St. Petersburg - Part 2

Tiina, who is currently working in St. P., met us at our hotel, Hotel Vasilievsky, to the delight of the boys. Part of the visa-free deal was that we had to use one of the hotels which had a contract with the St. Peter Line.

Tiina was ready to whisk us off on a first sight-seeing tour of St. Petersburg, but with the shambles on the boat and in the harbour, none of us had had breakfast so we were rather hungry, although the men in the group had managed to snaffle quite a few of the rather good sweets in the bowl at the hotel reception.

Finding somewhere for a snack proved more difficult than anticipated, although we found somewhere in the end. The food took an extraordinarily long time to arrive; maybe because we ordered different things - blinis for some, soup for others, or perhaps to give us time to admire the decor. Tempers were getting a little frayed and smiles a little jaded when something to eat finally arrived.

Hungry customers waiting.

St. Petersburg is a metropolis and full of things to see and do, although transport is a little difficult at times. The metro is very efficient but the stops are far apart (because the metro is so deep underground as a result of the city having been built on swampy ground) meaning that there are long walks to get anywhere. The city is full of churches, some of which are shown below.

St Isaac's Cathedral.


A church near our hotel.


Another church.

Tiina, of course, did her best as a guide, including introducing the little boys to Russian-style hot chocolate.

Tiina keeping her tour group focused.


Thomas discovering that in Russia hot chocolate means just that.

Day 2 in St. Petersburg started with Hotel Vasilievsky's excellent breakfast, although with so many Finns in the hotel one had to be quick if one wanted to benefit from the Russian 'champagne' available. The morning's next target was a children's circus performance. The place took a little finding but we got there in the end. Unfortunately, Thomas's stomach started acting up so Thomas and your correspondent spent a large part of the performance in the gents. It was decided that going to Tiina's flat would be the best course of action, and the day's activities were rearranged; in true Russian style, everything that has been arranged is always open to re-negotiation.

Peter and a sickly Thomas stayed in Tiina's flat to eat porridge while Henry, Tiina and H-M went to the Korova Bar with two of Tiina's colleagues. Afterwards the girls went to the Marinkskiy for a concert while the boys spent the evening in the hotel.

View from Tiina's flat.

Although our evening was not as cultured, we boys had lots of fun.

What do little boys like to do in hotels? Spend time in a bath tub with a huge amount of bubbles. The problem? No bubble bath. So Peter and Henry set off in search of bubble bath. The local supermarkets only seemed to sell sausage and alcohol, so we went to a chemists'. There were two people there, one young women in her twenties and one older lady in her sixties, who panicked completely at being confronted with non-Russian-speaking foreigners. Peter's miming skills, plus Henry's Russian knowledge, meant that we left the shop with bubble bath, although there are probably a couple of Russian ladies still shaking their heads at the antics of foreigners.

But the evening's fun was not to end there.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, announcement in Russian. What's that? A fire alarm! Everybody out of bed and down to the lobby, to find it was a fire drill, so back up to the room again - cursing a little, although not as much as the Norwegian guest who had been caught in the bath.

But the evening's fun was not to end there.

Ring- ring, ring-ring. Call from the other room (we had two double rooms not a family room). H-M: Is there water in your room? Peter heads off down to the reception to find out what is going on - no water because of some technical problems with a water pumping station.

We love Russia. A world superpower but, in Churchill's words,"a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

H-M examining a Russian fruit stall.

Our stay was all too soon over and we had to get on the boat and head back to Finland. This time everything was very well organised; check-in - 10 minutes, booking a table at the à la carte restaurant - easy, service - swift and good-humoured.

Leaving the port. Note that the sign says Leningrad.

Henry in the jazz bar.


Sunset on board.


Sunset over the icy Baltic Sea.

St. Petersburg Trip - Part 1

At Easter Elk's Street went for a quick trip to St. Petersburg, Russia. Although it is only a few hundred kilometers from Elk's Street HQ, it was the first trip there for many of us. The reason: Visa requirements make crossing the border a pain in the neck, not to mention quite pricey.

To avoid the visa hassles, and because Elk's Street was too disorganised, we went on a visa-free trip with St. Peter Line from Helsinki. This is very easy - one night on the boat, two nights in a hotel, and one night on the boat on the return trip.

The little boys waiting in Helsinki harbour with St Peter Line's vessel, Princess Maria in the background.

As the sharp-eyed will notice, MS Princess Maria is a former Silja Line vessel, MS Finlandia, which used to ply the Helsinki-Stockholm route. The ship has quite a colourful history, which is described here. Elk's Street noticed that the vessel had been part of the DFDS fleet because some of the fittings were labelled DFDS and some of the signs were in Norwegian.

H-M slightly flummoxed by modern technology.

The start of the sea journey did not go smoothly, with two hours of crowds, chaos and confusion at the check-in. When we finally got on board, the passengers were fed-up, the staff rude, and the evening buffet food expensive and poor-quality. Elk's Street were of the opinion that perhaps they should have gone by Allegro train after all.

Our rather cosy cabin.

Entering the Port of St Petersburg in the early morning .

Morskoy Vokzal Ferry Terminal in the morning mist.

On embarkation the lack of organisation continued, although in a friendly manner. As the photo below shows, for some people waiting on a bus going nowhere can be quite trying.

Aaaaaarrrggh!

Finnish Elections

Some Elk's Street followers have been in touch about the Finnish election result, which has received widespread international coverage following the strong showing of the nationalist True Finns party. So, here is Elk's Street's analysis of what happened.

First, some background. Finland has a proportional representation system and is traditionally led by a majority coalition. The main players are:

• National Coalition Party - a centre-right party (44)
  
• Social Democratic Pary of Finland - a centre-left party (42)
  
• True Finns - the people causing the uproar (39)
  
• Centre Party - a centre-right party, traditionally the party of the rural areas (35)
  
• Left Alliance - a centre-left party, to the left of the SDP (14)
  
• Green League - the ecologists' party (10)
  
• Swedish People's Party of Finland - representatives of Finland's Swedish-speaking minority, generally centre-right (9 + 1 from the autonomous islands of Ahvenanmaa/Åland)
  
• Christian Democrats - a centre-right Christian party (6)
  

In brackets in the list above is the number of seats each party gained in last Sunday's election.


So who are the True Finns?

In Elk's Street's view, they are a populist, anti-EU, anti-immigrant, socially-conservative, economically-socialist grouping led by an outspoken leader, Timo Soini, who is described as charismatic, although would be better described as having a good grasp of rhetoric and a colourful turn of phrase.


Since Finland is a small country in an obscure corner of Europe, why was their election success the subject of international comment?


The answer is because of the economic troubles of certain EU states, in this case Portugal, which is in need of economic help from the EU. The True Finns are anti-EU and against bailouts for 'profligate' southern Euro states. Portugal is part of the Euro zone, and if the economic troubles of Portugal are not sorted out, the effects will be felt by all the Euro nations, including economic powerhouse, Germany. The problem is that EU agreement on the bailout must be unanimous among all Euro nations, and in Finland's case, the issue must go before the Finnish parliament. The fear among scaredy-cat economists is that if the Finnish parliament votes against the bailout, the bailout package founders, Portugal defaults on its loans, and the economic world ends as we know it.

Hmmpf... says Elk's Street, who is old enough to remember the IMF bailout of the UK in 1975 and the excitement of shopping by candlelight during the Three Day Week, not to mention Grossmami and Grosspapi bringing sugar and toilet paper on their visits from Switzerland because of shortages in the UK.


Policies and values

The True Finns have a truly incoherent set of policies and values. So, how is one to work out what is going on. The Finnish broadsheet, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's only truly national paper, has produced a nice interactive graphic of the values of the various members of the new Finnish parliament, which helps explain what is going on. (HS has some news in English here.)

The interactive graphic looks like the image below, and to use it you need to click here. Everything is in Finnish, but have no fear, an explanation is given below.




Interactive Graphic Explanation

The graphic places the views of the members of the Finnish parliament on two axes - the horizontal axis is political orientation, left to right, and the vertical axis is social orientation, conservative (top) to liberal (bottom). The parties are colour-coded, and each party's sector is bounded by the views of its most extreme member on each axis.

The colour coding is; blue - National Coalition Party, yellow - True Finns, red - Social Democratic Party, pink- Centre Party, green - Green League, orange - Christian Democrats, dark orange - Left Alliance, and pale blue - Swedish People's Party.

The easiest way to see where the MPs stand is to do the following. First go to the right column and uncheck the parties by clicking on the "Tyhjennä valinnat"button ("Clear preferences") underneath the heading "Valitse puolueet" ("Choose the parties). Then add the parties one by one by checking the relevant box.

A word of warning - the positions were decided based on answers given by candidates for parliament before the election, so the whole truth might not have been told. Also, the definitions of what is left/right and conservative/liberal are decided by Helsingin Sanomat, which describes itself as politically-independent and non-aligned but is, in Elk's Street's opinion, right of centre and Helsinki- and urban-centric.


What does the graphic show?

Firstly, the True Finns cover a large spectrum of opinions, likely to be a source of trouble in the future, and their leader is on the extreme of his party. (Hovering the mouse over a point gives the name of each MP.) The speculated coalition of SDP, True Finns, and National Coalition (dubbed the"blue-redneck coalition") has such a divergence of opinion that a stable government might be difficult to achieve, giving rise to speculation that Finland might face the unusual situation of a parliament not lasting the full term. The Swedish People's Party might be invited into the government to keep the National Coalition company on the right, but the anti-Swedish views of the True Finns (they want to remove mandatory Swedish study in schools, among other anti-minority policies) might make things difficult. All in all, the immediate future looks uncertain.


Who voted for the True Finns?

The True Finns is a protest movement that picked up votes from the disenchanted and the economically disenfranchised. In recent years, Finland has gone through a Thatcherite transformation, leading to a great increase in inequality. Finland's post-war success has stemmed from consensus that all groups in Finnish society must make sacrifices for the good of the country as a whole (a point emphasised until very recently by the close proximity of a paranoid superpower, the Soviet Union). This consensus has been broken, in the name of globalisation and economic liberalism, leading to fractures in Finnish society and the feeling that the many make sacrifices while an elite fill their boots. True Finns voters are; the losers from the above-mentioned changes, those fearful of becoming losers, and those with very conservative views feeling threatened by changes in society.

Thus the party picked up votes from the rural areas, (reasons - a feeling that the rural areas are being ignored by a metropolitan elite, and the hardships of EU-sanctioned agricultural policies and economic globalisation), votes from areas with heavy industry (reason - large companies simply shutting down factories and moving them to low cost countries, or threatening to do so as a way of driving down pay and benefits), the working class, pensioners and the poor (reason - the running down of the welfare state in favour of private companies; state healthcare provision deteriorates because the elite use private services so have no stake in maintaining standards in the state sector, and state pensions and benefits have been stagnant for years), which makes about 20% of the population.


The question people are asking is how will this effect Elk's Street?

Forecasting is difficult, particularly forecasting the future! The most immediate effect will be a change in the terms of debate in society, with intolerant, anti-minority, anti-foreigner views being much more permissible. Economically, the changes might not be very great because Finland is a small fish in a big Euro pond; if Finland still had its own currency, the Markka, it would have collapsed by now. In the longer-term it is difficult to foresee what will happen. The cracks in Finnish society might widen still further, leading to greater confrontation. The True Finns might be just a flash-in-the-pan, and their success merely the kind of thing enjoyed by Vennamo in the late1960s. Not being a True Finns fan, I would describe Soini as a small dog with a loud bark. More worrying is what might happen after Soini; what shadowy figures with truly frightening views are lurking around?


Are True Finns truly Finnish?

It should be remembered that the party polled less than 20% of the popular vote. The name of the party is interesting. In Finnish, they are called Perussuomalaiset, which translated directly means 'basic Finns'. The Swedish name of the party is Sannfinländarna. The English name is a translation of the Swedish name, not the Finnish name, ironic for a party that is so anti-Swedish. In view of their proposed policies, perhaps they should change their English title from a translation of the Swedish to a translation of the Finnish. "Basic Finns" does not have such a good ring to it, but using a synonym of basic gives a really catchy and apt title, "Primitive Finns."

U.K. Trip - Part 4

All too soon, my trip was at its end - it was time to return to Elk's Street.

Andrew gave me a lift into town and I got the train to the airport. The train was quite crowded with early-morning commuters heading to Manchester, so I sat down in one of the few available seats, next to a young man with short hair, broken teeth and a slight aroma of alcohol. We exchanged a few words, and he was quite chatty, telling me about his daughters and work etc - the usual small talk. As the train approached Manchester, he gestured towards the window and said; "There's my old home, Forest Bank." I thought nothing of this, imagining that it must be the name of the village we were passing. He then continued; "But I spent the last six months in Strangeways." This meant rather more to me. "Best prison I've ever been in," he continued. He got off the train at Picadilly and I wished him well. I hope this nameless ex-con with the colourful language gets himself sorted out but somehow I'm a little pessimistic; alcohol on one's breath at eight in the morning is not a good sign.

Manchester Airport was the usual airport scene; queues, more queues, removal of shoes, jackets, and belts for so-called security, wandering around duty-free shops selling stuff no-one really needs, and hanging around drinking exhorbitantly-priced coffee. The flight was announced and we all boarded. So far, so good, but then..."Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are having some problems with a computer, which unfortunately is one that is needed for flying the plane..." Suffice to say, we did not leave on time.

Aircraft with dodgy computer.

Finnair is famous for taking safety seriously, so we didn't leave untill the equipment was working and everything was in order.

Having safely landed in Helsinki, a few hours' train journey took me back to Elk's Street and my Finland home.

U.K. Trip - Part 3

On the penultimate day of my 5-day trip I went down to Liverpool, on my own.

The direct train from Preston chugged along, passing through Leyland of Leyland Trucks fame, Wigan, home of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls - a delicacy worthy of U.N. Heritage status - and Pilkington's Glass in St Helens, to Liverpool Lime Street. Liverpool city centre has undergone great changes in recent years, although the city is still rather schizophrenic, with modern concrete palaces in the centre, and boarded up houses and very poor areas just down the road. In a sense, it is very similar to most northern British cities; Manchester, Hull, Leeds etc.

My trip was a cultural one, so the Liverpool museums were the main focus. The entrance to major museums in the UK is free, or to be precise visitors make a contribution as they see fit, which means it is possible to visit a museum, look at some parts and leave, without feeling obliged to go through all the exhibits to justify paying a high entrance fee.

My museums trip started with a look round some of the rooms of the Walker Art Gallery and then a couple of floors of the World Museum. Then it was time for lunch, and what could be more British than fish'n'chips. (In the William Gladstone, North John Street. Verdict - OK, but nothing to write home about.)

After lunch I headed off down to Albert Dock, a renovated dock with a host of tourist attractions: museums, cafés, bars, boutiques etc. I went to parts of the Maritime Museum, which I enjoyed immensely. Wandering around the exhibits I remembered when I wrote, as a teenager, to Cunard's and P&O to enquire about careers at sea.

After all the museums I wandered around in the sunshine for a while and then went for some shopping in the Everton Football Club shop, Everton Two, situated in the new Liverpool 1 shopping complex. (Mailing Address: Everton 2, Liverpool 1; geddit?!)

Then it was back to Preston on the train; "Calling at Edge Hill, Huyton, St Helens Central, Wigan, and all stations to Preston."

Below a few photos of my day out.

A Lambanana in the World Museum.


Part of Albert Dock.


The Liver Building and Crown Court (?) at the rear, modern buildings in the middle, and the Great Western Railway warehouse in the foreground.


The Pumphouse and glass-fronted high-rise blocks.


The futuristic Museum of Liverpool, due to open in July 2011.

Liverpudlians are still flying the flag for non-acceptance of London-based government policies, below a photo of a small demonstration.

Anti-cuts demonstration in front of the Town Hall.

Britain has become a rather Orwellian society, with millions of CCTV cameras watching people's moves. The next photo was taken surreptiously, since certain British police forces have a poor reputation.

They are watching you!!

And so was the short-haired leather-jacketed man resting nonchalantly in a shop doorway. It reminded me of my visits to East Berlin in the former German Democratic Republic.

UK Trip - Part 2

My visit being in early spring, the garden was not looking its best, but signs of the gardeners' work could still be seen, as the photos below show.

The early spring garden.

Orchids in the living room...

... and Bird of Paradise flower in the conservatory.

Catherine and Andrew, making good use of their 'flexitime', took a day off work and we had a little outing to Blackpool. Blackpool, as a typical seaside resort, is very quiet outside the season but the weather was kind to us and we had an enjoyable walk along the newly-renovated South Shore Promenade.

Part of the South Shore with some modern art in the foreground and the Big One rollercoaster in the background.

The photo doesn't do justice to the rollercoaster as it is not clear just how huge it is. Certainly nothing for me!

Hire bicycles in the foreground and the famous Blackpool Tower in the background.

The gang on the promenade (before getting the obligatory Blackpool Rock).

Everyone, with the possible exception of Paul, who voiced some discontent, enjoyed the trip and the bracing sea air.


In the evening, I was invited round to Catherine and Andrew's for a meal, followed by a trip to the local. We went to the Farmer's Arms and I was able to see at first hand the slow death of the British public house; the place was empty. There are many reasons for the demise of traditional rural pubs: the ban on smoking, very cheap beer from supermarkets, the growth of gigantic regimented pub chains, the stratification of British society so people only spend time with others of the same class, but whatever the reason, it's a bit of a shame. Mind you, the levels of drunkenness in UK cities are appalling, so a more censorious attitude to alcohol is certainly not the cause.

Catherine hard at work beading.

Jonathan sitting on the sofa with Paddington and an economics textbook.

UK Trip - Part 1

As Elk's Street followers will know, Dad has been 'in the wars' a little lately, so I decided to make a brief trip to the UK to see him.

In Kouvola, my path crossed with the new Helsinki-St. Petersburg 'Allegro' train.

I set off from Elk's Street in the early afternoon and spent the night at a cheap(-ish) hotel near the airport, Hotel Pilotti. This was the same place Henry and I stayed in on our trip to Malaysia in summer 2007. It was a horrendously early start the next morning, not because the plane was leaving particularly early but rather because of having to allow for all the security checks.

The flight arrived on schedule and I got to Mum and Dad's in time for lunch. After lunch, it was off to the game - Everton vs. Sunderland!

Part of the main stand of Goodison Park .

The Blues on the attack.

The final score.

As can be seen from the final score above, a good time was had by all!


In Preston, some things had changed, and others hadn't.

Dad in his chair - the unhealthy peanuts replaced by the more healthy 'Fruit Pastilles'.

Mum - still knitting.

The following day, after a two day drive across Europe, Esther and family arrived from Switzerland.

John and Mark.

James.

Esther and Paul.

Hannah.

John had to go back to work so, having delivered everybody, he flew back to Switzerland, leaving his family and the Mercedes van in Preston.