Vantaa | Tommi Ostrovskij, from Kallio, fell in love with Vantaa with every cell – He used his vacation to immerse himself in the city

Vantaabag and a shirt from the Vantaa wrestling event. The outfit of the figure leaning against the wall with a molehill is like a tourist excited about Vantaa, and such Tommi Ostrovsky it is.

During his summer vacation, he visited all of the larger areas of Vantaa. There are seven of them: Aviapolis, Hakunila, Kivistö, Koivukylä, Korso, Myyrmäki and Tikkurila.

In a week, Vantaa made a barefoot Helsinki resident see the trees of the neighboring municipality as a nearby natural forest and ponder the fundamental differences between the old neighbors.

Idea started when Ostrovskij got a job from the city of Vantaa. In the spring, he worked as a participation coordinator and in the summer as a project worker in the development group of the new aid application system.

“Why wouldn’t I come here”, he thought, packed his bags and booked a room at a hotel in Tikkurila.

Now Ostrovskij has promised to tell what Vantaa looks like through the eyes of a tourist and what the people of Helsinki could learn from their neighbors. We are going to visit a place where Ostrovskij did not have time during his week’s trip: Sillböle’s old iron mines in Kaivoxela.

Travel The mining area, which last operated in the 19th century, is getting off to a slow start, as the contemporary dance theater Mamia Company appears on the corner of Myyräncolo Kasperi Nordman. He and Ostrovskij know each other from before, and when he hears about the gig, Nordman’s love for his hometown takes over.

Myyrmäki is full of life, Nordman assures and lists upcoming events. When a friend came to visit, he said that arriving in Myyrmäki was just like “having come to fucking Berlin”. Enough of urban life.

And there are landscapes too. Right near here is a route so beautiful that one lady even called it the road of green gold.

The most essential on a journey, it’s not how far you go, but how you observe your surroundings, Ostrovskij thinks. During his vacation, he consciously let go of the idea of ​​Vantaa as a neighbor of his hometown, where you can find the airport, Heureka and detached houses.

“I tried to get those notes out of my eyes.”

When talking with the locals, it turned out that they too have their prejudices. At the flea market, the seller complained that there is nothing to see here. At the lunch spot, someone described Vantaa as a place to move to for a while until something better is found.

In the end, Vantaa proved everyone’s prejudices wrong.

I’ll be quick after the theater visit, we head to see urban wonders. It would be easy to glance past them on your cell phone or on the road, but it’s worth stopping.

The walls painted by the townspeople bring to mind the Suvilahti skate park. Something that belongs to people, based on activity and passion.

There seems to be more room for such a thing in Vantaa, says Ostrovskij. The atmosphere here is more relaxed than in Helsinki.

“The question is whether there is room for people to breathe. Does everything have to be planned?”, he ponders the fate of the Suvilahti skate park.

Myyrmäki train station is decorated with a large blue painting.

“Made by a Chilean couple, the largest in its genre in the Nordic countries,” Ostrovskij introduces by Cynthia Aguilera and Sammy Espinoza of the work.

On the street art tour, Ostrovskij heard that they tried to get the work to Helsinki first, but due to the slowness of the permit process, Vantaa got the honor in the end. Agility is a trump card in street art.

In addition to the Myyrmäki street art tour, Ostrovskij visited museums, Heureka, the airport, Fazer, an outdoor concert, a library, movies, a flea market, a beach, mansions, Tammiston Teboil, which advertises itself as the best home cooking place in the area, and admired the tree in Korso.

Twenty thousand steps were accumulated daily, as often happens on vacation.

The seven major regions each have their own districts, regional centers, distinctive colors and newsletters.

And also its atmosphere, Ostrovskij says.

He has noticed one significant difference between people from Helsinki and people from Vantaa: people from Vantaa identify more strongly with their own region, people from Helsinki with the whole city.

It may also be due to the fact that there are relatively more people living in owner-occupied apartments in Vantaa than in Helsinki. When a person stays in the same place, he develops a different bond with the surrounding landscape, Ostrovskij reflects.

To these it’s also good to form a bond with landscapes. We have walked from Myyrinpuhos towards the mines, when it seems that the green gold road that was advertised to us at the beginning of the trip is coming.

The view opens from the bridge, where everything is green. A more experienced botanist would certainly know how to name the different species, but there is no such thing in this group.

After all, we can read road signs.

“This is the bunny tunnel!”

Having grown up in the inner city of Helsinki, Ostrovskij admits that he didn’t even know how to dig the nearby nature in the same way as many others. That’s why especially the field landscapes and green routes make an impression and feel like a break from home Kallio.

Of course, there are all kinds of holes in the Kallio of Helsinki, but not the same kind of holes as in the cliffs of Vantaa.

“Wow”, is the first comment.

The mines are securely fenced. Still, some brave people have clearly gone all the way to the bottom, because messages are written on the stone. In the old mines, history, present day, people and nature meet.

“Fortunately, we came here,” says Ostrovskij.

Ostrovskij has got one more Vantaa destination to cross off his visit list.

We turn around back towards Myyrinpuho. Again, the landscapes change quickly, the shades of green change to the brightness of street art.

Ostrovskij recommends getting to know Vantaa for everyone, even the most hardened Helsinki residents. Next year, Vantaa will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a city. Then there will definitely be party buzz and things to see.

However, the visitor should be prepared for surprises and change. Ostrovsky returned from his vacation changed.

Now the borders of the cities feel more artificial than before. Ostrovskij considers himself more from the capital region than just from Helsinki.

In the future, Ostrovskij dreams of finding a small garden plot in Helsinki. He soon catches himself thinking that he is stuck in formulas: Why should the column be in Helsinki?

A suitable one could be found in Vantaa as well.