Savonlinna and Lappeeranta

It is becoming increasingly difficult to be writing these blogs because I'm always gone meaning that I have more to write about and less time to write about it.  So now,  I will bring you back to Thursday October 2.   I celebrated my second month here in Finland and the beginning of the third by going to see the Emperial Russian Ballet with my host mum.  The ballet in question was Sleeping Beauty by Tchaickovski.   I have to say that I was actually slightly disappointed.  The Russian Ballet is supposed to be the best of the best but,  I found the story to be rather weak.  I knew the story of Sleeping Beauty (not the Disney version) and I also knew the music for the ballet and it didn't seem to go very well together.  It was well danced of course but the story just wasn't told right.

There were two intermissions even though the ballet was of normal length.  In the first part of the ballet,  Aurore was born,  the guests to the banquet were introduced,  the fairies gave their gifts,  the witch gave the curse, Aurore grew up,  rejected all of her suitors,  and fell asleep.  In the next part which lasted about half an hour,  the prince found the castle,  killed the witch (in about 5 seconds) and saved Aurore from her deep sleep.  Third part which lasted about an hour - the wedding.  A little disappointing.  Also,  when you listen to the music,  even if you don't see the ballet,  you can usually tell - this must be the part where the prince defeats the witch or,  this must be the part where Aurore receives the curse.  But in this case,  a muscial piece in minor and with alot of deep sounds which suggest some kind of threat were merely cats dancing or something.  Yes,  little red riding hood,  Cinderella,  and the Puss in Boot were all invited to the wedding and most of the ceremony involved them making dances for the king and queen.  It was sort of ridiculous.

I wonder if they changed it from the original.  I wouldn't be surprised if they did.  It was interesting to see all the Russian royalty costumes and such.  It sort of made me think wether the way the story is portrayed in the ballet reflects Russian culture a little - at least the culture which introduced the ballet to us.  I know for instance,  that the Soviets often attributed more importance to quantity rather than quality.  For example they had crap equipment for the second world war but they had alot of crap equipment.   So I wonder if,  the fact that most of the ballet showed ceremony,  banquet,  feasting,  fun,  grandeur,  shows that the Russians don't care much about Aurore but about showing the world that it would take only five seconds for a Russian Prince to save a beautiful damsel in distress.

In any case,  I hear that it is part of Russian culture that,  if as a child you show talent for something,  you will be forced to o that thing your whole life without receiving much other kind of education.  For example,  Melii's friend is Russian and showed some talent in tennis when she was young.  So now her mother sends her to play tennis all the time anywhere in the world rather than sending her to school.  I personaly don't think that this is such a good method.  It prevents youth from becoming openminded,  well-rounded people.  Even more important,  it prevents them from choosing their own path in life.  But I suppose Russia still needs some lessons in that anyhow.

The day after the ballet,  I went with my host mum and my host sister to Lappeeranta.  However,  we passed through a gorgeous little town before getting there called Savonlinna.  "linna" means castle and "Savo" is a part of Finland - Ristiina is in Savo. When you add an "n", it acts as the "s" in "Mike's" so,  the name of the town means "Savo's castle".  It is a very good name for that place because there is an amazing medieval castle there called "Olavinlinna" (Olav's Castle).  It was built there by the Swedes in the mid 15th century so it is really just at the end of the middle ages.  I was built as a strategic defence point against the Russians.

So,  we arrived in Savonlinna at around 12.00 and we had a lörty - traditional Savo pastry which is very good and apple jam filled (traditionally although they now have all kinds even meat).  We also visited the harbour a little.  The lake which goes to Savonlinna,  Joensuu and even Lappeeranta is the biggest in Finland. It is called Saimaa and goes almost as far west as Tampere.  Annukka says th at this area is a very popular picnic area in the summer and that merchants of every kind sell goods in Savonlinna as it is one of the most touristic attractions of Finland.  It was rather cold that day though so there weren't that many merchants.

At around 13.00 a tour in English began in Olavinlinna.  We walked across a bridge to get to the castle as it is set on an island.  In the days when it served as a forteress (all the way into the second world war),  there was no brige and the only access to it was by ferry.  We could still see where the steps let the boats dock at the castle entrance.  As you walked through the gates,  there were slots on the walls alongside you and I bet they were meant for canons or arrows in case the visitor wasn't welcome.

The first room you see upon entering is a beautiful court yard which had a very intense atmosphere.  There was gigantic tree there right in the middle and it was surrounded by a circular wall with archways.  It made me think of the lord of the rings and had a tremendous epic sensation.  I took pictures.  When you walk to the next court,  you see a yellow more Victorian style building literally attached to the ancient stine structure.  This,  I later learned,  was built by the Russians when they took the forteresse under siege in the nineteenth century.  you would think that it would clash with the rest of the medieval architecture but it worked quite nicely.

Anyhow,  the first room we visited with the tour had three entrances but only one of these existed in the olden days.  The entrance was on the roof and the room was the safest storageroom in the castle.  The only way for someone to steal something was to pass the guards at the entrance and climb down into the storeroom.  They then,  of course,  had to find a way out without anyone noticing.  Who knows what kind of treasor they held there...  In several sports in the castle,  the island rock jutted out into the floor simply because the work was to hard to flatten it all out.  This was one of those rooms so you really had the sense that you were in the dragon's den.  The next room we visited was the old ball room where weddings are still held today.  Although the castle was mainly for military use,  some banquets were held there but the room is so small and it was even smaller then.  On the walls,  there were strange "V" shapes which were where the archways used to close this bigger room into smaller sections.  It startled me how much smaller the people were six hundred years ago.  Everyone always had to duck under the doors and the beds were super small.

Still,  I wondered how many dancing couples could fit in that tiny room.  Maybe four or five.

The next room was the room built in the castle.  The experts can tell because there are windows going all around the room even in the walls that face inside.  This was obviously because they hadn't decided how the castle would be spread out onto the island.  This room is also fabled to be the room where the forst owners of the castle slept.  There was a nice almost useless fi replace in the corner.  I can only imagine how cold it was there in winter.  The fireplace was not exactly state of the art and there was no glass on the windows.  No wonder the men were issued five liters of beer per day - women three (except on Sundays then it rose to seven litres for men and five for women).  Pregnant women were given more beer because they needed it for their strength ><.  Finns now say that drinking is part of their culture.

We then headed up one of the towers.  The steps were treacherously steep and uneven.  I would not have liked to be a lady in a long gown there.  Anyhow,  after a near fatal ascent up the tower,  we arrived at a small chapel which was originally Catholic.  The only remnants of that era were half painted over paintings on the ceilings.  The museum is now trying to recover these paintings.  Oh yes,  another remnant is a slit in the wall which opens onto a small room.  In this room,  all the undesireables had to stay if they wanted to attend mass.  These "undesireables" were sick people,  pregnant women (their unborn child had not yet been baptized) left handed people and,  of course,  red headed people with green eyes.  No joke,  the guide said that very specifically and all eyes turned onto me.  I think that in my whole host family,  only Melii could have entered the chapel itself.  Everyone else either has green eyes or is lefthanded.

Going down the stone steps turned out to be even more dangerous than going up.  We emerged onto the gallery from where the defenders of the forteress would spill boiling tar and throw rocks as their last defense if ever the castle wall was breached.  I do believe this happened several times since the castle was fought over by Swedes and Russians for a number of centuries.  We then headed up another tower where it was believed that the Ladies of the castle resided.  There are several reasons why they think this.  One is because the door can lock from inside,  the othher is because there is a toilet there.  This was very interesting indeed.  It is basically just a hole jutting from a great height (they didn't want this hole to become a weakness of the fortress foundation since it opens outside the walls).  Still,  this room was inhabitable during the winter due to the intense cold.

Another interesting thing that I found out a bout this castle is that the red part of the towers isn't part of the original architectural plan.  The Russians built that overtop of the old foundation during one of their previous sieges.  Apparently it was to show superiority over the Swede foundations.  Also,  in this castle is hed an annual opera festival which must be extremely impressive.  It is during the summer and I am going to try to get tickets for that I think.  It seems it would be an excellent ending to this wonderful year.

Thee last room that we visited was the "King's Hall".  It was a Swedish law that every castle in the kingdom needed a room fit for the king should he visit one day.  It was very improbable that the king would visit Olavinlinna because it was so far away from Stockholme  however,  it is good that they had such a room because the king did visit once while returning from some occasion or other in the East.  In order to make a room fit for a king,  it has to be a large room (this one was I believe the largest in this area of Finland),  it has to be painted white,  and it has to be warm.  In order to keep the room warm,  the architects built it on top of the kitchens and built a hatch which was connected with the gigantic stove beneath.  that way,  all the heat from the kitchens rose in through the little chimney and warmed up the room.  Every year a banquet was held in this hall where they killed a ram and ate it (apparently they were very rich and could afford raising a ram every year.  This became a tradition for which Olavinlinna is very well known).   All together,  a very interesting tour.  I would recommend Savonlinna and Olavinlinna to anyone who visits Finland - definitely one of its greatest treasors.

After the castle visit,  we headed down to some small souvenir shops which had alott of very cool things - very interesting Christmas gift ideas.  Lots of things made of wood and reindeer fur and antlers.

We left Savonlinna and headed toward Lappeeranta at around 15.00.  It was raining hard and I called my friend Suvi so that we would meet for  coffee.  On our way to Lappeeranta which is only 20km away from Russia,  we saw a huge lineup of cars waiting to get to Russia.  It was very impressive,  it went on for hundreds of km.  We met Suvi in Lappeeranta and she showed us around the dock (Lake Saimaa again) and the old fortress.  Originally the city was centered around the fortress but once the Lutherans came and decided to build a church in the forest,  it seems that the people migrated to the church and left the fortress there.  Anyway,  it is now the art center of Lappeeranta.  There is a prestigious ballet school,  music school,  theater and eve circus school there.  There is also a very god cafe but it was closed.  Suvi led us through the gates of the old town (the doors had burnt down during a fire) and showed us an old wooden log which stood on a pedestal.  The town people say that during the war with Russia (I don't know which one Suvi did not specify),  there was so much blood spilt inside the fortress walls that the log was caught by the current  and drifted down the valley into the town.

We then went to have dinner in Ravintola Rosso (Ravintola means restaurant).  This restaurant is pretty much the equivalent of Boston Pizza.  It was delicious and we headed home on a full and content stomach.

It was a wonderful day and I'm sure I will have many more like it.

I'll write again soon (if I find the time :))