Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2020 | Page 25

silence. Held in early June, the four-day
Silence Festival is a celebration of this
essential characteristic of the Finnish psy-
che – as well as nature. Contemporary cir-
cus and classical music come together in
the riverside Lapland village of Kaukonen,
inviting festival-goers to slow down and go
native in a beautiful natural setting.
Managing Director Joonas Marti-
kainen reports that in 2019 about 2,500
guests attended the festival which fea-
tured 30 individual events. Out of the total
amount, perhaps 300–400 people were from
abroad.
“Canada, for example, was well rep-
resented at the festival,” Martikainen says.
According to Martikainen, the focus
of the festival – which celebrated its 10th
anniversary in 2019 – is to create a human-
to-human platform for meaningful interac-
tion. There is dialogue featured even in the
name itself: the word ‘silence’ evokes very
different images than ‘festival’.
“For us, the organizers, silence is more
akin to a certain mindscape,” Martikainen
says, pointing out that everybody has a dif-
ferent definition of silence. “A Finn would
approach the whole issue very differently
than someone from, say, New York.”
Wild, Wild Menu
While the peaceful nature is an obvious
inspiration for the Silence Festival, you can
trust the Finns to immerse their cuisine in
nature, too – and Finland has been long-
known as a true treasure destination for wild
food enthusiasts. Every year, as the winter
season turns into spring, local chefs rush to
explore the nearby forests, fields and sea-
shores to the fullest. Wild food – berries,
mushrooms, wild herbs and vegetables as
well as fish, game and reindeer – comes
straight from the very heart of Arctic nature.
Seeking a wilder menu is no hipster
pastime here: you’d be hard pressed to find
a Finn who has not ever been gathering
some wild food. Finland’s strong tradition
of picking berries and mushrooms is rooted
on Everyman’s Right of public access to the
wilderness. It is also supported by the on-
going sustainability trend: Wild foods leave
a very small ecological footprint.
Nevertheless, wild cuisine doesn’t
exactly mean eating on a tree stump – there
are restaurants out there. Sometimes there’s
even a rather surprising restaurant scene in a
relatively small town. Case in point: city of
Porvoo, with its 50,000 residents, has been
making culinary waves all through 2010’s.
The Culinary Connection
Sari Myllynen, Travel & Marketing Man-
ager for the City of Porvoo, says that Por-
voo – located on the southern coast of Fin-
land some 50 kilometers east of Helsinki
– has achieved a snowball effect of sorts,
where food-loving entrepreneurs are encour-
Nordicum 25