Wandering Camera

Album 48
(Translated b
y Gogolev Vladimir)

 

Helsinki, part two – city center.

 

The center… Parking is a problem. If you don’t know peculiarity of national parking – it’s very uneasy. Of course, you can’t park the car where you want. There are a lot parking signs with odd notes (the period of sign’s validity, for example). Finally, we dared to park our car on a little street and local mom explained us that at the very moment and at very this place we can park our car for free, and after that she commented on idiocy of the rules that even local residents are not able to understand.
Everybody seems to understand English. The writings on the signs are made in Finnish and Sweden.

There are a lot of cars – a lot of different cars, in particular. You can meet with old clunkers and even with Zhiguly.

The hills in the city are all around. You can stand at the traffic light only with handbrake, and local drivers used to keep the distance in several centimeters.

Railway station building. It reminds me of long queue to the exchange office located there. We decided not to wait and made our way to the bank nearby. There wasn’t a queue (at first sight). We took a coupon with number and began to wait when it would appear on the indicator board. But after a while to our great surprise we noticed that the number on our coupon is greatly less than the increasing number on the board. Discontented faces of other clients told us that they had the same problem. But in half an hour a counter was overfilled and countdown began from zero. In another 15 minutes we reached our turn.
Complete chaos!

We are in the historic center.

Unexpectedly we realized that drunks are not exception there. We met several ones and one of them all the time asked something, but not in Russian.

They were so lonely.

The Uspensky Castle, built by A.M.Gornostayev. “Lada 09” with Russian numbers was parked at the entrance.

That’s what I want to notice about city’s architecture in common… If it’s suitable to compare, I would compare it with Moscow. But here everything looks more naturally, “glass and concrete” buildings usually have an original idea, they are decorated in unique style and go well with other buildings nearby. All that you see doesn’t provoke negative emotions.

I was trying all the time to find out an entrance to the dirty courtyard, that so natural for us, but I didn’t met with such one.

The bay. This ferryboat is often to be seen in Saint Petersburg.

Beyond the frame there are the stalls where they sold the national souvenirs (like our matreshka). To my great surprise, there was a plain sign on the tent that they accept VISA and MASTERCARD.

“Parking.”

The plenty of mobile phones is striking – even children have them. I read later that Finland take first place in it.

Finnish.

As opposed to this picture I dare to say, that there are less young people on the streets here, than in SPb.
(and even in this case SPb is supposed to be an “oldest” city in Russia).

Their bird looks weekly against to our one
Cats show in the park.
It’s a common scene by the shop. I have already mentioned that there are special bicycles paths and they are mostly in use. From this picture you can see the scale of the phenomena.
Actually, it’s bigger than simple pedestrian subway. Under the city center there are a whole system of little shops, parking, pedestrian subways, metro and so on. Everything is connected to each other and has exits to the surface.

Take a good look at the walls- instead of smoothing and covering with something special they were simply colored.
Cheap but good!

Thus one of the biggest shops looks like. Several levels and hollow in the center.

The bookshop with computer literature was boring (we have the same). “Windows for dummies”. “Perl” for those who can read” and so on. And prices are 5-7 times greater.

Senate Square and Lutheran Cathedral (1830) built by K.L.Engel..

This square seems to have the same meaning as Palace Square in S.Petersburg.

Here the monument to Alexander the 2-nd. To our one.

For a long time (until 1917) Finland was a part of Russia and it influenced on Finnish architecture.

Another Cathedral and another monument. I didn’t notice to whom.
That’s all. Of course, it was fleeting glance on the city with very superficial judgments (which else should they be for three days spending mostly in the room), but I don’t have anything better.

It’s time to go home, you know the saying – East and West, Home is best!


I have not decided about the next album, so I don’t want to predict its contents.

 

 

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