This post has absolutely zero things to do with urban exploration. But as the story is great, I will share it anyway.
I still had my plan to visit every single and current municipality in Finland during one summer, and now I reached a critical point. The Northern part of Finland has few municipalities and very long distances. I had about a week until I had to be on a dance lesson in my former home town, but before that I had to tour an area the size of around the third of the whole country. It included only around 25 municipalities, but it would require several thousands of kilometers to be driven. I knew that if I managed to do it, I would be able to complete Finland in one summer. Even with a rental car, if mine failed. The most crucial days of my tour de Finland had come.
When I reached the reindeer husbandry area in the North was when I decided, that every single meal I’d eat during my time there would include reindeer. The meat is absolutely delicious. And it’s rarely available in the South. I wanted to enjoy the week to the fullest.
I went to a local restaurant and ordered a plate with reindeer sausage. As the place was pretty empty, the waitress had time to chat with me. And I had time to chat with her. I told her about my tour, and she was impressed. In fact so impressed, that she asked if she could follow me on Instagram. Well, of course she could.
When she followed me, I noticed, that we had one mutual friend. It was a girl I used to tutor when studying journalism almost a decade ago. I asked the waitress, how they knew. Well, it was her sister. Finland is really such a small country despite being geographically so large.
So on I went with my trip. And that was when I received another message on Instagram. Now this one will require a background story.
Like I said in my earlier post, I studied three degrees in the same school. And grew pretty close with my teachers. When I went to see the show of my former theatre group just before covid, I met the new producer of the group. They had a very rare surname, which they shared with one of my teachers. Well, they were his child.
The previous summer they had invited me to their childhood home, and I took them to their first trip to an abandoned house. I met the whole family including the spouse of my former teacher, who was very active on social media and also started following my adventures.
During the past year the family had arranged me several stays at their place in my former home town, where I still travelled six hours one way a week. I was extremely thankful for them, feeling even a bit guilty for not giving anything back. But while I was eating the reindeer sausage meal, the spouse of my teacher messaged me.
The childhood home of my teacher was a village school in a very remote village in the area. My teacher’s father had been a teacher at the school and they lived in one of the school’s apartments. The school had been closed years ago, but the spouse asked, if I could go and have a look at the place. It could be abandoned, or then it wouldn’t be.
Well, of course I could. That was the least I could do after all they had done for me.
It was an ordinary village school. The teachers’ apartments were to the right, the school wing was to the left.
The layout was pretty basic and very similar to this place I explored just a day earlier.
The issue was, that I wasn’t entirely sure if the place was abandoned or not. And another issue were the neighbours sitting outside and having a barbecue party.
So I did what I always do in this situation. I walked up to the neigbours’ yard, explained who I was, what I did that summer and why I was there.
“Who is your friend”, they asked. And I told them.
“Ooooh, him”, they all said in unison.
It turned out, that they were children of a family, who moved to Sweden in the 1960’s when my teacher was just a toddler. His brother had been the best friend of one of the people, and they had lost contact decades ago.
They sent their greetings to my friend’s brother, which I delivered. They told me, that the school wasn’t exactly abandoned. The current owners visited every now and then.
And then they started asking me about my trip. They wondered, if it was uncomfortable to sleep in my car. I told them that the only issue was not being able to take a shower.
“Well, the sauna is still warm. If you’d like to have a wash, please do!”
I went and got my car from the former bus stop by the road to their yard. They had gone and put some more firewood to the stove. I took a good bath in their sauna and joined them again. They told me about their history and even gave a tip about another school nearby, which was definitely abandoned.
They were lovely people, absolutely lovely people. And this encounter really was what is the magic of rural Finland. If you’re honest with them, they are honest with you. And after a good bath and a nice little chat, I was on my way again. After all, there was an abandoned school nearby.