trips. I’ve never woken up to a cold breath on my neck. I sleep like a baby in haunted rooms.
But of course, there is always that one exception.
It was an old, renowned hotel, whose management was very receptive to my wife’s topic of interest. The staff showed us around the building and offered us a suite to stay in, at a bargain price.
I have sometimes been amused by how ghost-hunting shows on TV make drama out of nothing. When the ghost fails to appear, the producers create a mood from people staring into night-vision cameras, telling viewers about their various “sensations.”
Live and learn, however. In the suite of the aforementioned hotel, I experienced very strong “sensations” as soon as I stepped over the threshold. I had an instinctive certainty that something was inexplicably wrong. I didn’t mention it to my wife, however, because it would have been pointless to activate our imaginations just before bed.
I had a horrible night, with disorienting nightmares, and I woke up again and again with the “sensation” that someone was moving around the room.
First thing in the morning, my wife told me how her night had gone. Apparently, it had been horrible. Disorienting nightmares. Constantly waking up. The feeling that someone was moving around the room.
As a matter of professional interest, we’ll have to book that suite again sometime. s
Marko Hautala is an award-winning horror writer whose novels and short stories have been translated into eight languages. His novelette “Pale Toes” was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award in 2020.
Written by Marko hautaLa transLated by Christina saarinen
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