We continued our walk on the 17th of December, to check out a couple of places from the Tove Jansson walk that we had skipped the last time. We started at the railway station and walked to Kaisaniemi park to see Convolvulus (1931), another statue by Viktor Jansson, Tove’s father. Tove modeled for it as a teenager.
The weather was relatively warm for this time of year, but the city looked somewhat bleak as often happens in cold months. There was no snow in the city centre, and, without either snow or leaves on the trees, parks seem not to look impressive. The location where the statue is found has a somewhat desolate feeling to it in my opinion (mind the season): on the one hand, it is in the park, so it kind of belongs there, but it is not in the centre of it; on the other hand, it is cut off from the ‘very’ city centre by the old buildings; this way it ends up on the outskirts of both the park and the very central part of the city.
Next, as we walked towards the eastern part of the city, we decided to enter Ateneum on the way – last time we did not get in, as it was already closed. It used to be one of Jansson’s schools (1933-1937), back when it housed the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. We did not buy the tickets, so we only could check out the interior without walking in to see the exhibitions.
After this short visit we continued our walk, passing by the Senate Square and checking out the Christmas market, went by the Uspenski Cathedral and again found ourselves in a not very impressive park, which is now the Tove Jansson park (renamed in her honour in 2014, to mark the centenary of her birth) . We found the street on which the Janssons lived during the first years of Tove’s life (1914-1930, before she went to study in Stockholm), and it took us some minutes to locate the house (Luotsikatu 4).
Somehow we didn’t notice the plaque at first, but then, having located the house, we managed to go inside the inner courtyard. The apartments in the house are occupied, but it doesn’t look (at least now) that it is meant specifically for artists and writers (like the Artists’ Home in Töölö district where her family resided later).
So here it is for now. I'll be back shortly with more posts, and later this fall Elina and I are planning another visit (or two) to Tove Jansson-related places in Helsinki.
There is a really marvelous blog - Moomin History - that I found recently, dedicated to Jansson, the Moomins and more. Interesting insights and facts... so check it out!
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