FINNISHED! / Finland

We did a quick visit to Tampere from Saturday to Sunday. I brought some RokRokInc. Jewelries to a friends friends yoga place called "Lentävä Matto" to sell. The place is totally cute and the owner totally great. ?

And during this 24 hours the winter came. Totally quickly. I had no winter shoes or a winter jacket with me. ...And no winter tyres... But luckily the highway was not bad to drive. 

Finnish national animal is a bear that had always an important role in Finnish mythology and ancient believes. Bear (Karhu) was considered to be the owner of the forrest, maybe the forrest itself. Then nature was and in a way still is the core of the Finnish mind in a way.

For example most of the Finnish family names come from nature related words: Joki = river, Kallio = crag, Niitty = field. (In comparison in Germany most of the last names come from occupational words: Müller = a miller, Schuhmacher = shoemaker.)

Also what a bear indicates fits quite well the Finnish personality with certain plainness and rawness. In addition it's both feminine and masculine at the same time, like our society. And finally bears also sleep through the whole winter and wake up in the spring to the first beams of light, haha.

So, this long story sums up pretty well why I just love Karhu beer brand and it's logo. It holds the truth about us Finns. :)

Back in the Finnish mindset. Karhu beer.

In bittersweet feelings we Finns look back at the Finnish Marks. Some of us still want the good old "grannies marks" back. ...And no, I'm not one of them but I do think that some of the last coins that we had pretty prints. I haven't found all of them yet but here you can see at least the ten and five pennies coins and a mark. The ten pennies were my brother-in-laws savings that he never got to use. :D

Ten pennies coin earrings I still have but the other ones are already gone.

Ten pennies coin had on one side it has the Finnish national flower lily-of-the-valley
with the name of the country and the other side states the value of the coin.

One Mark had a Finnish lion print. ...The Finnish lion is basically absurd:
of course lions couldn't survive in Finnish conditions and it also has on
it's head a crown which we also never had (I mean of our own).

In Finland there is this Finnish rap wave going on but there are now also a couple of current punk acts that have transgressed the limit of the music media. Take a look.

PERTTI KURIKAN NIMIPÄIVÄT
Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (Pertti Kurkikka's Name Day) is a group formed by four Finnish punks with developmental disabilities. Their album released 2012 is called "Six cups of coffee and one coke". They really have their hearts in the project. Respect!

What I really love in their music is also the lyrics (which you can find on their website). The lyrics are in Finnish but use the Google Translator to understand. For Example, the song Pyhäpäivä (Sunday that is called in Finnish "Holyday") goes like this:

HOLYDAY
It was Sunday
I went to church
I got some coffee
I took a crap

KOVASIKAJUTTU (free translation: big fucking deal) is a short documentary that tells about their gig trip to Germany. Totally worth watching.

PÄÄ KII
Pää Kii (Shut Up) is a punk group that also represents well the Finnish ramopunk tradition. The band is praised from both critics and the underground audience. They will perform next summer also at the Roskilde festival. Pää Kii sings in Finnish but as the band also asks, why should it matter? Other bands sing in foreign languages in Finland. Why not the other way round?

You can find the album "Pää Kii" in Spotify for Example. I like all their songs but a good examples are Paskahousun Paluu and Ees Jotain Positiivista.