Lonely day in Helsinki

Helsinki isn’t the kind of place that throws itself at you. No loud cheers, no fake smiles. It stands there, quiet and desolate, like a Finn at a bus stop in February with a fur coat zipped high, eyes stoically fixed on some distant point beyond the horizon.

What can you do if you happen to be alone in Helsinki on a Saturday evening? I wandered the streets with no plan, which is usually the best kind of plan. Passed the looming facades of concrete, brushed shoulders with stern locals who looked like they’d walked off a Black Sabbath album cover, and ducked into a café where the coffee was strong and the stares even stronger.

There’s a peculiar kind of silence that hangs in the air. Not the awkward kind. More like a truce between the land and the people. No one talks unless they mean it in Helsinki. Small talk is an imported disease here.

Helsinki Cathedral.

There’s a beauty in the bleakness. A stark, minimal kind of elegance. I sit down on the stairs to the shining white cathedral and look down at the Senate Square, where the crew of band Leningrad Cowboys were busy building their stage for a concert later this evening. The statue of Alexander II is being transformed into a cake. I’m not sure what is going on, but that is part of the appeal with travel. Expect the unexpected.

“Let them eat cake.”

It’s sort of a paradox to be alone in a crowd. In a large city such as Helsinki, there are people in every corner, but most speak a language I cannot understand. It doesn’t help that the Finnish is part of the Uralic family of languages, notoriously hard to learn.

I spend the evening thinking about distance, about silence, about the things we don’t say.

“I want your special smile
A smile in this crowd”
— Martin L Gore, Smile in the Crowd (1989)