Suburbs
The sun was setting, while I was on my Sunday walk. Passing suburbs
in the northern Helsinki, I headed west, since I wanted to go to an
area which I had never visited before.
I
found myself in a thoroughfare which had new tenement houses on both
sides of the road. I stepped out of the road and inspected the new
neighbourhood.
For
once the architects had been successful; the area looked very pleasant.
Instead of ready-made elements, the houses had been built out of rocks
and bricks. The buildings were not too box-like and the facades were
skilfully ornamented. The colours, too, were stylish and harmonious.
This didn't look very Finnish at all.
The
area was large, much bigger than I could have anticipated. Walking
along the streets, I realized that a whole complex of old-fashioned
palaces had been erected here. How come such an entire suburb had
formed here?
Some
streets reminded me of 19th-century England. Some streets looked more
like Amsterdam or Düsseldorf. There were small shops and cafés
everywhere. Intricate details in the balconies and window sills added
to the charm of the area. Yet all these houses were brand new.
I
liked the atmosphere. Various historical styles complemented each
other. Walking along the street, I noticed that the asphalt turned
into a paved street of an older fashion, and the pavement in turn
gradually changed into cobble stones. Reaching the medieval quarters,
I paid attention to the gothic cathedrals with their vaulted arcs
and spiky turrets. Here, in dimly-lit lanes, I could see beggars and
poor people, some of which looked like ghosts, as they dragged their
feet like living dead, dressed up in old-fashioned clothes.
I
presumed the antiquarian dressing was part of a local festival; probably
they thus wanted to celebrate the medieval architecture of the buildings.
Certainly some of these people acted in a very convincing manner.
The makeup and clothing was very real. If the scene hadn't resembled
too much like a cheap horror movie, I could have had the sensation
of stepping back hundreds of years in time. The poor creatures had
their eyes fixed on me, and I had to walk fast in order to avoid being
caught by these ghost-like wanderers.
At
home I told Sari about the suburb. She said she had heard about it
but didn't assume it was any greater than most other Helsinki suburbs.
"You must have got the details wrong somehow. Are you sure you're
not talking about a computer game?" she asked. Sari opened the
internet and searched to find a map of the area. I navigated the pages
and soon found the neighbourhood displayed on the screen. This certainly
looked like a computer game.
I
clicked the Back button and made different selections. Now the area
looked more like the one I had just seen, but I didn't understand
how the selections should affect the appearance of the area. The 3D-imaging
was well done but the logic of the programme was strange.
I
realized it was difficult for Sari to accept what I told her. There
had been no public news about such a suburb, and I'd hardly had believed
it myself, unless I had seen the neighbourhood through my own eyes.
