Finns Gone Wild

Twenty years ago, Helsinki's May Day was a more political affair. Socialist marches dominated the city, and some students dyed red the traditional white Vappu hat, which most of the city wears for the party. But most people I met seemed to be more interested in the party than the politics.

"People get old and then turn from left to right," said Eric Sahlstedt, a reveler I met the next morning as picnickers gathered early -- and, for the most part, hung over -- in Kaisaniemi Park. "There's not much New Left anymore."

But he could, at least, point me in the direction of a march by the city's last political holdouts, about to begin nearby. As I left him and the morning park party, before the university students were due to arrive with their antics, I heard Sahlstedt's wife ask him if I knew the fun was just getting started.

"She wants to go see the workers," Sahlstedt said, to which his wife replied, flatly, "Oh."

I arrived in Hakaniemi Square just before the march started, men and women lining up carrying banners and flags of groups from the Communist Party of Iran to the Helsinki Carpenters' Union. A smattering of seemingly sober onlookers stood along the sides of the road to watch.

"The crowd is diminishing, but we're still here," said Seppo Eerola, secretary of the Carpenters' Union. "We are marching against capitalism and against globalization." Among their causes that morning was speaking out against Finland's membership in the European Union, which the country joined in 1995. "I think that the E.U. is the same as the Soviet Union these days."

While Eerola wasn't completely alone, he did appear to be fighting a losing battle. Across town, thousands had already staked out spots in Kaivopuisto Park, with picnics ranging from one person spooning shrimp salad out of a plastic tub to groups of 30 occupying complexes of tents with grills blazing. A passed-out student in his painter's jumper lay curled up in the grass next to a group of middle-aged men and women in smart trench coats, sitting around their smart plates of food.

One such group, ready to uncork their second bottle of Dom Perignon, said they had been gathering in the same spot in the park for the past 10 years.

I lost track of time ogling picnic spreads, and realized in a panic that I'd have to catch a taxi downtown to make my plane. Luckily my Finnish host flagged down a car and asked on my behalf if I could catch a ride.

They obliged (it's Vappu!) and I hopped in with Eric Pollock, an architect from San Jose, Calif., who has lived in Finland since 1975, and his Finnish wife, who was driving. Another stranger saw the transaction and also climbed aboard.

As we navigated the streams of people flowing in and out of the park, Pollock told me that the first time he witnessed Vappu, he was shocked to see people in Helsinki talking so openly to each other. "Is this Finland?" he recalled asking himself.

And part of the reason that people are so ready to indulge, Pollock suggested, may simply be that Helsinki is doing okay for itself.

"Business in Finland is good," he said, pointing out that, geographically, Finland is the closest E.U. country to 180 million Russian consumers. "The new Russian upper class has money to spend, and we are happy to take it from them."

Like the other people I'd met in the past 48 hours, Pollock talked about Vappu with enthusiastic affection, pointing out that, despite the fact that "10,000 mildly intoxicated" people gathered in the park that day, consuming an average of 1 1/2 bottles of champagne each, did I see any broken glass? Or police?

"Remember," he said, "in Finland, we are only happy one day a year."

Krista Mahr is a journalist living in Hong Kong.