The City Beat

 

A middle-aged homosexual in front of a sign that says KAMPPI?

Go on, make your jokes.  I'll wait.  

Kamppi was the end of the line for many years and it still has a feeling of prominence about it.  Everything is built on a grander scale than you're used to with the Helsinki Metro.  At the end of the day, there are about 1.6 million people in the Helsinki region - big in Finland, only slightly more than the population of Merseyside - so it's not exactly desperate for huge transport networks.  The platforms are short, the escalators efficient.  It's great, don't get me wrong, but it's a single underground line.

Kamppi, though, was built with the future in mind.  The original proposals for the metro in Helsinki envisaged a cross-shaped network, and Kamppi was where the north-south line would meet the east-west one.  There are, as a consequence, unused platforms beneath the Metro line here, built in case they were ever needed, with access routes carefully screened off above.  It's unlikely they'll ever come into use.  The airport to the north of the city centre was connected to the central station by traditional rail routes, while a new tram line with Finland's longest bridges has sucked up all the investment.  Every now and then it'll be suggested that the plan is revived then the numbers come in and everyone backs away. 

The station does have its own artwork, Kaupungin juuret by Otto Karvonen.  It's a lot of direction signs embedded in the cave ceiling, designed to show the many places the residents of Helsinki have come from, while still being part of the city.  An important message in the current climate, I feel.  I looked in vain for a Liverpool arrow but it's possible it was there and I simply didn't notice it.

There used to be two exits from the station, one to street level, the other to the Kamppi shopping centre that gives it its name.  However, the entire block of land the street exit was on is currently a building site, so the only exit is through the mall.  I rose up through the escalators and exited through the curved station exit - a weirdly organic sight in the centre of this capitalist haven.

I had to take a close-up picture of the tiles on the outside of the entrance: dinosaur scales, fleshy green tiles tessellating to add to the natural feel.

Once I made my way out of the shopping centre - no mean feat; the Finns do like to be buried in malls without letting you know how to get out - I had a quandry.  My hotel was about one and a half kilometres away, and my body, brain and soul were all crying out for a shower and a lie down and probably a little nap.  Everything hurt by then.  Everything was tired.  And the crisp white sheets of my hotel room were calling.

On the other hand... a half a kilometre beyond that was my next metro station.  And I could walk across the city centre and get a flavour of Helsinki on the way.  I couldn't resist.  I left the Narinkkatori, the pedestrian plaza outside the shopping centre, and disappeared into the streets.  I had only the vaguest idea of where I was going.

What I found were dense rows of tightly packed homes and shops.  Tiny stores that had the most bizarrely specialist bent were tucked beneath apartment blocks and at the edge of courtyards.

The buildings could've been anything between three hundred and a year old; they had that strange European patina that meant they all looked distinguished and yet not museum-like.  They didn't look like they'd been preserved because of a Government order, the looked like they were still there because people lived and worked in them and kept them going. 

The road opened up into a wide public square, gardens in front of a Lutheran church where a wedding was taking place.  Here I experienced a moment of disconnect.  On the one hand there was a perfectly ordinary wedding party: bride in white, groom, joyous family members and friends.  Slightly to one side, however, was a group of people in white masks and red dresses, looking like sinister devils.

 

 

I couldn't quite reconcile the two.  On the one hand, it looked like a party of street performers had simply happened to be in the same place as the wedding.  On the other hand, I don't know Finnish wedding traditions.  In England, it's regarded as perfectly normal for the best man to shag the chief bridesmaid behind the bins at the reception.  Perhaps it's common to have satanists turn up at your wedding, only to be driven away, or embraced even: I don't know.

 

 

On a side street beyond that, I spotted one of Helsinki's most famous sights: the Spårakoff, or Pub Tram.  This is exactly what it says on the tin: a tram that circles the city centre.  Inside it's been converted to a pub/restaurant, and serves beers wines and spirits on a continuous trip.  

 

Long-time readers (hello you!) would naturally assume that I dropped everything at this point to leap aboard.  I am, after all, both a fan of public transport and alcoholic beverages.  Riding a pub on tracks is basically my dream.

What you've failed to take into account, however, is that I am also painfully shy.  If I'd boarded that tram, there wouldn't have been a nice quiet corner for me to hide in and nurse a pint.  I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the ride to myself.  Instead I'd have been dragged into a social situation, where a lot of friendly people oiled up on booze would've dragged me into their party.  I'd have been forced to interact with Terry from Wisconsin and Gert from Rotterdam and we'd have all had a marvelous time yammering on together and I'd have felt unbelievably awkward and out of place.  There was a very real danger that I would hurl myself off the tram and under the wheels to escape Nadia from Bucharest telling me about her backpacking experiences and so it was for my own safety that I avoided it completely.  I saluted the Pub Tram, and all who sailed in her, and then I crossed the road and descended into the Esplanadi.

 

As its name implies this is a long linear park built for dandies to strut along in their finest.  Constructed in the 19th century, there's a theatre at one end, plus numerous glamorous cafes to take advantage of the views.  At the time of my visit it was adorned with various pieces of modern art as part of a city-wide festival.  It meant that every now and then you'd see a lovely elderly American couple who'd probably got off a cruise ship staring at a piece of spike-encrusted wood and trying their best to wrap their heads around it because we're in Europe now Wilma and we promised we'd have open minds about their ways.

The Esplanadi ended in a square by the sea where lot of young Finnish sailors sang some kind of enthusiastic song that a lot of the crowd enjoyed very much.  I liked the idea that this was a rite of passage for Finnish sailors - a few months of training then a couple of weeks leading sea shanties in the city centre.

 

I was close to one of Helsinki's most prominent landmarks, the Helsingin tuomiokirkko, or cathedral, mounted on a ridge above its own square and prominent for miles around.  I was excited to see a prominent piece of architecture that didn't have a train involved somewhere so I limped up the hill to the plaza to see it.

 

Alright, is this a conspiracy?  Does the word go out on the wires across Europe when I'm in town?  Does Expedia sell on my information to make sure that the biggest, most prominent landmark whereever I visit will be covered with building work when I arrive?  I am absolutely sure that if you visited in June 2025 the cathedral was open and attractive to any viewer and then a week before old Scott Willison wanders into town they put up the scaffolding and the tarps and restricted access.

 

Disappointed, I crossed the square.  I had developed blisters by this point and I can tell you with absolute certainty that cobblestones are not the friend of blistered feet.  I hobbled onwards, bravely, heroically - some might say I deserved a knighthood for my valiant efforts, but obviously I wouldn't suggest that myself - in search of the Helsingin yliopisto station.

The many, many Finnish readers of this blog will have spotted that Helsingin yliopisto means "Helsinki University" and therefore this is the second station on the network to be named after a higher education institution.  It wasn't always this way.  For the first twenty years of its life this station was called Kaisaniemi, after the district it occupies.  In 2015, however, the city council renamed it to honour the 375th anniversary of the university's founding.

 

 

I call bullshit on this claim.  Firstly, who celebrates the 375th anniversary of anything?  It's a stupid number that is only vaguely notable.  You'd wait for 400, right?  Secondly, I'm sure naming a station after the University of Helsinki in 2015 had nothing at all to do with a station for Aalto University being constructed at that exact moment in time.  Football rivalries have nothing on academic ones, and I'm surprised there isn't a designated spot in between the two unis for the staff to have a fight on at the end of every term.

 

I managed to negotiate a spot amongst the damnably young and attractive and lively clientele of the station to pause and take a sign picture before plunging underground.  The passageways at Helsingin yliopisto embraced the cave aesthetic to the extent that it felt like I was genuinely in a subterranean ice passage.  It was a bit of a shock when I ended up in a lower ground shopping centre.

 

 

For those of you keeping count - perhaps the idea of other languages scares you, and you want to make sure the British are still conquering the waves - Helsingin yliopisto is the second station on the Metro that also lists its name in English so those dirty foreigners don't get hopelessly lost.

 

As you'd expect from a station planned in 1971 but not actually finished until 1995 there's a real air of budget restrictions about it.  They built this station for the demand but don't think they'll put in any fripperies, kiddo.

 

 

This is not true of the next station, Hakaniemi.  One of the earliest stations to open, it's also one of the most unique, with a wide overarching roof and an uninterrupted island platform.

 

You might recognise this spot if you're a fan of turn of the century rap-dance music.  The video for Freestyler by Finnish band the Bombfunk MC's was filmed here, and I strongly urge you to watch it for a time travel experience back to the year 2000:

A white boy with dreadlocks!  A Minidisc player!  Girls dancing in sleeveless tops and baggy pants like they're All Saints or something!  It's tremendous, and plus you get a look round the Helsinki Metro without having to tolerate my nonsense.  It prominently features the top of the escalators, an island in the centre of the platforms that raises you almost to touching distance of that roof.

Oh how annoying, I got a picture of David Corenswet as Superman in there, ah well.

I rose up to street level and picked one of the half dozen exits.  I'd hoped to end up in the market hall that gave the station its name, but I couldn't quite work out which one was correct, and instead I ended up in a small exit right by three police officers.  I took my selfie pic and tried not to look like a terrorist.

Note the blue triangle on the orange square in the sign, by the way.  That's the symbol for a civil defence centre; all the underground metro stations were designed to double as bomb shelters.  A cheery thought. 

One more station and I'd be done for the day, promise.  I pulled out Google Maps to find a route to my final stop, Sörnäinen, and hoped and prayed it wasn't up the hill.

That's the Kallio church at the top, and a thousand points to the city planners for this truly impressive vista that I really didn't want to have to climb with my sore blistered feet.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I realised my route was off in a different direction.  The cafes here weren't as upmarket as the ones I'd seen on the Esplanadi, but they were just as busy, and offered a more internationally diverse range of cuisines.

As I walked through the streets, I was reminded that Helsinki used to double for Moscow in the Cold War era.  Once it's buried in snow, you probably can't tell the difference.  Gorky Park, the William Hurt thriller, was filmed here; it was one of those films I'd seen over and over because I recorded off the telly as a teenager.  I didn't actually enjoy it - it was incredibly slow and boring and William Hurt was his usual anticharismatic self - but I kept the recording for far longer than I wanted to because I thought it was the kind of thriller I should like.  People sitting around talking and every now and then they shot someone and looked like they regretted it. 

The Helsinki thriller I actually enjoyed was John Gardner's Icebreaker, his third James Bond novel from the days when he still cared.  If you've read the Gardner books you'll know there's a severe drop off after Win Lose Or Die as you realise he's writing these for the money and nothing more.  Icebreaker is not one of his best - the plot is about (yawn) neo-Nazis, and everyone is always double crossing one another until you can't work out who is actually a goodie and who's a baddie - but it does have a girl called Paula Vacker, which is a name that's stuck in my head for decades for some reason.  I'd meant to re-read it before I came here, perhaps go to a few locations in the book, but I completely forgot until I was on the flight home.  

A long sweeping road took me past rows of town houses, with a playground and an athletic field.  Some well-dressed ladies kissed each other goodbye and headed home; cars drove past slowly, keeping to the speed limits.  It was all so civilised and charming.

I darted across the avenue behind a tram, surprised at how quiet it was on a Friday afternoon, then walked into the square at its head.  There it was: my final station of the day.  I let out a sigh of relief.

If Hakaniemi was designed to look like it came from the future, Sörnäinen was created as a shrine to the 1980s.  It's panelled with bright yellow plastic, all of which screams Princess Di haircuts and waking you up before you go-go.

This isn't a complaint, by the way.  Metro systems should reflect the period they were built and making them all blandly similar is boring.  One of the joys of moving about the London Underground or the Paris Metro is never quite knowing what you're going to encounter at the next stop - gleaming silver modernity, Edwardian tile work, shabby 1970s styling.

At some point the station will probably be made over, refurbished to whatever the fashionable style is at the time of reconstruction.  And then a few years after that, it'll get restored, and the Helsinki transit authority will issue a proud statement about how it's being made to look like an Eighties fever dream all over again.

My train came and I was able to slump into one of the uncomfortable plastic seats they put on their Metro trains.  I was sweaty, achy, knackered.  But I was very, very, happy.

The Same But Different

It had taken me all day, but here it was: the final station on the Länsimetro.  It's very similar to its brothers, of course: island platform, red and white stripe, and a light show above your head.

Does it matter when it works, though?  Does it matter when what you get is thirteen stations that shine with efficiency, glamour, style?  It certainly didn't bother me.  Disembarking at Lauttasari was as uplifting an experience as the other twelve stations, a step into a positive future.  Helsinki's Western Extension was a wonderful place to visit, and I hope that other cities take inspiration.

Like most of the stations, Lauttasari has two exits, one into a shopping precinct and one in a more residential area.  I decided to go through the latter one this time, away from the crowds, for a change.  It brought me out on a side street where a tiny arced building had been slotted into the row of buildings.

My attention was immediately grabbed by the giant tent at the end of the road.  I thought it must be some sort of temporary arena.  Maybe Helsinki had got the rights to the Horse of the Year Show and had to hastily put up a gymkhana.  It was only when I got closer that I realised there was an apartment block underneath it.  It seems that in Finland, when there's building work going on, they enclose the entire structure rather than sticking some scaffolding on the side.  I guess this is a response to the country's harsh weather.  Once I'd seen it, I spotted it all over the city.  My thought every time was: do they move out while it's going on?  Or are the residents of that block all sitting in semi-darkness twenty four hours a day? 

I'd left the metro station behind a man and two women, one of whom was pushing a buggy, and as I followed them down the avenue I tried to discern their relationship.  At first I'd thought they were all friends, two women and their GBF, but then I noticed the man and the woman with the buggy seemed to fall into step with one another.  So the obvious conclusion was that they were a couple, and the man was, against all evidence, heterosexual.  

I followed them for a while until, outside a block of apartments, they all parted ways.  At this point, the man wandered off into the distance, leaving the two women behind; one handed the buggy to the other and left, and then the final girl pushed the baby into the gardens of the residential block.  My final conclusion: the two women are lesbians who split up after the man donated his sperm to conceive the child in the pushchair and they were having a day of shared contact.  Scandinavians are so progressive.

I finally reached a stream of traffic at a standstill on the edge of the island of Lauttasari.  The bridge to Helsinki city centre was further along and it seemed everyone had decided to go that way.  I walked past, much faster than the stopped cars, then darted across to be on the coast side.  At the entrance to a boatyard I saw a familiar pink sign on a telegraph pole; the Lauttasaaren walking path I'd briefly used before.  I immediately veered off the road and into the boatyard's car park, once again prioritising random wandering over carefully laid plans and personal safety.

I was in the city but also outside it, walking along the coastal path at the backs of homes and streets.  Huge lumps of rock burst out of the water to create pools and cliff faces.  A woman in a tight costume slowly walked down the rocks and into the water to begin her wild swim in the bay.  A swan with its cygnets appeared from under a tree, unbothered by me, knowing full well she could snap my arm like a twig if I got too close.

There was a bench around the corner and I settled into it to finish my bottle of Coke and take in the view.  I was having a marvelous time.  These little trips away to visit foreign metro systems have become so precious to me.  I love the BF, love spending time with him of course, but sometimes it's good to have a completely selfish experience.  I was in Helsinki to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and what I wanted to do was look at railway stations, and I was the only one who cared.  I could spend all day doing this if I wanted.  There was no social awkwardness.

It was also temporarily filling the hole left by the completion of the West Midlands Railway map.  I've become used to having these side quests in my life and when one closes I'm left slightly bereft.  I've lost a purpose.  My hobby has vanished.  If you're a stamp collector, or a coin collector, or you collect beanie babies, there's always another one.  There's always more. 

There's a finite number of stations on a map, and the only way more will appear is if there's a massive million pound investment from government bodies.  It doesn't happen every day.  Getting the Helsinki Metro map under my belt was helping me scratch an itch.  (Get on with opening the Pineapple Road extension, would you, TfWM?) 

I lifted myself to my feet and realised, horrified, that sitting down had been a mistake.  My body had been reliant on constant movement to avoid noticing how decrepit it was; the parts had been in motion, and they were kept busy.  By resting, I'd given a chance for my body to take stock and note what was in need of a pause and it turned out the answer was all of it.  Suddenly my feet hurt.  And my knees.  And my legs.  And my back.  And my shoulders.  Basically everything below the neck was moaning at me.  All of it wanted to stop, right now, and how dare my brain lift it up and make it start moving again.

Stiffly I continued to walk, rusty, straight-legged, trying to bend knees that didn't want to bend into movement.  I was the Tin Man, only not quite so camp.  Slowly the fluids returned to my joints and I was able to walk properly again at my usual accelerated speed, but my feet were still complaining with every step, and my shoulders chafed under the straps of my backpack.  I walked back onto hard pavements and onto the bridge to the mainland. 

Cyclists burned past me in their dedicated lane (1034 that day; 465,156 in the year to date, according to the electronic sign on a lamppost) and I stepped down into the district of Ruoholahti.

For decades this was an industrial zone, filled with factories and warehouses, plus a working port.  In the Eighties though, with the closure of numerous businesses, it was reclassified as an office area, and redevelopment work swiftly began to house corporations here.

Long straight streets were lined with tall buildings and solid blocks of flats.  Regimented trees lined the pavements.  The tram that intruded looked somehow twee in amongst the solid modernity of the area.  

It's a redevelopment that's been going on for so long it's now reached the point where it's being regenerated again.  At the centre of the district is the Ruoholahdentori, an open square built on the top of an underground car park.  It's one of those open spaces that you know looked fantastic on the renders - all kids with balloons and street entertainers and laughing ethnically mixed couples - but has ended up being a bit of a dead space.  The Helsinki Conservatoire occupies one end - stick some culture in there, that'll help - but from what I could see its most committed users were gentlemen who didn't have anywhere else to go to drink their alcohol.

Now Helsinki's council has started consultation work on redeveloping it, encouraging footfall and building new residences around it to create a far more mixed community.  It's interesting how there are these waves of developmental ideas that sweep through cities but time and time again they come back to "hey, why not have people live and work and shop and play in roughly the same place so it's an interesting spot to visit all day".   

One of the men who liked to drink in public had come unmoored from the Ruoholahdentori and was outside the metro station, shouting about something, nothing, everything, waving at passers by.  I maintained a discreet distance for the selfie pic so I didn't attract his attention then dashed inside.

Ruoholahti station was the first proper extension to the west the metro ever got; to encourage growth in the area, the city built a single stop from the existing terminus at Kamppi that opened in 1993.  It served as the end of the line until the Länsimetro was built in the 21st century. 

I am of course on record as a huge fan of Stockholm's Blue Line.  Epic, beautifully designed metro stations - what's not to like?  It seems that Helsinki was a big fan too, because Ruoholahti has more than a hint of Blue Line about it.

Rock cavern?  Check.  Interesting colours?  Check.  Pieces of art scattered around?  

Check. 

It is, I have to be honest, a slightly B-list version of the Blue Line.  The Tunnelbana is inspirational in its size and breadth.  Those cavern stations would be astonishing even if they weren't peppered with odd pieces of art; they're grand and arresting.    

Ruoholahti is far more small scale.  The platforms are shorter.  They're also dead ends - the escalator hall is in the centre, so both platforms finish in a blank wall.  Nobody's written a book about the art of the Helsinki Metro, put it that way.   

This is not to say that it's bad, don't get me wrong.  If this station were in the UK I would be rhapsodising about it on a regular basis.  If it was on Merseyrail I'd probably go there on a regular basis to sit on the platform and eat my sandwiches until a uniformed security man moved me on.  It was just that the Länsimetro had shown me a distinctive, interesting and very Finnish metro system.  Ruoholahti was the Tunnelbana with a different accent, and that wasn't as pleasing.

Be yourself.  That's the key here.