The birthplace of the passport cannot be changed, so Monia Kuokkanen decided to tattoo her beloved Turku on her skin. Originally from Häme, his wife Markus Rous does not have as strong feelings for his homeland.
“I thought always that Turku is the best place in the world and I will never leave it. Then I was the first group of friends to move out. ”
The studies brought Many Kuokkanen29, from Turku to Helsinki in 2015. Spouse found in Helsinki Markus Rousi and extensive job opportunities made Turku stay in the city.
The couple bought a two-piece apartment in West Herttoniemi in 2020. They paid 257,000 euros for a 50-square-meter two-piece apartment.
The duo has had an excellent time at home, but sometimes Kuokka is bitten by the upcoming Turku offer on social media.
“That’s where you would get crazy lullabies. Just a couple of weeks ago, I sent Markus a link to move to Turku. ”
Turku is not just about people.
“I don’t feel like I’m from Helsinki, I’m from Turku.”
Throughout the passport of Kuokkanen from Turku, Kannus is marked as the birthplace because he lived in Ostrobothnia during his early childhood.
“I was always bothered that my passport does not read Turku, even though I am from Turku. Then I decided I wanted Turku on my skin. ”
Tattoo artists from Helsinki would have made Tampere free, but they wanted to charge a hundred euros for Turku. Kuokkanen finally headed to Turku for tattooing.
The couple’s life together has been built in Helsinki, so at least for the time being it will remain a hometown. In the summer, however, there is a big change in life that has made Kuokkanen think about Turku from a completely new perspective: the couple is expecting their first child, the calculated time is in July.
“We have talked a lot about this, and I have had an identity crisis, that I am having a child in Helsinki.”
Liisa Vähäkylä’s family is from Turku, but she has never lived in the city. “I sometimes made a list of places I haven’t lived in yet, so Turku was at the forefront of that,” says Vähäkylä, who has lived in many places around the world.
“Divorce was liberating in the sense that it allowed me to completely decide where I lived, ”says the 56-year-old Liisa Vähäkylä.
However, after the resignation, no housing corresponding to Vähäkylä’s wishes was found in Helsinki.
“I stated that I can’t afford the kind of apartment I want in Helsinki.”
At the same time, Vähäkylä considered buying an investment home in Turku. Eventually, he fell in love with the wooden house blocks and found a home in Port Arthur, more commonly known as Portsa. It is an idyllic old wooden house area, which was once awarded as the best district in the country by the Finnish Homeland Association.
“Porta’s shops are like in Töölö, Porta’s people are like in Kallio and Porta’s houses are like somewhere in the courtyard of Ullanlinna, which no one has found yet,” Vähäkylä describes the residential area.
A 43 square meter studio was found in Porta, for which Vähäkylä paid 176,000 euros in 2020.
Moving to Turku made dreams possible in Helsinki, which he could only dream of: Vähäkylä and his friend bought a wooden sailboat and a convertible for themselves, a small boat from 1997, which can instantly rush the boat to the harbor.
“It was a dream I had talked to my ex-spouse about a lot when we lived in Hakaniemi. For 15 years in Hakaniemi, I kept looking at the sea as the boats flew past. From Helsinki’s point of view, it seemed too expensive to maintain a boat, a berth, a winter boat place in addition to the apartment. ”
“It all felt like a utopia. That was not the case when he moved to Turku. ”
Vähäkylä needs plenty of air connections to the world from Helsinki, as he travels a lot for his work. But he already has a solution to the problem.
“I think Turku is mentally and physically closer to Central Europe. The long-term plan, without the corona, the war in Ukraine and other uncertainties, is for the industry to travel to Europe via Stockholm by train. ”
Pauliina Myller likes that Turku is a short journey everywhere and the archipelago is close by. The son Viljami has also enjoyed Turku.
Espoo resident Pauliina Myller31, in turn, went to Turku after his spouse.
“We had a family addition, so we had to think a little bit about where the puppies will be beaten together,” says Myller.
Myller set certain conditions for living. He definitely wanted downtown. The partner, in turn, wanted his own yard so that the dogs could roar freely. A very expensive detached house was not allowed, as there was a student budget.
In the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, the equation would have been almost impossible, but the family found a house in Turku that met its criteria in the Swedish residential area of Kupittaa, only about a kilometer from the Market Square.
The couple paid 251,000 euros for the house and plot in 2016. There are about 60 official squares, but thanks to the rooms built downstairs, the house has more than 120 square meters of space. Apple and pear trees, currant bushes and rhubarb grow in the yard. There is also a sandbox where the son Viljami plays hard.
The family is in love with the neighborhood.
“We have a retired couple next door, and right from the first day they received us warmly. They have become almost like family members, ”says Myller.
Now the family is temporarily living in an apartment building in Helsinki for rent, because Myller’s spouse specializes in ophthalmology in the Helsinki metropolitan area. For the summer, the family will head to Turku again, which Myller is especially happy about.
“It’s nice to visit Helsinki, but I don’t feel like I want to live here,” he says.
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