Festive summer feelings last forever

 With the summer winding down, we look back at some of the highlights of this festival season. In the picture: Helsinki Samba Carnaval on Senate Square.

As the warm season approaches its close, it’s time to allot ourselves 15 photos and a couple hundred words to capture the Finnish summer festival spirit – the people and the atmosphere.

Raise your hand if you know a gardener. If you do, then you can imagine the way Finns anticipate their summer festival season.

Just as gardeners will sit half the winter and plot what they’re going to plant in the spring, Finnish arts enthusiasts will huddle inside while snow still covers the ground and map out which festivals to hit come summer. You can almost taste the fresh vegetables. You can almost hear the music drifting through the warm air.

So it shouldn’t seem surprising that we also want to preserve the summer festival spirit and continue savouring it when the cold weather shows signs of returning. Just as a gardener stows some of the harvest away, we’ve assembled a slideshow to help us remember and convey the faces and feelings of the festivals.

Photos by Tim Bird, June-August 2009
Text by Peter Marten

Click on number 1 below to start the slideshow.
(Note: "Next" and "Previous" buttons appear in the top corners
when you roll your mouse over the photos.)