An excerpt from Gordon Sander’s book Off The Map: A Personal History of Finland
LOST IN FINLAND
“Aland is a practically independent country”
--From a brochure about Aland published in Mariehamn
“Rat poison.
Small or large?
Large.
What does it do?
It kills.
Good.”
--Kati Outenen in Match Factory Girl (1990)
THE BOAT TRIP from Turku to Mariehamn, the so-called capital of the Aland Islands, as anyone who has taken it can attest, is quite special. I should know: I’ve taken it half a dozen times over the last twenty years. Aland is very much part of my Finland.
It seems like every few years I am there again, on the top deck of the Silja or one of the other interchangeable, tax free cruise ships that travel the “archipelago route,” from the southwest coast of Finland to and through the 6,500 various skerries and islands that make up the archipelago, hair blowing in the wind, drink in hand, leaning over the handrail, watching this little uninhabited stretch of land—imagining a solitary clapboard house with an invisible sign over the door that says, “If you lived here you would be home by now!”...and another…as the circling gulls above provide air cover…escort…and all the while feeling as if I am leaving the civilized world with all its worries and cares behind.
I vividly recall my first trip to Aland, in September 1990. My contacts in Helsinki weren’t particularly encouraging of my Alandic sortie. “Why on earth would you want to go there?” someone asked me. “There are so many other more interesting things here in Finland for you to investigate.”
Overall, the impression I got was that most Finns, i.e., many Finnish-speaking Finns, regarded the 24,000 some odd inhabitants of the semi-autonomous, Swedish speaking archipelago located betwixt Finland and Sweden—not to mention Europe’s only officially demilitarized zone (and don’t you forget it!)—as a bunch of spoiled ingrates who took more from the country to which they begrudgingly belonged than they gave back.
There were also some hard feelings on the mainland after a Finnish naval boat docked in Mariehamn, and some of the crew decided to go ashore in uniform, leading to an official reprimand from the put-out Aland authorities. Fancy that! Never mind that those same sailors were protecting Aland.
Of late, I also understood, some of the more rabid Alanders had even formed their own independence movement. Well, good riddance to them!
All of which, of course, only made me look forward more to my journey to the Aland Zone.
Yes, it was a memorable visit indeed. Originally I had planned on spending ten days, beginning with a visit long enough for me to research the article I was writing about Aland, followed by a sojourn somewhere deep in the archipelago where I could really cool out; after completing my first book, a biography of Rod Serling, the creator of the Twilight Zone, I really needed to be away, and the Aland Zone (so to speak) struck me as an ideal place for doing that.
This proved true—in fact I wound up zoning out so well in that I nearly drowned in the process.
***
AS ALWAYS, my first stop on the Aland Islands was in Mariehamn.
For a seaside town that likes to think of itself as a world class resort, I was surprised (and still am) at the relative lack of luxurious hotels.
But who needs luxurious hotels when you have the vast Mariehamn harbor, with sailboats tacking to and fro at your feet, and a windswept promenade culminating in the wacky open air Mariehamn zoo, or the elegant tree-lined Storagatan that links the eastern side of the Mariehamn peninsula to the west?
As for indoors attractions, there was, of course, the award-winning Aland Museum, where one could immerse oneself in the convoluted history of the anomalous islands from prehistoric times through the fondly recalled Swedish period and on. I had certainly read up on its history and was fascinated by it. There was the Russian period that was punctuated by the pulverization of the great Bomarsund fortress by Admiral Napier’s men o’war during the Crimean War, and the attempts by forlorn islanders during the First World War to reattach themselves to their former motherland, not to mention the historic 1921 League of Nations decision, from which the islands derived their unique semi-autonomous status. I found the island’s Nautical Museum truly magical; one could vicariously relive the great days of the great Alandic four-masters via a splendid assortment of maritime canvases on display there. And of course to see what the real thing looked like, the majestic Pommern, now a museum ship, was near by.
Aland has always had its own veritable culture, and its own literature, including a number of authors like Sally Salminen, author of the prize-winning Katrina, about the life of a doughty 19th immigrant to Aland and her struggles. There is also Anni Blomqvist, the bard of Simskäla, and winner of the Pro Finlandia prize, who had received acclaim in both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. The archipelago even boasted its own poet laureate, Karl Erik Bergman, a native fisherman who putatively wrote his nautical-based verses in between working his herring and laveret nets.
In fact, Aland even boasted its own cuisine, including the justly celebrated Aland pancakes, preferably served with stewed plums and whipped cream.
Mmm. I reminded myself to stop off and get some of those, perhaps on my way to purchase some stunning Aland postage stamps. I always picked up some stamps when visiting, if only to throw the folks back home off. One could almost picture them looking at the stamp and saying to themselves, Aland. Where the ___ is that?
Needless to say I sent a lot of post cards on my first trip to Aland. In fact, I was so taken by the sheer quirkiness of the place that I decided to write up my first story about Aland in the form of a running commentary via post card, dispensing different installments to each of my editors, such that the whole would form a kind of, how should I say, archipelagic account.
Thus:
September 4, 1990
Dear Mike,
Fred is the word for ‘peace’ in Swedish, but it really ought to be Aland, the name of these beguiling islands lying between Finland and Sweden. Aland was declared a demilitarized zone by Russia in 1856, after its forces had been blasted out of the water by an Anglo-French expedition during the Crimean War, a status that was given international status in 1921 after the League of Nations gave Aland to Finland—over the protests of the inhabitants who wanted to be repatriated with Sweden, which owned the archipelago prior to 1809. Now Alanders appear to be content with their self-governing, demilitarized status, which frees their men from having to serve in the Finnish armed forces (a cause of some resentment on the mainland), and makes this place a natural setting for meditating on the future of the world.
Peace baby,
Agent Sander
Isn’t it extraordinary how much one can fit on a post card, especially when one has ingested five cups of strong Alandic coffee?
Yes, Mariehamn ‘tis a very pleasant place indeed.
I’ll never forget realizing how government-intensive it was there. I remember witnessing the sweeping Landskapsregering complex, which includes the lavish four story glass-enclosed Lagtinget, the Alandic parliament,with plush seats and a great mural relating the story of how Aland achieved its independence—sorry, semi-independence. There is also an adjoining, even larger Administration Building with surprisingly tight security (as if anyone wished to attack the Aland government; but of course you never know….) and dozens of bespectacledarchipel-acrats contentedly dashing about, attending to this piece of pressing archipelagic business or that.
As far as the so-called Alandic independence movement was concerned, that was really much ado about nothing, the courteous Aland official I interviewed one crystal blue day in September 1992 assured me. Yes, in fact, there was such an “independence” party, he confirmed, however polls had shown that no more than 10 percent of the Aland population favored outright independence. The vast majority of Alanders were indeed quite happy with their special status. And, after all, why shouldn’t they be? I recall asking if the official felt the locals were spoiled in a way.
“That is not for us to say,” he replied, diplomatically.
It seemed clear that the majority of Alanders were quite content to let Helsinki administer their defense and foreign affairs. Besides, the idea of Aland having its own navy—no less its own air force—was a self-evidently foolish one.
The preponderance of Alanders were quite content to let the Finnish navy and air force patrol the archipelagic skies and waters. And of course, the Finnish navy was welcome—just as long as the crew took its liberty in civvies.
This particular Aland official assured me that Alanders were extremely proud of, and indeed grateful for their unique status with Helsinki, and how well it worked—at least for them. Indeed, it worked so well that of late it was attracting interest from other governments around the world who were seeking a workable formula to deal with their respective linguistic minorities. For example, in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev and his reformist comrades were desperately looking for a way to keep the restive Baltic Socialist Soviet Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from leaving the Communist reservation altogether.
Of course, Aland officials took pains to point out, the “Aland model,” per se only worked for Aland because it was a) wealthy and b) monolingual, conditions that didn’t really correspond with the relatively impoverished Baltic republics, with their large Russian-speaking minorities.
Mariehamn nevertheless wished Mr. Gorbachev the best of luck while allowing the U.S.S.R. to maintain its large consulate-cum-listening station in Mariehamn, a legacy of old Russian imperial days, when Aland was still considered a strategic point, along with the crumbling ruins of Bormasund.
***
AS QUAINT as Aland has always been to me, and I’ve taken several trips there since 1990, it never takes long before I realize that there is only so much one can do in Mariehamn. After two visits to the Aland Museum, the returns tend to diminish. Ditto to the Mariehamn zoo, as much as I love the free range peacocks there. In September 1990, I was sick of Aland pancakes in days.
It was time to voyage into the heart of the archipelago; to have a real Aland experience; to be alone, to think, to recharge.
Gunnar, my host, from the Aland Tourist Board, had the perfect place in mind: a four star cottage smack in the middle of the archipelago, in the village of Björkö, in the district of Finström.
“Very isolated” he assured me, shortly before we departed for my archipelagic hideaway.
“Deluxe. Comes with a sauna. You’ll love it.”
There was something else.
“Oh yes,” Gunnar mentioned, before he left me to pack my bags.
“Have you heard?
Your President Bush and Mr. Gorbachev have decided to have a summit meeting in Helsinki on Thursday.”
***
“YOU MUST be joking,” I replied.
“No, I’m quite serious,” he said. A call to Helsinki and my old friend Matti Kohva of Finn Facts confirmed it. My president, the Right Honorable George Bush, then in the midst of preparing the American response to Saddam Hussein’s shock invasion of Kuwait, had indeed scheduled a meeting with his Soviet counterpart in order to clear signals with the Russian leader for the anticipated action, soon to be known as The Gulf War.
Koivo sounded quite enthused about the te-te-te. “It’s really a very big deal for us,” he said, “just as big as the [1975] Helsinki Accords.”
“You really have timed your return to Finland very well!”
Had I. My knack for being in Finland when a news story of international import took place had indeed struck again (I had been there thirteen years earlier for the hijacking of Finnair flight 405).
For his part, Gunnar was rather blasé about the affair—as if the bilateral confabulation was taking place in a different universe, rather than the capital of the country to which this anomalous, self-governing, Swedish-speaking “province” putatively belonged. Then again, that was very much the way Alanders regarded anything that took place outside of Aland, including (and especially) on the Finnish-speaking mainland.
A summit in Helsinki? Who cared? That indeed seemed to be the prevailing sentiment amongst the Alanders I spoke to.
Saddam Hussein? The prospect of a new Middle East war? These were not matters that concerned the average Alander.
Still, I was concerned and obviously would have to go. After all, it wasn’t everyday that I had a chance to cover an international summit, no less in Helsinki. Obviously it would be quite a show, and quite a moment for Helsinki, and for Finland. Destiny had struck again.
But first the island of Björkö beckoned. It was now Monday. The summit was scheduled for Thursday. I would have two days to enjoy my little retreat—not a week, as I had hoped. That was all right. Besides, who knew, perhaps I would have a chance to meet Gorby himself!
And so I sent a postcard off to one of my editors back in The Real World and off to Björkö we went.
September 6, 1990
Dear Jeff,
Dos and Don’ts of Alands:
DO:
1. Rent a bicycle; it’s really the best way to experience this out-of-the-world archipelago
2. Try the local herring
3. Also the pancakes
DON’T:
1. Say you’ve never heard of Aland (even if you haven’t). The Alanders are very sensitive.
2. Come tanned; you may be mistaken for a gypsy and manhandled by blotto Alanders at the Club Arkipelag (the place to go hereabouts).
3. Say: “So what’s the point of having your own flag and stamps if you can’t have your own army and navy?”
4. Buy anything.
***
I was in an exuberant state of mind as we drove off in the direction of Björkö, and my feelings only increased when our car stopped at the end of a dirt road and I beheld the magical hideaway that awaited me. Unfortunately that same giddiness came very close to being my undoing.
Gunnar had been right. The cottage, if that was the word for it, was indeed four star, a large, spotless, well-furnished affair, complete with two guest rooms and state of the art kitchen and sauna.
“OK?”
“You bet,” I grinned.
Yes, the cottage would do. Best of all, to my surprise and delight, the cottage, which was situated on a short hill overlooking a small bay, “came” with its very own miniature island (so to speak), a thickly forested speck of land which lay perhaps two hundred meters away from the shoreline. A rowboat invitingly lay near by.
I already knew what my first recreational activity would be.
“Ok then,” Gunnar said, driving off. “I’ll see you in two days.”
And then he was gone.
Needless to say, the cottage had no phone; this was still the pre-mobile era. Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted a phone. I wanted to be alone. Now I was. Not a soul in sight. Although there were a few houses nearby, they were clearly shuttered. After all, this was September, when all the Swedish-speaking owners had migrated back to the mainland. There I was.
Alone in the dead center of Aland, no less with my very own four star cottage, and my own island!
Shazam! Got to check that out!
In minutes I had raced down the hill, jumped into the rowboat and was happily rowing towards to the little island. Upon arriving on the tree-lined shoreline, I quickly disembarked, tied the boat to a tall shrub and made my way to the center of the approximately two thousand meter long one thousand meter wide island, which culminated in a short hill that I duly climbed before performing a short Zorba-like dance of celebration, winding up with my own take on Jimmy Cagney’s character in White Heat when he is cornered by the police on the top of a gas refinery with the shout out:
“MADE IT MA! TOP OF THE WORLD!”
At least it felt that way, standing there on that little hillock in the middle of that little forested island in the center of the Aland archipelago. After a bit, it was time to head back to the cottage. The light was falling. Better hurry up. Carefully I made my way through the thick knot of pine trees that enrobed the island to the spot where I had tied my boat and prepared to row back.
There was only one problem: the boat wasn’t there. I looked across the bay at my cottage—or at least what I thought was my cottage…
Hmmm. I could have sworn I tied it up here…
Not to worry: I was never one who panicked easily. I was positive that I had knotted the line to the tree securely (and as a former camp boating counselor I knew my knots).
It has to be somewhere here, I said to myself, as I made my way along the shoreline, searching for the missing vessel. No way it could have floated away.
Hmmm. So where was it?
I went along the rocky mini-coastline, back and forth...
An hour had elapsed. By now, I had examined every meter of what was rapidly beginning to feel like my Elba. Still no boat.
The sky was darkening quickly, the way it does in the northern latitudes in the autumn. The temperature had dropped. A blustery wind picked up. It was getting cold. This was beginning to weird me out.
Shivering, I renewed my search. Back and forth I went along the beach.
Another hour had passed.
It was almost dark now. What to do? Obviously there was only one thing to do: make a swim for it.
There was only one problem. The water was cold; very cold. I reasoned I didn’t have much choice in the matter.
I couldn’t remain on the island over night. Besides, the cottage was not that far away, surely no more than a ten minute swim. An excellent swimmer, I was not deterred. Still the water was kind of cold.
Slowly, I advanced into the water and prepared to swim across the channel. Boy was that water cold. In seconds the water was up to my chest. I could feel that there was a current, a strong one. And did I mention how cold that water was? What the hell?
Then, I paused for a second.
Something (common sense? survival instinct?) came over me.
I looked back at the darkened island, all two thousand square meters of it. I peered again at the far shore, where my cottage was, a stone’s throw away.
Nothing was clear. The night was descending quickly. I squinted: it was difficult to see anything at that point. I was lost in the middle of Aland—which, in September, was the equivalent of being lost in the middle of nowhere.
Was that my house? No, that was…
A growing sense of dread fell over me. A flock of suspiciously predatory-like birds circled overhead.
What the hell. I took another step into the water.
Wait—wait, my internal lifeguard cuffed me. Don’t be an idiot. This is stupid. Of course you tied up the boat. You just weren’t looking in the right place for it…
I looked back again at the island.
Could it be—was it possible?—was the boat on the other side of the island?
Retracing my steps, I returned to the island and walked back over the little hillock, down the opposite side, and sure enough, there was my rowboat and salvation neatly tied to a linden tree, just where I had left it. And there, on the other side of the little strait, the only one with lights on, was my cottage.
It would seem my little Alandic dance of thanksgiving had caused me to lose my bearings and come down on the western, or wrongside of the islet, however because, in the hall of mirrors that is Björkö, the vista facing that side is virtually the same as the one facing the eastern side, i.e., the one where I had actually set out from. And I couldn’t tell the difference until it was too late. Or almost too late…
Shaking my head, I slowly rowed back. If I had continued to swim I would have swam in the wrong direction and wound up who knows where.
After that introduction, my stay in Björkö was blissfully uneventful, as I treated myself to several saunas, made friends with the local flora and fauna, and closely followed the weather reports on Swedish tv, while pondering what I would ask Mr. Gorbachev at Finlandia Hall.
***
TWO DAYS later, my beaming host returned to pick me up and take me to the Mariehamn airport, so I could take the plane to the summit and put my question to Gorby.
I had had a fine time, I assured him. The cottage’s four stars were indeed well deserved. Then I told him about the little adventure I had had the first day.
He immediately turned pale.
“Lost?!” he exclaimed.
“If you had made that swim you wouldn’t merely have been lost. The current is extremely strong at that spot. And the water is too cold for anyone to swim for more than ten minutes or so before freezing. You would have drowned. No question. I would put money on it.”
He went on to point out that, in the unlikely event that I had indeed made it to the other side of the cove, it would have been the wrong side, and I would have been cold and shivering and completely lost in the dark, not an especially pleasing prospect, either.
“You wouldn’t have made it. I am quite sure of that.”
“Right,” I gulped.
I had had my Alandic experience. It was time to return to civilization and the summit.
***
SEVERAL HOURS later, I was one of the nine hundred some odd accredited journalists seated in Finlandia Hall anxiously waiting for Messrs. Bush and Gorbachev to appear from the wings for their scheduled joint press conference about their epochal pow wow. There was an undeniable feeling of excitement in the air. Above and beyond the summit’s immediate agenda—the invasion of Kuwait—it really seemed like we were witnessing the end of the Cold War, right there in Finlandia Hall.
“Our relationship is changing, has changed even from that of adversaries to one of partners,” a spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry told a group of us before Bush and Gorbachev took the stage. “Such a meeting would [have been] unimaginable five, even three years ago, but today it seems altogether natural, normal, maybe even a little overdue.
“Some will say,” he continued, “that we are trying to impose a settlement [on Saddam], to make others bend to our will. That’s not true. We couldn’t do it if we tried. But shouldn’t the world be thankful that the two superpowers are trying to live up to their responsibilities for world peace?”
What a show, I thought, and what a moment for Finland! Behind the two superpower leaders, mounted on guidons, on each side of which were arrayed two sets of flags, the American stars and stripes, and the Soviet hammer and sickle on the outside. In the middle stood the proud white and blue banner of Finland.
To be sure, the Finnish hosts of the extraordinary “emergency” summit—the second that Bush and Gorbachev had held since the onset of the Iraq crisis—could not have been more pleased, as well as pleased with themselves—and deservedly so. With only three days to prepare, the shortest time ever for such an event, and the first time since the 1975 Helsinki Accords that Suomi had played host to a meeting of comparable magnitude, the government had clearly done a spot-on job of getting ready for the conclave.
I noted how the Finns certainly seemed to have gotten their public relations act together since the ’77 Aeroflot hijacking, which was the last time I had been to such an event in Helsinki, Every journalist who attended this summit had a contact person from the Foreign Ministry assigned to him or her; a perfectly stacked pile of literature about the summit and Finland; invitations to attend an array of briefings, and a glossy map of Helsinki. And the refreshments, including of the liquid kind, I was pleased to see, were up to snuff as well.
Perhaps more importantly for the Finns, this particular summit also provided bilateral recognition and validation for the Urho Kekkonen’s much-vaunted policy of active neutrality, and thus was aiding in finally banishing the big bad ghost of Finlandization forever. Just the year before the much-lauded Soviet leader had explicitly recognized Finnish neutrality during his landmark, and enthusiastically visited Helsinki the year before. And now, here he was, accompanied by his wildly popular wife, quickly seconded by President Bush.
THE TWO SUPERPOWER LEADERS PRAISE FINLAND FOR ITS HOSPITALITY
the lead story of the Helsingin Sanomat fairly sang out in its issue of September 8, 1990.
In this sense, the 1990 Bush-Gorbachev summit was the apotheosis of postwar Finnish foreign policy. Little wonder that the Finnish diplomats I met at Finlandia Hall looked pleased with themselves. Was this not what they had been working for all these years?
“If only The Old Man was around to see this,” a veteran diplomat gushed.
Privately, however, some of the more realistic officials were worried. As any sober-minded person who had followed recent reports from behind the increasingly brittle Iron Curtain could attest, the Soviet empire was now in an active state of dissolution, a process that had been initiated and accelerated by Gorbachev himself.
The genie of freedom was very much out of the bottle.
Meanwhile, and most vitally, as far as the Finns were concerned, the air was rapidly going out of the Russian economy. Russia might well still be Finland’s most favored customer, but the customer had palpably less money to spend, a development which was already having serious consequences for the Finnish economy.
Already, by time I checked back into the Klaus Kurki, the amount of trade the Russians transacted with the Finns had dwindled to less than 10 percent of Finnish exports, and, in light of the increasing chaos within the crumbling USSR there didn’t appear to be much prospect of that changing; indeed, that figure would nose dive further.
Much was made of Gorbachev’s querulous visage upon his arrival, as well as the amount of time before his meeting with Bush at the Soviet embassy, presumably dealing with his mounting domestic mounting troubles.
In this respect, the much-ballyhooed summit, as laudable as it was, was a false apotheosis, at least for the Finns. No sooner that the Finns had emerged from the shadow of the Soviet Bear and the postwar “twilight zone” period than they found themselves entering a new, for many even more frightening tunnel of uncertainty.
All well and good that Gorbachev had once again endorsed Finnish neutrality, but how much good did that do, my Finnish friends wondered, if he was not in charge of his own government or people, and if the ruble was worthless?
As I stood watching US Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet foreign minister Edvard Shevardnadze, walking onto the stage, followed by their bosses, Bush and Gorbachev, the hall was swept with rapturous applause. We all rose.
And yet I couldn’t help but wonder: what were we applauding, exactly? The end of the cold war, yes—and the beginning of what? Who knew?
***
WHILE I was in town for the summit, I took the opportunity to reacquaint myself with Helsinki.
The city looked the same. There was the giant radio set of the central railroad station. The rumbling green trams still sounded the same. And yes, too, some old men were still playing with oversized chess sets in Toolo Park.
However the city felt different. Summer was over; the local residents were already going into their traditional emotional hibernation. And yet, if you looked closely at the faces of the shoppers hurrying by on Mannerheimintie, you could sense a frisson of fear—not the grim, familiar fear of the “Soviet time,” but a new, inchoate fear about what was to come.
Rumors circulated of an impending invasion from the East, not by the Red Army, but by the impoverished Russian and former Soviet peoples themselves.
And have you seen those Estonian prostitutes in front of the Forum? What’s next?
I reasoned, however, taking into account the history of Berlin during the nineteen twenties, that an uncertain time could also be an exhilarating one. Finland’s mental and cultural boundaries were becoming blurred, and many people, especially artists and young people, were less concerned with putting bread on the table, less frightened of the Russian hordes putatively about to descend on them (or Estonian prostitutes for that matter), and instead found that suddenly Helsinki was an interesting place to be. The terra firma beneath Finland was palpably cracking open, and through those cracks there now emerged an arresting and enticing skein of art forms, new thinking and new phenomena.
There was a lot of buzz about a filmmaker named Aki Kaurismaki, whose most recent film, Ariel, had been the talk of Cannes. Sounded like someone I should know more about.
Fortunately, my editors in New York and London agreed.
“Go to it,” one of my editors said. “We need stuff about Finland. I think the last time we ran something about Finnish culture was during World War II. Maybe before.”
I was about to lose myself in a new archipelago—a cultural archipelago, as it were—and I would spend the next few years delightedly swimming from one island to another and writing up what I found.