Winter – I’m coming!

Note: I wrote this article in January 2016, I am dating it back so it fits in order.

We arrived in Moscow late in the evening. We stayed in a very nice Best Western Hotel. We had loads of towels including two bathmats and bathrobes. My room was on the 26th floor so I had a great view. The hotel was a few kilometers from the city center but there was a metro line so it was no problem. The hotel is part of a hotel complex. It was a bit confusing that our hotel was called Vega (Вега in cyrillic letters), while another hotel was called Beta (Бета) 😀

On the first day we had a bus tour through the city with some time to walk around the Red Square and the surroundings. I was a bit disappointed that Lenin’s mausoleum was closed. In the afternoon we visited the Moscow State Circus. The circus was very impressive with a great show including music and lights. The theme was a journey through Russia and they told a little story about a guy travelling through the country. There was a funny detail: They had two artists dressed as Stalin and Lenin! Obviously that would not have been possible a few years ago! In the evening I walked around a little more and took some pictures of Moscow by night.

On the second day there was a tour around the Kremlin, as well as a tour of the Moscow Metro. The Kremlin is a fortress and the innermost part of Moscow. It contains several churches as well as the President’s office. The Moscow Metro has very beautiful stations which have often been called „people’s palaces“. Afterwards, we visited Bunker-42, the former bunker of the Soviet government in the Cold War. In the evening we took the bus to go back to St. Petersburg.

Note: I wrote this article in January 2016, I dated it back so it fits in order.

After our night out in the club we had to get up early to take the bus to Novgorod and later on to Moscow. Novgorod is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It took us a few hours by bus to get there, so we arrived shortly before noon. Most of us were very tired from the party and also a bit hung over, but at least the weather was great which helped.

First we had a guided tour around the old city of Novgorod. Then we visited a Monastery and had lunch. After lunch we went to an open-air museum of 100-year old wooden houses.

It’s been over 1 month now since I returned from Russia and I finally got around to edit all of my photos. In total I have over 700 pictures left from the whole Estonia/Russia trip so I will only share a selection on this blog.

After the weekend in Tallinn with my friends I took the ferry back to Helsinki only to get on the next ferry to St. Petersburg. I had booked the trip all on my own but as I expected it was not at all difficult to get to know my fellow travelers who are also Erasmus students in Finland.

Our ferry traveled overnight so that we arrived in St. Petersburg in the morning. The entry to Russia turned out to be more difficult than expected, because apparently the picture and signature in my passport are a bit too old. My passport is 5 years old now so it is still valid for 1 year. After showing my ID which is from last autumn I was allowed to enter.

After the arrival to Russia we were greeted by our tour guide and went on a city tour. After that we could check into our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Dostoyevski which was a very nice **** hotel quite near to the center. Just the Wi-Fi was very unreliable which did not bother me that much because I bought a Russian SIM card for my phone. In the evening, we had a „traditional“ Russian dinner including a group of folk musicians who played some dinner games with us.

On the next day I had a lot of free time because I had not booked the tour the Catherine Palace. I had already seen it before so I wanted to use the time for other things. In the morning I visited the Grand Maket Russia Interactive Museum. This is a huge miniature exhibition of the whole of Russia. It is a bit smaller than Miniaturwunderland Hamburg but the level of detail is comparable. Moving trains and cars, houses and countless tiny people. Very impressive! In the afternoon I met my friend Karolina who is living in St. Petersburg. She showed me her university, a place, that I never could have visited without her! In the evening I watched the ballet Giselle in the Hermitage Theater. This was also very impressive, although I don’t think I will become a huge fan of ballets 😉 I did not take my camera with me so there are no photos of this…

On the third and last day in St. Petersburg we visited the Hermitage. We had a guided tour around the museum but of course we didn’t see everything 😉 After the tour I had a delicious and surprisingly cheap lunch in a restaurant very close to the Hermitage and in the afternoon there was a tour of three of the most important cathedrals in St. Petersburg. The last event in St. Petersburg was the Limousine ride followed by a night in the biggest nightclub of Russia (at least they claim it is) Metro. Of course after loosing a camera in a Finnish nightclub I didn’t take it with me in the evening.  On the next morning we had to be on our bus at 8am to go to Novgorod which became quite challenging…

Today, I went on a short hiking trip to do a barbecue at a camp fire. The event was organised by the guilds Indecs and Man@ger, together In@ger. Traditional turned out to be a marketing gag, the event was held for the first time. We were around 15 people, interestingly half of them exchange students. It was a nice and funny evening, although it was very windy.

I also had a chance to try out my new camera strap which arrived today. It attaches to the tripod mount and allows me to carry the camera on my hip. This is much more comfortable than having it dangling in front of my chest all the time!

By the way, I will still edit and present my photos from Russia here, I just need a little more time.

The main event of Wappu was the Wappu Day, 1st of May, and the evening before. 1st of May is the day of workers and students and is a huge event, especially in Tampere. On Wappu Eve at midnight, the statue of the Finnish Maiden is „capped“ with the traditional cap of engineering students. At the same time, the 1st year students are allowed to wear their caps for the first time. These caps are almost sacred for Finnish students. As exchange students, we can’t get them, but they are quite expensive (>100€) so it does not make much sense for us anyway. More information about the Teekkari cap (Teekkarilakki) can be found on the website of the student union http://www.ttyy.fi/en/teekkari-culture/teekkari-cap

Directly after the capping, everyone is opening bottles of sparkling wine. I have no pictures of this because I was afraid of getting sparkling wine on my camera. Right after the capping, we went back to the university to make sure our Härweli is being loaded and brought to the city. Härwelis are big statues that are being carried around the city as part of the parade on Wappu Day. They usually have some political or social background. Our Härweli was a raindeer peeing into a can of Lapin Kulta beer. A lot of us think, that Lapin Kulta just tastes like raindeer piss 😉

On Wappu Day there is a big parade of all 1st year students in their overalls. There is a video on Youtube of this year’s parade. Our group of international students can be seen around 3:00. Usually the colour of the overall represents the guild of the student. Most of us have the green overall of the international club, however some got overalls from a guild which are in another colour.

After the parade are the dippings. All 1st year students who collected enough points during the year are being dipped in the water of the Tammerkoski. And we international students were a part of this! Here is a video of what the dippings look like. The video was filmed by a friend of mine using a GoPro, unfortunately there is no video of my basket 🙁

The parade and the dipping were really amazing experiences! There was a lot of people on the street taking pictures and cheering. It was also great to see some people in their 50s and 60s wearing their Teekkari caps!

The order in which the guilds go in the parade and are being dipped depends on the rating of their Jäynä. Jäynä is a clever but harmless student prank. Ours is on Youtube. We only got 9th place out of 13, because our Jäynä was more of a flashmob and not a real prank.

Background info: The Rasputin is the traditional songbook of the engineering students. Many of the students (including me) have one.

Here is the first part of photos from my Estonia/Russia trip.

On the way to Tallinn I had some time for a little walk around Helsinki to refresh some memories from the last time I was there. When I arrived in Tallinn in the evening I was picked up at the port by my Estonian roommate and his best friend. He spent the Easter vacations at home. They brought me to my hostel and showed me a bit of Tallinn. The next morning I already had to check out of my hostel. I stayed at two different hostels, because there were no good hostels free for all three nights, only for some of them. The first hostel was a really calm and quiet one while the second one was more of a party hostel.

The next day I joined a free (based on tips) walking tour around the city, which was very interesting and in the evening I joined the party in my hostel. On the third day I met some of my friends from Tampere who were also visiting Tallinn. We had a guided tour at an abandoned prison and did our own little pub crawl in the evening. On the next day I took the ferry back to Helsinki to continues my journey to Russia…

Just after coming back from the Pirates of the Baltic Sea we noticed that the forecast levels for auroras for that night were extremely high. So, despite being really tired, we didn’t go to sleep early but instead took the bus to the large lake in the north of Tampere, in order to look for auroras. And we were not disappointed! The levels were similar to what I saw in Lapland, but Tampere is much further south of course!

Before going out I was even able to see one aurora arc from my window in Paawola! Unfortunately, I was too slow with my camera and it only lasted for about 30 seconds 🙁

The next big event (probably one of the biggest events of the semester) was the Pirates of the Baltic Sea. The idea is quite simple: Book a ferry/cruise ship to Stockholm and gather ≈1500 international students for the biggest student party of the year including the opportunity to visit Stockholm!

Out trip started by bus in Hervanta. We went with 2 busses to Helsinki to check in to the ship. On the ship there was a variety of parties and shows as well as a great dinner buffet. The buffet was included on the first day, but we paid 41€ per person to have it again on the second evening!

Getting up after the party was surprisingly easy, because of the great weather. This way I could enjoy the view of all the small islands around Stockholm. In Stockholm we visited the SkyView which is a gondola that goes to the top of the Ericsson Globe, the biggest spherical building in the world. After that, we had a walk through the old part of the city, Gamla Stan, and then went back to the ship.

On the second evening there were of course more parties, however I did not take as many pictures there.