Helsinki, Finland

I was hosted in Helsinki by a nice couple Henni & Jukka. Didn´t do much sight-seeing, just walked around and dropped by couple of places on the way.


The Rock Church

It happened to be Sunday and my timing was quite good - i stumbled upon an underground church just as they were starting their Sunday sermon. The church itself was very cool, for the most part underground and built from big unpolished rocks. The ceiling was like a huge copper platter, reminding me UFO-s very much. It would´ve been a perfect backdrop for some Doomsday cult, worshiping the little green men.

I listened to the sermon for about an hour and got to hear an earful of Satan and it´s wicked ways. Apparently The Satan is everywhere, quite ubiquitous in it´s presence and we all have to be relentlessly on our guard. Or such was the holy message International Evangelical Church´s sermon, held in the Rock Church (Temppeliaukio Church) at Lutherinkatu 3.


The Rock Church


Kiasma

Kiasma is the Helsinki´s modern art centre which for the most part was too modern for my taste. There was a particularly nice exhibition about 9 main religions of the world named "Choosing My Religion". It seemed like big part of the Kiasma was turned into a temple to celebrate all of them at once.

Apart from couple of visually nice looking installations, everything else in the building was for me more or less in the style/level of 5-year old kids attending an art class in the kindergarten. I don´t even pretend to understand or be interested in art that needs an explanatory novel next to it to convey to the viewer what exactly the artist has meant with it. It bothered me also in the Tartu art school´s photography department, that the technical skill or the idea behind the work wasn´t nearly as important as the fluffy BS accompanying it.


Kiasma´s interior


"Choosing My Religion" exhibition by Marita Liulia






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My expenses in Helsinki, 28th February - 2nd March 2009:

transport - 13 EUR
food - 16 EUR
drink - 7 EUR
hostels - none
sightseeing - 5 EUR
other - 3 EUR
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all together 44 EUR
~ about 690 EEK (with the rate of ~ 1 EUR = 15,67 EEK)