The Northman

When I was looking around for a European metro trip, there were a few different candidates.  What really sold me on Helsinki over the other cities was a single line on a Wikipedia page:

I'll probably never go to any of the other extremes of the metro station compass.  The southernmost station is on Argentina's Subte network, and much as I'd love to go to estación Plaza de los Virreyes - Eva Perón and belt out "What's new, Buenos Aires?" while whacking Jimmy Nail with my suitcase, I don't think it's ever going to happen.  The northernmost station was within my grasp though, and it had the upside that it was likely to remain the record holder forever.  Unless Reykjavik suddenly went mad and decided to build an underground railway for its 140,000 residents, I don't think Helsinki will be beat.

I got off the train an absolute wreck.  It was day two of my travels and I had wildly overstretched myself by visiting eighteen stations on the first day.  I'd returned to my hotel and collapsed on the bed and slept for several hours.  A shower and a visit to the hotel bar hadn't improved things; nor had a night with the world's most uncomforable pillow, which managed to somehow be both hard and soft at the same time.  As a consequence, I had sore, blistered feet; an aching neck and back; legs that objected to moving at all, and when they did, operated at forty-five degrees from where they should've, making me look like an upside down letter Y; and I was just plain knackered. 

The tantalising prospect of new stations got me out of bed in the morning, and onto the train, and deposited me at Mellunmäki station.  Out here on the eastern end of the network, the line was above ground, so I was presented with a view of green woodland instead of the usual light show.  

There's also a long strip mural on the platform walls, Mellunmäen unelma by Veera Komulainen, which is a work that "takes inspiration from the history of Mellunmäki".   

To my untrained eyes it seems to take its inspiration from the wallpaper in the kitchens of Mellumnäki, but that's why I'm an idiot wandering around writing stuff on the internet and Veera is a professional artist.  I left the platform and went up to the street level.  The station is built into the side of a hill, meaning that the eastern ticket hall is built above the platforms, and the western one is below it.  

At nine am on a Saturday morning, it was silent.  Not even the shops were open, meaning I sadly couldn't sample a "Metro Kebab".  I walked outside into a small neat plaza and took the obligatory photograph to prove I was here.  The line's at a diagonal here - it's more of a north-eastern exit - so here it is: the northernmost metro sign selfie it is possible to take.   

Achievement unlocked.

The problem with coming out of that exit was I actually needed to go back on myself to get to the next station.  I walked down the side, a concrete strip housing the back of the station shops and a gym.  An old lady with a wheeled walker went inside the gym as I passed, shaming me with her commitment to her physical health; I felt like asking to borrow her Zimmer since she was clearly more athletic than me.  

At the far end of the station there's a small bus interchange beneath the rail overpass, and I got a delightful surprise.  The Finnish version of the Mellunmäki metro station Wiki page said:

In connection with the renovation of 2009-2010, a round sign was attached to the adjacent pillar of the entrance, which in Finnish, Swedish and English was Mellunmäki’s northernmost metro station in the world. The sign was later stolen in the 2010s.

I was sad that the station's global uniqueness wasn't marked any more, thanks to some little scrotes with too much time on their hands.  I was ecstatic to see that the Wiki page was, in fact, out of date.  There on the wall by the entrance was a small round plaque. 

A sign commemorating the world's northernmost metro station.  It was at the wrong entrance, technically, but still, it was there.  Grinning, I took a photo, which got me a funny look from a girl waiting for her bus.  I felt like pointing at it and saying "we're in a historic spot!" but (a) she probably already knew (b) she probably didn't care and (c) she really didn't need some weirdo barking English at her first thing on a Saturday morning when she was probably on her way to work or something.

I cut across the bus station forecourt - as is often the way in these places, the planners never seem to think of people who don't actually want to use the buses and just want to leave - and passed into a small side road lined by the backs of apartment blocks.  

A couple walked past with their tiny dog, taking him for his walk early before the day became too warm.  It was going to be a roasting day and it was already hot.  The sun at this time of year barely sets in Helsinki, so while 9am in July in the UK would still be a little fresh, that moment had long passed in Finland.  The dew had been burned off and there had been several hours of naked heat. 

The road turned into a footpath, with a single older lady walking ahead of me.  Shuffling was perhaps a better description, and I realised that I was getting closer and closer because, sore legs or not, I was still powering along.  She also paused at each bin for a brief look inside; I saw quite a few people doing this across the city.  It's a side product of the excellent recycling scheme the nation has - every bottle can be returned for cash, so you can pick up some extra euros rescuing discarded drinks containers from the bins.  

This was not, it had to be said, a prosperous district, and I imagine those extra few cents would've been valuable to the old woman.  She began to notice me advancing on her and I tried to assume my most casual, nonthreatening facial expression.  I don't think it worked.  She stepped off the path, her back to the wall, and watched me pass with suspicious eyes.  Perhaps she was afraid I'd steal her booty.

 

 

The path shadowed the railway line for a little longer then curved inwards to the Kontula shopping precinct.  It could've come from any down on its luck Northern English town.  Small, run-down shops, a budget supermarket, cafes with heavy security grilles.  

 

 

It was, if I'm honest, the one time in my whole Helsinki journey where I felt the prickle of anxiety at being a stranger in a foreign country and not really knowing where I'd dropped myself.  I followed the Metro line, nothing more, and drew out a route from station to station with the help of Google Maps.  I didn't know what kind of area I was walking into.  It didn't help that there were large burly men sitting outside the London Cafe-Bar at barely 9:30 in the morning with half-empty pint glasses, or a man hovering outside the entrance to the metro station, jittery, eyeing up passers by, watching.  There was something about Kontula that felt unsafe.

 

 

The station itself wasn't presenting its happiest face either.  It was undergoing refurbishment works, including a new mural being installed, and so the platforms were closed off and dark.  Areas were screened off for passengers and only one track was in use.

 

Not that it would be a looker at the best of times, hidden underneath the shopping centre with huge concrete buttresses grabbing your eye.  Somehow, the sunlight filtering in made it feel darker, as though it was taunting you.

 

I boarded my train and rode to the next stop.  This one was brighter, shinier, with glass protecting the tracks from the outside.  It instantly felt better.

 

 

I didn't understand why the outside was so drab though.  There were these long curtain walls of glass and the view outside was of... some stones.

Stick a nice bit of mural work out there.  A few bronzes.  Even a flower bed.  Something to look at while you're waiting for your train.

 

 

Myllypuro (I think I was at school with her) opened out onto a small plaza by a university campus.  The building was a low white one with a distinctive curve; not bad, but overshadowed by the behemoths around it.  In the sunshine it almost had an air of the Med about it.

Outside in the plaza was one of those statues that you look at and think about and still walk away none the wiser.

It might not be anything.  It might just be some shapes.  On the other hand, it could be a representation of the alien race that will conquer us all one day.  A warning from the future.   

Myllypuro was an extremely sporty area.  I could feel my testicles recede into myself in fear.  I simply don't get sport: I don't understand it, I don't want it, I don't see why it's so important to other people.  My mum is regularly exasperated that she and my dad managed to produce two sons who have literally zero interest in anything athletic.  They were extremely active - she swam, he boxed - and they both followed sport.  My brother and I though?  Nothing.  We rebelled by being unfit.

I walked past the arena (bowling, padel, futsal, handball) and down into the various fields laid out for athletic pursuits with an air of bafflement.  You know how the Queen used to be taken to a film set every now and then, and the world's press would catch her posing with Sigourney Weaver and a Xenomorph, and Her Majesty would have a vague look of "I have no idea what is going on here but you all seem to be enjoying it"?  That was me in amongst the hockey and football pitches.   

Liikku Kuntokeskus is, incidentally, a chain of fitness centres, and if you think that sounds a little bit dirty, you're very childish.  I certainly didn't spend a good thirty seconds giggling.

There was an enthusiastic five a side match going on, while joggers regularly passed by me huffing.  A field was laid out for pesäpallo, the Finnish national game, which is a bit like baseball but with a pentagonal field and a ball that's sort of dropped on the bat; the diamond for American baseball sat beside it, plus some rugby goals.  Everything felt so healthy and outdoorsy and I wondered if I could find a pub to get away from the general air of sickening well-being.

Eventually I left the park, turning past a building site that was active even on a Saturday, and walking along a boulevard past a glass swimming pool.  The blue triangle on an orange background shelter sign turned up here, too, and I imagined getting the four minute warning while you was in the pool and having to spend a nuclear winter in Speedos.  You'd be huffing the chlorine to try and end it all, to be frank.

I reached the back of Itäkeskus town centre, arriving outside Stoa, its library/arts centre.  They were clearly gearing up for a busy Saturday of culture, with the cafe tables outside already filling up and hipsters sat on the wall, meeting friends.  There was the occasional clatter of a skateboarder bouncing off the steps somewhere.

I crossed a dual carriageway via a footbridge, carefully avoiding the slightly out-of-it gentleman who was weaving across the path wildly, and reached the central shopping precinct.  I'd learned that the Finns liked to bury Metro entrances inside their retail hubs - understandable for a nation where the temperature plummets below zero on a regular basis - and I hoped I'd be able to find the station without any problem. 

Oh.  There it is.

Obviously, I bloody love that.  A massive, massive M calling you to the station?  It's brilliant.  It's the absolute best kind of station sign.  I want it adopted immediately by all other nations.  Don't hide your transport sites.  Be proud of them.  Also, the giant M should light up at night, and possibly even change colours.

It's not even part of the building!  It's just a false front!  Amazing.

I practically ran through the doors, descending to the platform where I excitedly waited for my train.  I was about to be disappointed.  

Throughout these blog posts I've talked about the Helsinki Metro as if it was a single line.  It's actually divided into the M1 and the M2, with the M1 running from Kivenlahti in Espoo to a terminus at Vuosaari, while the M2 starts at Tapiola and heads to Mellunmäki, calling at all the same stations as the M1 en route.  Itäkeskus is where the lines split apart to serve each of the eastern termini.

What this means, on a practical level, is that the M1 and M2 platforms at Itäkeskus are entirely separate.  In fact, they've got separate entrances from the shopping precinct.  I sadly turned around, went back up and out the giant M, and headed for a boring little glass entrance off to one side.

That is a face of irritation and disappointment.

Puotila station was, in some ways, the end of the line for me.  When I was obsessively reading up about the Helsinki Metro network, I was horrified to go to the HSL website and discover those awful words: rail replacement bus.

The last two stations on the M1, Rastila and Vuosaari, are reached via a bridge over the Vartiokylänlahti, a long sea inlet that stretches back a few miles.  The bridge was closed in May for refurbishment and strengthening works, cutting off the Vuosaari branch for four whole months.

At home, in England, I was distraught.  The rules of this blog are very clear: a train must be used to arrive at or leave the station.  Buses simply don't count.  I wasn't going to be able to complete the Helsinki Metro correctly.

By the time I'd reached Puotila, I'd become sanguine about the situation.  I couldn't complete the line how I'd like to, that was true.  But I was still in a beautiful foreign city, on a warm day, riding public transport and enjoying myself.  There would be a bus ride between Rastila and Vuosaari instead of train ride but that was true for everyone - it wasn't me cheating, or refusing to apply the rules for my own convenience.  I'd still be visiting the stations.  It was fine. 

You may disagree, and feel that I should go back to Helsinki once the bridge reopens and do it properly.  In which case, I shall point you in the direction of my Ko-fi and encourage you to drop the money for air fare and a hotel and I will be happy to go back.

Though the railway bridge was closed, the road and footbridge wasn't, so I walked away from the station and into a park full of people.  There was a playground, rammed with children already, their parents watching from a distance.  Couples strolled on the paths.  Dog walkers followed their excitable pooches.  I stuck to the quieter routes, away from the people, enjoying the shade from the trees.  It really was unbelievably hot, and I was turning into a ball of sweat on legs.  My skin was browning nicely.

The formal park gave way to a much more informal woodland, with rougher paths and boulders, before turning me out onto a small sandy beach on the edge of the Vartiokylänlahti.  The weekend was here, with sunbathers on towels and picnickers on the benches.  Heads bobbed up and down in the water.

I looked at the water, cold, icy even, and imagined sliding into it.  Briefly, just enough to soak myself and wash away the sweat.  I began to do some calculations - I could wear my boxers in the water, then wring them out and go commando under my clothes for the rest of the walk.  I'd soon dry in the sun so I didn't need a towel.  Yes.  It was feasible.

At the exact moment when I convinced myself it was something I could do, one of the bobbing heads moved towards the sea and rose up.  A blonde Finnish man emerged from the water, Daniel Craig-like, and walked towards the shore.  Water dripped from his toned muscles.  His blue shorts clung to his thick thighs.  He walked across the beach, purposefully, stridently, confident in his handsomeness, unashamed of his perfect physique.

I ran a hand over my beer belly and decided that, you know what, it probably wasn't that nice in the water after all. 

The footpath from the beach took me up and onto the bridge over the water.  I could see the metro bridge clearly as I walked, tented for the works, plus the tunnel mouth to take the line underground to Puotila.  I realised that another positive about the enveloping tents is that you can't see if they're actually doing anything inside.  All the workmen could've been in the middle of poker tournament for all I knew. 

On the far side - passing a spraypainted sheep on the wall, perhaps the least threatening graffiti tag I have ever seen - I was dropped into a foot and cycle path alongside the station.  It wasn't the most attractive route, very much a low-level gully beneath the street, and the cyclists were taking full advantage of the segregated route to go as fast as possible, whistling by me on the side.

I was glad when a ramp took me back up to the road and to the closed station at Rastila.  It had taunted me from the cycle lane, letting me look inside but denying me access.  Up top, it was resolutely closed: not even a token open door for information or anything.

Now I had to find the rail replacement bus stop.  Most people were heading towards town, understandably, so I walked away from the busy stand in search of the buses in the opposite direction.  (Incidentally, the Swedish word for bus stop on the signs was plattform, which is confusing for an English speaker at a railway station).  I ended up doing a loop round the building, where I happened upon an electric bus getting a recharge.

I can't explain it, but seeing the bus hooked up to a pantograph like that, round the back where nobody could see it, felt somehow dirty.  Like I was seeing the bus masturbating or something.  It felt like something I shouldn't be looking at.  (And yet I still took a photo.  Who's the real pervert, eh?) 

I finally found the stop - little hint, HSL: if you're directing people to bus stop 4 put a number 4 on the flag - and soon a bus swept up off the motorway to pick me up and carry me on.  It seemed like a surprisingly long journey, considering it was simply the distance between two metro stops, but soon we were pulling into the bus terminal at Vuosaari.  

I really wanted a drink of Coke Zero, and there was a shopping centre right there, but I thought I'd do my duty first and take a look at the station.  It was a glass building directly accessible from the bus terminal, showing once again that integrated transport is a really good idea.

One invaluable resource for me in researching this trip has been Finnish Wikipedia.  While the English page for Vuosaari is useful, the Suomi version is understandably in greater depth, and Google Translate is very useful at letting a boring old monolinguist like me read it.  It has a large "Criticism" section, clearly written by somebody with a bee in their bonnet, which talks about how the design of the station was put under fire.  Visually impaired people found it difficult to navigate, while the whole building became like a greenhouse in hot weather due to all the glass.

The door was unlocked so I could actually go inside and hoo boy do those critics have a point.  It was like an inferno in there, a sealed unit letting in as much heat as possible and keeping it.  I was already moist but the ticket hall opened up sweat glands in places I didn't know I had them.  According to that Wikipedia page, the station manager said the heat didn't matter because you're not waiting long for a train, and I have to respectfully disagree.  I backed away swiftly, and went to the branch of Normal in the shopping centre, where I could buy a drink and a bottle of antibacterial gel.  I went into the toilet and used the gel to refresh my parts; a spray of deodorant and Calvin Klein from my backpack and I felt a little more human.

Now I had to get out of there, and I didn't fancy going back the way I came.  Fortunately the 560 bus would be a welcome alternative.  Helsinki operates two kinds of buses.  The blue ones are locals, stopping at every stop.  The orange ones are trunk routes, with a few dedicated stops to provide an express service.  These routes have bendy buses on them - yes, they are bendy buses Steve, get over yourself - and, as you'd expect from the Finns, are clean and efficient.  They also, blessedly, have air conditioning. 

Altogether now: bus wanker!!! 

The reason I took the 560 was that it went to the bus interchange outside Mellunmäki.  Meaning that, three hours after I'd left there, I was back at the northernmost metro station in the world.  I liked the circularity of that, closing the loop between the two terminii and making it whole.  

I'm easily pleased.