Last spring we got an invitation from a Finn friend to come and visit Finland. Soon another Finn friend sent an invitation. It was a trip was long overdue. V and J have been inviting us for many years. Both guys have visited Greece several times. They have forged a bond with Greece – each of them in their own individual way. We have become friends and spent time together, climbed together, road-tripped together and in the case of V even did some business together. I knew we ought to visit Finland at some point.

I am not sure why it took us so long. Probably Finland felt “too easy” in our wanderlust days, maybe “too civilised”, or even “not far enough”. It had no mountains to walk or prominent dramatic landscapes to awe. There were so many places in the world taking priority over this timid civilised land. “We are saving Europe trips for our pension days”, used to be our motto. So, despite the calls, we never made the trip.

Then, our son came in our life and long haul flights suddenly were out of the question, as were rough camps with the dingoes or super long driving days in desert dirt roads. Suddenly our operational range shrunk dramatically and Finland, a super safe, super easy-to-travel country with mild summers and opportunities to spend them among vast expanses of calm woodlands sounded like a really good idea. Plus we would be travelling with locals which is by far the best way to experience a place.

A brief family council took place and then I wrote to V and J telling them we are coming to Finland!

Then a few months passed.

The thing about Finland

The planning period for the trip coincided with a really hectic time at work (both for me and D). We had no time at all to properly prepare for the trip with our customary travel research and reading. Thus when we got on the plane we carried with us only a rudimentary knowledge of the country. I had mostly anecdotes from my friends to refer too. Plus some videos and blog posts of Nalle Hukkataival explaining what “Sisu” is and some facts from WWII history books. D was in no better place, with few insights apart from memories of intense encounters with Finn counterparts in Brussels at the wake of the Greek financial crisis.

As visitors we were not new to Scandinavia but then Finland is not exactly Scandinavia. For sure it shares the contemporary emphasis of all Scandinavian countries on social welfare, civil values and quality of life but in contrast to its neighbours, Finns are not Nordic people and thus their culture, traditions and even their unique language set them apart from the rest of Scandinavia. Moreover, Finland does not share the glorious imperial past of Sweden (i.e. being a European super power in the 18th century) nor the “gift from the heaven” natural resources that made Norway into the country that is today. The Finn version of the Scandinavian wonder had to be built not on past glories or riches dropped from the sky but rather on hard work and bitter struggles of a stubborn, stoic, and no-nonsense nation.

About the Finns

So, what sort of people are the Finns like?  Now that’s when we get to the difficult part. Not only because I spent a very short time there to form an opinion but mostly because when it gets down into describing a whole nation through the eyes of a traveler, I find that to be perilous ground. Travel literature suffers greatly from relevant stereotypes and preconceptions. People say travel “frees the mind from stereotypes” (a stereotype in itself) but I am wondering if in fact, travel reinforces stereotypes by confirming pre-existing biases through selective observation. What if travel is an unstudied complicated process of solidifying bias through skewed observation and motivating reasoning?

This becomes especially difficult when you try to describe people, customs and behaviours. Readers expect to read about pre-fixed characteristics. Readers need to feel assured you have met those cold-hearted, tough northerners and juxtapose them against their familiar warm light-hearted southerners. Or depending on the readership origin, you might invert that expectations with readers eager to read about hard working northerners vs the lazy ass southerners. People, nations, ethnic groups, all becoming caricatures to satisfy pre-existing notions of vice and value.

On the other end, lies the pitfall of denial. Refusing to acknowledge any sort of common characteristics, behavioral heritage among populations is a fallacy in itself. This is like refusing to acknowledge both statistically observable trends and well known cultural identity characteristics. It just doesn’t reflect reality.

So where do you draw the line? Where do you start and where do you stop describing the “typical Finn”. I believe you should start by acknowledging that there is no such thing as a typical Finn. In their uniqueness, all Finns (and all Greek and all Mandarins…) are firstly and more importantly different. On the other hand, common behaviours are just that. Common i.e. prevailing but by no means bidding on universal. It sounds simple as a concept but it is a fine line to adhere to.

So, overall it might be better to simply speak of Finn idiosyncrasy, culture and heritage. Under such a prism, in our trip Finn people lived up to their reputed shyness but only to a limited extend. Certainly people in the street were more reserved than in Greece. M was the first to feel the impact of this. A constant public performer and natural charmer he had been used to incite reactions of random worship from strangers in the street. People in Greece will interrupt their pace, stop, touch his hair or even hug him on the slightest provocation. M thrives on this despite our desperate attempts to teach him that trusting strangers blindly is wrong. Strangers in Finland on the other hand, were totally immune to M’s charm attempts. They didn’t return the smiles and definitely didn’t touch or cuddle him even when desperately provoked. It was a hard and useful lesson for M and it definitely confused him. For us, as parents it was a welcoming break in our struggle to avert M from talking to random dudes in the street.

I also found Finns to be straightforward and literal people to an extend that would confuse many Greeks. A lot of layers of intricate social norms and codes present in Greek day to day interactions seem to be simply missing in Finland. For me, after adjusting from the first shock, this a was refreshing change . What you say is most of the times what you mean, as opposed to what you say is “what you have to say, so the other person can say what they are supposed to say, so that you can answer what you have to answer” per infinitum. When you are part of this vicious cycle you don’t realise how taxing and time consuming it can become. In Finland interactions were lean and uncluttered.  There are no hidden social layers of interaction or unwritten (but still strict and bidding) social codes. A very typical example is paying the bill after a dinner . In Greece when the bill arrives at the table, a whole ceremony of who is going to pay incites with every party insisting to pay and acting offended if the other  party insists (i.e. threatens) to do exactly the same. This is supposed to take a while and non-eagerness to participate in this process might be taken as an attempt to avoid paying your share. In other words, if you don’t do your part on insisting to pay, you might be taken for a cheap bastard. On the other hand, if the other party insists to pay and you don’t act offended, guess what? You are again a cheap bastard.

In Finland on the other hand, if you insist to pay, other people will immediately think that … you mean what you say(!) They will probably let you pay, no further questions asked.  All this took me by surprise initially. But very quickly I recognised it for what it was and appreciated it for its simplicity and straightforwardness.

But then, maybe it is the cynic in me talking…

Finns might be straightforward but they are not cold or insensitive. No people with such a deep love of nature and life can be accused of insensitiveness. And Finns do love nature and life. They love their forests and lakes and escape to them en mass in summer. Without any statistics at hands, I dare guessing that Finland has one of the highest participation levels in outdoor sports worldwide.

All the above considered, if you asked me to define the most characteristic an unique part of the Finn psyche, I would probably look towards the untranslatable, unattainable to foreigners concept of Sisu. I won’t pretend understanding of this elusive concept any more that any other foreigner can but I get this feeling it is Finland personified.

So what is Sisu?

According to the urban dictionary, Sisu is:

a uniquely Finnish quality;
the word used to typify the Finnish spirit;
a concept that is at the heart of how all Finns view themselves;
a certain feature or value considered by Finns to be typically Finnish

– endurance, resilience, tenacity, determination, perseverance

– an inner reserve of diligence, capacity, the ability to face head-on and always overcome

– craziness: the recklessness that inspires a person to take on something in the face of incredible odds

– bravery, empowerment, inner strength
Gritting your teeth, continuing to fight against an overwhelming enemy, clearing a forest with your bare hands, continuing on to win a race even after falling.

Sisu means that you finish what you start, you don’t quit in the middle of a job, and you don’t whine.

For a foreigner, to grasp a bit of the essence of Sisu I think you have to approach the other way around. Starting from its effects and tracing the effects back to the cause. To observe modern Finland, a country built upon this school of thought, is to glimpse on the phyche of the nation. Observing a country in unfavourable geographical place, hit by various historical hardships and yet arriving in a present that routinely achieves some of the highest happiness and quality of life indexes worldwide on an annual basis.

I think Sisu is not having it easy and yet through a weird combination of cold-blooded stubbornness, perseverance and passion managing to keep going. I would add that the result of the struggle is irrelevant and this is key in my opinion since it differentiates Sisu from the “feel good” mythology of our times which dictates that “trying hard equals winning at the end”

Finland’s recent past is a good example of this struggle.

Finland’s Complicated Past

From the first moment I had this impression that Finland’s modern history felt very similar and yet very different from that of Greece’s. At the dawn of the 20th century Finland was a vast yet sparsely populated land with a newly formed, fragile and yet extremely distinctive national identity. It was a weak state surrounded by powerful enemies. The land was anything but abundant in natural resources and the population was almost in its entirety rural and poor. Finland entered the 1900s as a pariah of Europe trying to figure out how to survive the brave new world of the industrial age. In these humble beginnings Finland strongly reminded me of Greece. Poor, low in skill and opportunity with little chance to be a major player in European politics.

Things didn’t change much till the 1940’s and WWII was particularly hard and complicated for the Finns. Finland unwillingly entered the Second World War in the wake of winter of 1939 after being attacked by the Soviet Union. In the ensuing three months, aptly named “The Winter War” the whole world witnessed, first bewildered and then in awe a small insignificant country holding back and even managing to counter attack against one of the superpowers of the era. This epic and totally against odds resistance is proudly considered among the Finns as one of the finest demonstrations of Sisu. Despite the struggles of the Finns and the epic pages written by man legends like the “Simo Häyhä” promptly named by the Soviets “the white death” Moskov finally came to its senses and bend the resistance of the Finns. Unprecedented losses notwithstanding, Soviet Union managed to annex the invaded areas and forced the Fins to surrender 11% of their territory corresponding to 30% of their economy at the time. During that Winter War, USSR and Nazi Germany had already signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact meaning that Finland was fighting against a Third Reich ally. This had its significance since things would become way more complicated in the future.

In June 1941, 15 months into the future the second part of the drama unfolded and everything had changed. Germany had just invaded the Soviet Union and Finland detected an opportunity to win back the recently annexed areas. Forging an unholy alliance with the Nazis, Finns attack the Soviet positions, initiating the Continuation War. Finland regained the lost lands and kept them until the final act of the Germany-Soviet war in 1944 where Finn positions were swept away by the Russian army alongside the fleeing tattered German forces. The ceasefire of September 1944 meant Finland not only had lost again the territories annexed by the Russians during the Winter War, but as a Nazi ally would be later be called to pay heavy reparations. And if this wasn’t enough, Finns were asked to get rid of the German army still residing in their lands.

So from September to November of 1944, Finland had to fight a third war, the Lapland War, against the Reich again, but allied to the Soviets this time. Relatively small in scale compared to the previous conflicts this was still a fight between former close allies.

This complicated history defined Finland’s modern future. After the end of the war Finland found itself balancing between the growing appetite of the East and the imperialist protectionism of the West. Not only the country was forced to engage in a delicate and evergoing diplomatic dance to maintain its impartiality and sovereignty in the ensuing decades but also had to carry the crippling burden of reparations that stagnated its growth. Ironically this burden have forced the industrial restructuring that decades later formed the founding basis for Finland’s modern technological achievements.

Notably, Finland was the only European nation to fully pay its war dues in the form of reparations .

***

Writing all this, after the trip. I am not sure how much of it is preconceptions taken with me in Finland and carried back reinforced and how much of it is new knowledge gained on my trip. Its difficult to discern one’s own biases. Either way, consciously or not, on our way to Finland we entered the plane carrying those preconceptions, stereotypes and half truths. Delightful, we had M travelling with us. The beautiful thing when you travel with a two-years old is his freedom from such burdens and his readiness to enjoy the upcoming adventures for what they would bring, preconceptions free. This was a new way t travel. Looking at the little brat, we could learn a thing or two about travelling with an empty mind and an eagerness to experience the present for what it is and nothing more.

End of part 1 

Part 2 -“The Trip Report” to follow