Atlantica - 01.07.2004, Page 30

28 A T L A N T I C A
derful summer salad and a cool drink.
Afterwards, we wander around the lit-
tle residences, and everything is silent.
It’s Sunday, and people must be sleep-
ing. Eventually, a man staggers towards
us. “Why are there no cats on this
island,” the photographer asks him, as
he tends to ask anything on his mind.
The man looks extremely bewildered.
“Ka...ka...ka...” he stutters. Then he
walks past, leaving a trail of alcohol
vapour in his wake. We later watch him
struggle to steady his hands so that he
might get his key into the lock of his
front door.
We come across another friendly
inhabitant, a long-haired and pink-faced
blonde who laughs and asks us whether
we want to buy a boat. Her boyfriend is
reconstructing a beautiful vessel in the
old shipyard. She tells us she’s lived
here for twenty-five years, apart from a
one-year stint in Copenhagen’s free
state of Christiania.
In the haze of this lazy afternoon we
sail back to Helsinki. We head to
Katajanokka, the Russian quarter of
town, just in time for the six o’clock bells
of the orthodox Uspensky Cathedral,
whose spires are visible from all around
the city. Helsinki is reputed to have the
best Russian restaurants in Northern
Europe, and we step inside the splendid
Bellevue, just on the other side of the
cathedral. Its plush interior dates from
1917 and recreates a sense of tsarist
times, complete with Russian music. I
feast on blintzes with sour cream and
roe and then tuck into a tender reindeer
steak that seems infused with the taste
of Finnish forests. A fantastic ending to
my Finland sojourn.
Finland may be far away. Far away
from crowds, pollution and traffic jams,
but it is most definitely not far away in
terms of civilisation, design and trends.
And actually it seems to me, that when
it comes to trends, it’s the Finns that
also set them.
Anna Margrét Björnsson
is the editor of Atlantica.
Helsinki
Icelandair flies to Helsinki
twice weekly (Mondays and
Fridays) this summer.
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