Up at Europe's northeast frontier, where Scandinavia meets Russia's wild west, Tampere shrugged off the often violent advances of its covetous neighbours to become a city with its own unique identity, writes LORRAINE COURTNEY
LENIN AND Moominpappa are unlikely bedfellows. It’s hard to imagine them inhabiting the same sentence, never mind rubbing shoulders. But, in true idiosyncratic Finnish style, there they sit, a stone’s throw apart, in Tampere.
The city was the cradle of Finland’s industrial revolution. These days large-scale industry is mostly a memory, although red-brick mill chimneys still throng the Tammerkoski rapids that cut through the grid-like city centre of wide streets and attractive buildings. These fierce rapids brought Tampere its fortune, and today they link the pair of vast, shimmering lakes that light up the cityscape.
Tampere is used to battles. Up at Europe’s northeast frontier, where Scandinavia meets Russia’s wild west, Finland has been trying to mind its own business for a few centuries, breathing out another resigned sigh when the rowdy neighbours come calling again.
Squeezed between two powers that for centuries took turns to build empires, the poor old Finns never quite knew whether they were destined to be Swedes or Russians. In the end they decided they didn’t much fancy either.
During the bloody Finnish civil war of the 1920s Tampere became a workers’ soviet and the seat of the revolutionary government. A vicious street struggle followed, leaving 3,000 Reds buried in a mass grave on a hill overlooking the city.
Fittingly, for a city drenched in the passions of revolution, Tampere holds the Lenin Museum. It’s an interesting place, housed in an art-nouveau-esque building on the long tree-lined Hameenpuisto. Lenin held revolutionary gatherings here, in what was once a workers’ theatre, when he was on the run from the tsar’s secret police.
Lenin and Stalin met for the first time in this apartment, and the exhibits include a sofa that Lenin slept on and more busts than you can shake a stick at. There’s also a rather chilling plaster copy of Lenin’s death mask.
It’s a browse through the museum shop that brings the place together. A wide-ranging selection of excellent Soviet memorabilia – posters, badges and Red Army hats – creates a wonderfully kitsch hoard. It’s extraordinary to contemplate how the weight of history and the once-mighty USSR should be reduced to such pastiche.
Tampere’s architectural triumph is the public library, completed in 1986. It defies description, although the inspiration for its curves and textures was apparently a wood grouse ruffling its feathers.
Moominvalley, sited beneath the arched copper-clad contemporary elegance, holds an incomparable trove of original Tove Jansson Moomin paintings, drawings and etchings – almost her entire collection is here.
While adult fans are still enthralled by Jansson’s colourful and deeply benevolent creations, Moominvalley is aimed at its target audience, children. Dressing-up rooms are filled with exotic costumes, and there is a small stage where staff pull on Moomin suits, bringing Jansson’s odd creations alive for wide-eyed children.
Miniature models of famous Moomin scenes created by Jansson and her friends are displayed in glass cases, and the museum shop sells Moomin books in several languages.
Tampere has two cathedrals: a dazzling onion-domed Russian Orthodox affair, near the railway station, and the main Lutheran one, near the rapids. The Lutheran cathedral appears grim and forbidding, all heavy granite and stone cladding. Inside there is no religious chintz but a sense of serene spaciousness and a somewhat unsettling collection of art.
Hovering behind the altar is an enormous, otherworldly painting of several expressionist figures walking towards a light. It was painted in 1907 by the Finnish artist Magnus Enckell, as was the large coiled snake that transfixes with bright eyes beneath the top of the domed ceiling.
A startling fresco of a dozen pink naked boys carrying a wreath of scarlet flowers – painted by another Finn, Hugo Simberg – stretches along the rim of the gallery. The boys controversially represent the Apostles; local youths modelled for the artist. Just to the side of the altar is Simberg's Garden of Death, featuring skeletons tending rows of plants.
Kaleva Church, a towering free-form composition, dominates the bleak public housing in Tampere’s east end. It stands on an exposed hill and is covered in rather mundane beige tiles. The interior is unadorned exposed concrete, offset by an organ, birch pews and a sculptural wooden cross. The golden accents of the woodwork mirror the clinker brick floor, which the architects describe as the colour of a wet beach. But despite a certain industrial starkness this 1966 church does channel Gothic and Baroque predecessors.
Many people say that the music of Jean Sibelius is Finland. And it is true, when you listen to Sibelius’s rolling, sonorous sounds and those light, gentle airs of his, that he has distilled into music something uniquely Finnish.
It describes its dark tundra and stretches of pine forest, its aurora nights and the breezes of its bright summer days. But not even Sibelius prepares you for a first-hand encounter – nobody prepares you for its colours, their stark intensity that dissolve into soft pastels, its fields of flowers contrasted against its ice palaces of aluminium and steel.
Tampere is the perfect introduction, sitting as it does at the heart of Finland’s stunning Thousand Lakes region. In summer, take a day trip out of town and go fishing and hiking for the full wilderness experience. There’s plenty to do in winter, too, from snowmobiling and snowshoeing to catching a thrilling game of ice hockey.
The lakes freeze over from November to March, so join the locals in their favourite activity – ice fishing – before thawing out in a traditional Finnish sauna. Rolling naked in the snow afterwards is optional.
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go if you're visiting this Finnish city on the border with Russia
5 places to stay
Hotelli Haapalinna.Rahtimiehenkatu 3, 00-358-3-3453335, hotellihaapalinna.com. A small, snug hotel just northwest of Tampere's centre. Doubles start at €72, including breakfast and an evening sauna.
Hotel Urku.Kangasalantie 1108, Kangasala, 00-358-3- 31401300, hotelli-urku.fi. This hotel occupies a stunning 100-year-old pipe-organ factory. The hotels says its Unikulma Bodyform beds will guarantee sweet dreams. Rooms from €97.
Mango Hotel.Hatanpään puistokuja 36, 00-358-3-2142834, mangohotel.fi. Plush Oriental vibes at budget prices. Based on the principle of self-service: you reserve your room on the internet, then receive a personal access code, so no check-in is required. Hotel staff are available for assistance. Doubles start at €79, including breakfast.
Scandic Hotel Rosendahl.Pyynikintie 13, 00-358-3-2441111, scandichotels.com. This hotel has stunning views over Pyynikki park and the lake. The sauna and fitness centre are complimentary. Basic rooms start at €127.
Sokos Hotel Tammer.Satakunnankatu 13, 00-358-20-1234632, sokoshotels.fi. A 1920s-style hotel next to the lovely riverside park. Doubles from €120.
5 places to eat
Amurin Helmi. Makasiininkatu 12, 00-358-3-56566634. For a cosy atmosphere in an old wooden building that is part of the Amuri museum of workers' housing. It dishes up Tampere specialities accompanied by delicious homemade bread.
Katupoika.Aleksanterinkatu 20, 00-358-3-2720201, katupoika.fi. Hearty portions of real Tampere food, including the infamous mustamakkara, a blood sausage that's best eaten with a dab of lingonberry jam.
Maruseki.Hämeenkatu 31, 00-358-3-2120728, maruseki.net. A Japanese restaurant and tea house where you can eat dinner kneeling in front of a kotatsu table while wearing a kimono.
Näsinneula.Särkänniemi, 00-358-20-7130234. A high-class restaurant with a dazzling view and excellent menu of Finnish specialities such as game and berries.
Pizzeria Napoli.Aleksanterinkatu 31, 00-358-3-2238887, pizzerianapoli.net. Tampere's oldest pizzeria. Toppings vary from the ordinary to the exotic (such as ostrich meat, Finlandia vodka with fried game, or Scotch bonnet chillis).
5 places to go
Lenin Museum.Hämeenpuisto 28, 00-358-3-2768100, lenin.fi. Tampere's most offbeat attraction is well worth a visit if you have any interest in the Soviet revolutionary figure who spent time in exile in Tampere.
The Moominvalley at Tampere Art Museum.Hämeenpuisto 20, 00-358-3-56566578, tampereen-taiteilijaseura.fi. A museum devoted to the work of Tove Jansson, with 2,000 works on display.
Spy Museum.Satakunnankatu 18, 00-358-3-2123007, vakoilumuseo.fi. The world's first espionage-dedicated museum. Torture devices, deadly weapons hidden in everything from gear sticks to fountain pens – Mata Hari's poison ring has a certain elegance – and a museum shop filled with balaclavas.
Tampere Cathedral.Tuomiokirkonkatu, 00358-3-2190265. An architectonically significant church designed by Lars Sonck in the striking Finnish National Romantic style. Inside, the walls are bedecked with some rather startling frescoes.
Viikinsaari Island.A pleasant 20-minute boat trip from Laukontori, featuring swimming shores, playgrounds, gaming fields, fireplaces for roasting sausages and a restaurant with a dance pavilion.
Hot spot
Cafe Europa.Aleksanterinkatu 29, 00-358-3-2235526, cafeeuropa.net. This is where Tampere's bright young things whoop it up after dark, sipping cocktails on old-world couches by candlelight. The terrace is perfect for soaking up the midnight sun. Otherwise, Tereenpeli (Hämeenkatu 25, 00-358-3-0424925210), in Tampere's west end, has home-brewed beer and cider and a cavernous downstairs club to get your groove on.
Shop spot
Hämeenkatu.Tampere's cobbled main thoroughfare holds the city's top restaurants, cafes, bars and Kauppatori (market square), where you can sample Tampere's scary speciality, mustamakkara (blood sausage). Butchers' stalls are filled with delicate moose and Rudolph hams and joints of smoked lamb. Bakers sell the best dark rye bread I've ever tasted. For quirkier purchases, head for Kehräsaari, in a converted brick factory building east of Laukontori market square. It has boutiques selling Finnish design, handicrafts and clothing.
Sauna experience
Rajaportin sauna.Pispalan valtatie 9, 00-358-3-2223823, pispala.fi/rajaportin sauna/englanti.html. Experience some quintessential Finnish culture at Tampere's original public bath. In Finland, sitting in a steamy roomful of strangers without a stitch of clothing on seems to be the most natural thing in the world, although to preserve some modesty there are separate sections for men and women. A coffee room and the services of a massotherapist are also available.
Go there
Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Dublin to Tampere. Air Baltic (airbaltic.com) flies from Dublin via Riga.