Lots of activity on the normally very quiet streets in my Helsinki Finland Village Marttila – Martas in Swedish. The village is part of the Pitäjänmäki – Sockenbacka region of the Finnish Capital.
Lots of people have come here all through December. The reason is our annual Christmas Village where we want to bring light and happiness in the midst of our dark times. Actually it is dark here also in reality, with sun rising around 10 am and setting only some five or six hours later.
Before Christmas, many daycare and school groups moved from one small exhibit to another and when it got dark in the afternoons families and also many elderly people visited to enjoy this magic season. During the holidays even more people have come here for a pleasant walk. This will now continue also for the first January week.
The main media in the Finnish capital have picked up our Christmas Village, both on TV and in the large daily newspapers. This has created lots of interest and one can see that people come also from far away. Actually, we haven’t thought that this is a really big attraction but apparently the small exhibits and twinkling lights are popular and we get many nice comments. Of course, all is Covid-secured, people move outdoors, the streets are broad like the use to be in this country, and distances are carefully held.
There are just over 100 family homes here, surrounded by large green gardens. In earlier years the families produced their own fruits and vegetables and Marttila is still filled with old apple trees and berry bushes.
The village was originally built by war veterans returning from the front in the mid 1940s after the wars with the Soviet Union. Many of the houses were built by the Red Cross, for those who returned disabled. An important number of them were gifts from our neigbouring country Sweden, they are sometimes still called Sweden-houses.
The other half of this village was built by the returning soldiers themselves, and their families. These are a bit larger and all of them share the same construction. Today, the street views are protected and one still gets an impression of how it was before. Only two of the houses have been built later, after fires destroyed the earlier ones.
Even if Marttila looks old fashioned in many ways it is also one of the most modern suburban areas in Helsinki. Two years ago we won the prestigious European Broadband Award for our fast fibre network where several service providers compete – there are 4 fibres which is unusual for nets like this – and where we also offer high quality public TV connections. This network was built by ourselves, with much voluntary work, and is now owned by our residents’ cooperative. And no, we never received any support, neither from the Finnish government, nor by the European Union.
So here residents have created a Christmas Village with exhibitions, lights and short stories telling about the many secrets that hide around this idyllic place.
