The Vappu experience or how to get assaulted in a nightclub

Diana Porumboiu
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

Before my memory fades, I have another story. The first one in our Finnish Saga.

Two months have passed and we were going out more often. Even though it was still cold and gloomy, the difference in our mood was brought by the variety of events. Well, event. As I previously said, people we met here are “raving” about the Finnish fun life and if you ask them what to visit when in Helsinki, their answer in some cases is: Tallinn.

Personally, I disagree because after 6 months here, including 1 month of something that resembled summer, I find Helsinki fascinating. It is true that compared to Bucharest there are not so many cultural events I can attend (also because of the language barrier) and the clubs are not that fun (yes, alcohol is expensive which makes everything less fun). But who needs that when you have nature?

Truth be told, as a student, I had my partying years with drinking and hangovers and all that jazz. I had more than enough. Helsinki is great for people like us, who run away from other people or crowded places and need nature to escape depression. If you are still in you partying years, Helsinki is not for you unless you come on Vappu or Juhannus or… most of the summer weekends.

So to sum up the positive and most important aspect: it’s awesome for us if we avoid the big parties and events, which are easy to miss in the short Finnish summer.

Why avoid big parties? Now I have my reasons:

First encounter with the happy people of Helsinki was at Vappu, which is the May Day celebration that lasts 3 days. They say spring celebration, I say never-ending winter celebration.

It starts in the last day of April with a huge gathering in the city centre. It is a carnival atmosphere, everybody drinks in the streets, some of them wear costumes and masks, the students wear some sort of overalls, but most of them wear their graduation caps which look like a sailor hat. You can easily spot the elderly because their caps are the dirtiest. Apparently the tradition says not to wash them once you graduate, even if this happened 40 years ago.

The main event of the day is the moment when a group of drunken students in their overalls place one of those caps on a statue’s head while hanging from a crane.

The final countdown.

It lasts a few seconds, but everybody’s cheering as if they landed on the moon for the first time. Blink and you missed it. To be honest I missed it because there were too many students on that statue’s head. I cheered along.

moments after the moon landing.

By the end of the ceremony most of the people are drunk or they struggle to get drunk. They gather in the Senate Square until party time comes again.

The party after the party

Now comes my first clubbing experience in Helsinki.

You might have guessed already, I didn’t enjoy it. Not only because in the entire club I haven’t seen more than 6 sober people (and that was our group), but it turns out that Finns don’t have the right genes to tolerate alcohol so they become either aggressive or they just pass out. True story. This is the explanation I received several times. Whether this is true or not, I’ll let them argue about this.

The nightclub was packed and as I was to discover, girls are the most aggressive drunken specimen around here. The proof of this theory? A girl grabbed me by the hair for no obvious reason. The explanation my boyfriend gave me was that he tried to make room for us and he might have pushed her. She couldn’t grab a guy’s hair. That’s just not lady-like. I was the easy target.

Just to put things into perspective:

- I have been in many clubs in Bucharest and I celebrated the Romanian version of Vappu, which means going to Vama Veche at the seaside where everybody gets drunk, something like this. I have also tested some nightclubs in Spain and France, but I have never seen such aggressive girls.

- Clubs in Bucharest are packed as hell and until recently smoking was allowed but it was still fun and civilized.

- I have never ever got into a fight in my life (maybe in kindergarten).

- She wasn’t the only aggressive girl. Most of the girls were just bumping into others without apologizing.

Once the shock passed, nothing could be done because she disappeared after this but we decided to leave since the nice Finnish girls that were with us were more embarrassed than me by what their compatriot did.

The next day is the actual May Day or the Picnic Day, as everybody gathers in the biggest park of the city to eat and dance and what else…? what else…? to DRINK, that’s right. No incidents here and despite the cold weather and the bad taste in music, we enjoyed it.

spot the naked guys

We were warned that this is one of the biggest events in Helsinki so we should enjoy it why it lasts because we’ll never see so many people on the streets until next year. It’s true. So far, 4 months later, we still haven’t seen so many people peeing in the streets at the same time, just like we saw on Vappu.

the night ends with a big queue for taxis

This was our first encounter with the Finnish youth and as promised, it was a short(er) story. However, it wasn’t the last time we went to a nightclub (or should I call them disco clubs?) We gave it another chance and another…and another. Each time something stopped us from having fun: whether it was the retro music, the house music, the Finnish music or the price of alcohol, we don’t know yet.

We’ll try again next summer.

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