Susiraja (Wolf Crossing) and The Finnish Face

This was the most Finnish photo I could find. Lakes surrounded by poisonous inedible forest filled with leeches, bears, reindeer and Moose often drunk or tripping that will murder you as soon as “moofmoof” at you. (traditional sound of The Moose)

Tracks in the snow…

susiraja

1. (humorous) Literally “wolf border,” the boundary between the capital region and the rest of Finland; the name suggests that rest of the country is wilderness.

Sometime at the turn of the year of your Lord nobody quite gives a fuck and two to five years ago give or take hipster math. People, hipsters and many gauche ex-gonzo writers and alternative artists became enamoured with Finland.

This is easy. There exists little foreign writing on Finland and what does exist is poor. The rest is often self-aggrandising. Or it buys and feeds into the mythology somehow. It’s like that overly smiley person effusing about now amazing a place is and how they would totally live there after their three weeks there. Whilst sat in a café in New York. Or that guy, trying to explain how truly unique the place is, in really slow speech, with hand movements, because they think you don’t understand.

They have become fascinated with Finnish education. That incidentally has its roots in Margot Honecker and two suitcases. No one ever wants to remember Finland selling Germany and the world back whatever it bought from East Germany. That does not fit the narrative.

But, we’ll get into that later…

They used to give cloth material as mothers were used to making the clothes for their children. As the plague of being bloody useless and stupid overtook humanity coupled with “ain’t nobody got time for that shit when foreign children can make it for us with their little hands” they began to include ready made clothes.

Elsewhere in Europe, we have been so repeatedly trodden into the mud, that when we see something as humanist as the äitiyspakkaus (maternity package or baby box) and it becomes a marvel. Not a very obvious (if a little genius) and essential measure implemented by an often deprived post-war society to lessen the burden on its mothers and most importantly reduce an infant mortality rate that drifted and spiked between 65 deaths for each 1,000 children to 89 between 1935–1948.

Pervitin is methamphetamine made popular by German soldiers. It had many names during the war like “Hermann Goring pills”, “Stuka tablets” or “tank-chocolate”. Pervitin has never gone away.

Such rapid problem solving and reaching past mediocrity is easy to understand when you realise that war time and immediate post-war Finland was largely run on a healthy diet of amphetamines. And also if you want to believe the “Lala We’re All Happy Moomins lala or LWAHML” narrative — coffee served in a kuksa with a korvapuusti (cinnamon roll, not authentic if the sugar fails to hurt your teeth) a combination that is so filled with sugar and caffeine it acts like dirty street amphetamine anyway and explains both the country’s problems with diabetes, obesity and paranoia.

Handmade Kuksa available here support Finnish craftspeople

Progress ran at the break neck speed of hyper-focus. Cities were rebuilt. Infrastructure, you name it.

It is common knowledge in Fenno-Scandinavia and most of Russia and the old Soviet Union that Finnish Old Ladies do best and last longest when fed a steady diet of amphetamine. it keeps them sharp against the Red Menace. [parody photo]

To better picture this you need to strip away Finland’s jingoistic feel good ready the boys for another roll in the snow propaganda brainwash. It’s nineteen-fortyblahblahblah and Finland had just fought a series of losing wars. Yes, it has retained its independence, but that could be said it gained and retained it only because the war ended and the Germans were beaten and the Russians retreated to rule their spoils of war. The war with Russia cost them 10% of their land, 10% but it was the richest farmland in Finland, an agricultural hub and cost them 30% of their economy. Those numbers are staggering. Shooting poorly-trained poorly-equipped Soviet cannon fodder as fast as they pop up will never dress up those sort of figures as anything but a bitter loss. Few people can agree on exact casualties because the narrative is skewed and Finnish men (and women, and Moose) will often “exaggerate” by five hundred thousand to two million.

Blood in the snow…

Finland was a co-belligerent in World War II and it is one of the few countries to do so. They have managed to grease the wheels of history by maintaining that they were out of the room when various pacts were being signed and so they were not allies on paper. So, really it’s not the same. They have never really forgiven the Allies for not delivering on promised supplies and their dogged repayment of American loans is a very pointed reflection of this. But, like a lot of things get twisted a bit. This is not the reason for Finland’s distrust of strangers or other humans, it is simply a contributing factor.

Body of a frozen Soviet soldier propped up by Finns and Germans to intimidate Soviet soldiers. The message if carefully deciphered translates to “This way Helsinki”

It is worth remembering, had Germany won the war, Finland would have remained in occupation of land far exceeding their pre-war territories.

There are stones that have been more giving of their secrets than Northern Finns willing to talk about their friendships and camaraderie with the German army. But it is there, it existed, there’s a great many photos to prove it. There’s even some audio used to give credence to a meeting with Mannerheim and Hitler. The meeting is famous as it pays into the Finnish myth of machismo, stoicism and outfoxing someone through being a uncaring badass.

Finnish Neonazis are generally regarded as cockboys to larger Swedish-Scandinavian organisations and are widely regarded, more tellingly, as untrustworthy snitches, often in Government pay to avoid prison. Here we can also see a prime example of my ring is too small for my fat racist finger, in the wild.

So the story goes, supposedly, Mannerheim had a meeting with Hitler. Hitler was a non-rabid anti-smoker. Mannerheim knew this and after dinner lit a cigar which he purposefully blew in Hitler’s face. Seeking diplomacy, Hitler did not say anything. Mannerheim took this as a sign of weakness and blahblahblah betrayed Hitler/did not keep his word and Finns are very smart. This sort of matchstick chewing one-sided game playing is in a sweeping generalisation.

It’s such odd cinema, macho Borscht-Western stuff that maybe it makes sense.

A dead soldier used as a signpost. It might as well say “War is hell, this way Helsinki.” Desecration of corpses was common for both sides in WWII. Standard German practice was to take 10 or more locals as hostage and kill for every German soldier killed. Or sometimes just kill the whole village as warning. Good boots were in short supply.

Either way, the audio they touted from this meeting has been shown to be likely fake. It’s like the Jewish question and other points. 2000 is a long time to apologise, but then apologies are not the Finnish strong suit, especially when they still feel very sullen about the whole war thing.

Indeed, Allied soldiers travelled to help them, but there is still a rippled ore vein of weird feeling about Finland and the Germans and try as people do, to re-wrap the stories. It will never sit with complete comfort.

A common ailment of island people is the tendency to tell themselves stories about themselves. How great they are.

Who’s like us? Nobody! Who can beat us? Nobody! Aren’t we great? Nobody!

Finland, being pretty much ultima thule — mostly comprised of lakes, forest, rocky outcrop, swamp and moose. Is essentially an island nation that’s kind of not an island. But it is. I have tried this cultural reasoning on Finns. With men. It does not work. They shout and argue. They don’t want to be an island. They want to be Finland. Because Finland is Finland. Because Finland is unique. Finland, is Finland! Who’s like Finland? Nobody! Who can beat us? Not the Russians! Nobidy! And so on…

So Finland tells itself stories about itself, and tells us stories about itself and glosses things up and does not apologise until 2000. And sulks about promised aid that did not come through and does not seem to fully understand how the rest of the world has a little bit of side eye. Because, after all, they were the Nazis. But…the Russians…but anything, that does not really fully cut anything when it comes to that darkness. At least, that appears to be some of the mindset at the time.

This is part of the Finnish Face, this is part of Susiraja.

susiraja

1. (humorous) Literally “wolf border,” the boundary between the capital region and the rest of Finland; the name suggests that rest of the country is wilderness.

Finland was under the thumb of foreign powers for quite a long time. For the longest time it was owned by Sweden. Which makes sense really, as earlier Swedes would make the Finns into the Jötunn their gods would regularly hassle, steal from and clash with when stuck for a good baddie.

Later Russia and Sweden would fight over them like two neighbours about the allotment bit that overlaps the bottoms of their rather large gardens. In general terms, both Sweden and Russia like to tease Finland about being unfriendly and stabby and dumb and sauna. It’s good that they call these insults from over a wall at the edge of the forest, ‘else Finland would stab the ever-livin’ shit out of them.

This is the Finland we meet now, after all that.

It is worth noting that as this was done by a female Swedish artist, and they are notoriously jealous, Finnish women are actually much happier and frown less. The knife is often hidden and the bottle of alcohol often coffee or tea or cake. Sadly the Finnish male is largely on the money, if the artist had tried to capture the scowling features any more accurately it would just resemble a pink vortex.

And this is unfair.

You have to understand that there was a time when Finland was not like this. The bags under the eyes, the finely diluted fake brandy, the bags under…

Pre-Christian Finland, like Ireland, was a wonderful place. Then a stranger came from Sweden, who had just conquered them probably again, ( ‘cause Sweden liked kicking the shit out of Finland when it got bored, often under the auspices of checking the borders) and that stranger brought Christianity.

This is possibly because the Swedish king told him to. Possibly it looked like the Finns were enjoying their three and half months of palatable weather and easy attitudes to pre-marital sex a little too much. It is hard to say.

It makes sense that they don’t trust foreigners.

Or strangers.

Or their neighbours.

Or even themselves.

Until we reach

This is a bus stop, in Finland in the morning. The desired and required distance between people is a serious thing and people will get angry and leave the bus stop if you stand too close.

As the city is the highest concentration of money, competition and people and the further you venture from the city the less able people are to fuck you over. As everyone’s life sort of hangs in a balance of not being a cock or we might all freeze to death and get eaten by Moose. Or wolves. So the joke is a sort of Möbius strip that pokes fun at the wilderness and the harsh struggle to survive and forever threat of getting eaten by wolves (and moose) on the way home from the pub, school, hospital or the outhouse.

At the same time as it is the sinister inverse. The further away from the city you are, haha, the less likely you are to get eaten… because we don’t trust ourselves enough to say the truth because the inverse is funnier because the city is filled with wolves…because-Jesus Christ don’t say anything and they might find out we were the ones who spoke…they’ll murder us all…

In a way this is funny.

In another, Finnish society is a terrifying place and you can understand why people stay the absolute fuck away from each other unless they’re so drunk they’d fuck moose.

That is susiraja. That is

susiraja

1. (humorous) Literally “wolf border,” the boundary between the capital region and the rest of Finland; the name suggests that rest of the country is wilderness.

It could be taken that this slightly atavistic-ouroboros-lame-fuck-around could be placed in some shape or form to the Finnish Face.

Get out now…

The Finnish Face is not something you will hear about often or even early in your time in the Moose Wastes. It’s a bit like a dirty secret. Albeit a common dirty secret that they joke about fairly frequently.

It hinges in part on the lack of coherent understanding of their language. An atavism cobbled together from rock and Moose whose only previous purpose was to stun frogs and other small mammals on the trunks of trees. Finnish shares its roots with only two other native languages. The Hungarians speak a version, but that is only due to wartime necessity in needing something the Ottoman Turks could not understand and Estonia has a castle.

I am told it shares some similarity of ease of learning with Japanese, which might partially explain the xenophobia in a comedic forgotten sitcom way. The one where the two salarymen, one from Finland, one from Japan have to share an apartment with a long suffering Scotsman. It’s pretty bleak and they had a hard time writing themselves out of the corner of having the Scot kill himself and the Japanese salaryman return to Osaka to face his gambling debts.

Spring-boarding from the lack of understanding of their language and the lack of cultural understanding that the West seems to wear as a badge of honour when it comes to Russia. Sorry, I meant Finland. The cultural misunderstanding that happens between Finland and the rest of the world is different and more sauna, I mean complex, and sauna.

Where Finland beats Russia in this fog of confusion and obfuscation, is that Finland believes that the world largely only sees the Finland it wishes to present to the world. They have been fairly lucky at hiding the Russian economic influence, the supposed massive drug shipments, the construction fraud and whatever else. The widespread corruption that is so endemic it is impossible to separate from the system in a way that bleeds Grecian envy. And to a large degree Finland is right. By combining a mixture of dry jokes about its suspicious nature, conflated stabbiness and hatred of all things that draw breathe. With all the nice things in Finland, the lakes, the forests, the Swedish design, the East Berlin education system, the art, the electronic music, the lakes, the Danish licorice, their truly uniquely warm, funny and optimistic women folk, their permissive police state and the Moomins.

Base it on the propagated racism of Swedes and Russians about Finns being stupid peasants and Finland has managed to lull Europe into a false sense of security that it is a sort of silent street smart but buffoonish farmhand whose empty-eyed smile holds no evil, no malice and means what it seldom says and when it does say it, it is never loaded or false.

Whereas playing the fool ended with Ireland and Greece having to pay up. Finland has managed to spin the wheel on and the entire thing has become a sort of national joke of pulling one over on the EU and foreign business folk. A multi-tiered thing, it is not just the just pulling one over in a gentle hehe way but of doing them in a complex riddle of cons and fraud. There is malice in this. If mentioned, people will explain and tell you in long and difficult ways. Finns will sort of laugh-sigh-shrug in that awkward way a friend does when they know their bully friend might have killed somebody. Because the old boy club of Finland has a point to prove and often the only points scored are how much they took the foreign business people for.

And it is very well hidden.

And I’m told they will smile and chuckle and affect poor English and offer some of the ethanol diluted “Brandy” and make some joke about sauna and darkness and it will be awkward but you will laugh and sauna will happen and you will forget.

And even if you looked, the Government will hide it.

The bumbling buffoon with the quirky traits and nakedness. Beneath that avarice, entitlement and the arrogant lip of the malicious conman. Anti-corruption commissions note there is a problem in Finland, but no one talks. As close literary example I have is the horse aliens in Sheri Tipper’s “Grass”, I am sure there’s others or echoes in “The Damned Thing” (Ambrose Bierce) and Journey to the Middle of the Road: The Quest for Mediocrity (Bimbles Jansson)

Add to this

The duelling nature of the genders as often generalised by themselves in the pubs and in groups.

A sudden seventy-year surge in women’s rights but not equality is why Finnish men often think all Finnish women are whores. (besides the alcoholism and machismo culture)

And maybe seven hundred years of being beaten and raped and subjected to alcoholic violence whilst being called whores and liars. And you have a strange wounded climate of darkness and communication through sweat and toil. Suspicion and avarice. Stitched together with strange introvert jingoism and strong nationalism. Enough religion to divide the society and still have very weird issues with homosexuality. And a dislike of foreigners, that undulates in the corners of xenophobia.

Like a lot of islanders, they’ve been had before and besides, trolls eat people.

Maybe it’s all very paranoid and repeated jokes about it and nose tapping about those who remained friends with Germany probably amount to nothing more than Finnish humour.

Police Camp H…

People forget the Finns went through a very harsh recession in the ’90s. Or, well, the Finns don’t and they will remind you of this, with a faraway haunted trauma look and the promise that they “will not go through that again”. Maybe it is a sort of The Hills Have Eyes necessity.

Mutants scuttling between snow clump, tree and lake, conspiring, always conspiring.

But, it’s not a common spoke of thing, it’s not like they greet you with a little pamphlet at the airport

“Hi, we have a corruption culture built on xenophobia, our fat leering white guy elite are really going to fuck you over…”

Not ‘least, because Finns themselves do not believe they and their society are anything but super polite. Which only goes to show many Finns do not understand what polite means. They also have the highest rate for believing their media and tabloids in Europe. When told something negative about their society, a bad happening such as a crime or white collar crime or even a report on actual rape figures, the dissonance is so strong, Finns will begin to argue with you and tell you that what happened to you, did not happen…

I had been stuck in this godforsaken tundra negative zone for three and something years, kicking through fraud, threats to “never work in this town again” and death threats and on ‘fore someone made mention of the Finnish Face.

When you put the two together…it sort of like setting Yuzna’s Society on The Prisoner’s island and melding it with Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 2000 Maniacs…

Genuine sign outside Stockholm.

There’s a road diversion outside Stockholm that leads to a little old place filled with the friendliest if odd people. Some of the people seem a little nervous, as if they want to tell you something, but they keep looking over their shoulder…

Beware

There’s wolves in the cities

There’s wolves in the forests

They’re just wearing different faces

And don’t worry…

They’ve got faces spare.