The strikes against the government’s cuts cleared the streets of downtown Helsinki on Friday.
It’s Friday afternoon in Helsinki, and the places that are usually swarming with people are empty because the strikes against the government’s policies of weakening benefits in things like unemployment have brought public transport to a standstill.
The metro stations downtown, from the main railway station to Kaisaniemi, have only a few lost tourists wandering around, not understanding enough Finnish or simply lost.
A few people of Asian origin try to enter the closed Helsinki University metro station as if the yellow-red tape blocking the entrance is something to jump over or crawl under.
In the big foreign supermarket in the Citycenter shopping mall, you suddenly notice products you’ve never seen before because you couldn’t see them through the crowd. And with no queues, paying is a blessing.
The eerie emptiness of the connecting tunnels that run underground from shopping centers to metro stations attracts creeps lurking in the shadows to approach and actually ask: “Hei! Olisiko sinulla …”
A man who seems to have a day off because of the strikes asks for advice on buying his next camera bag.
And when the clock strikes four, the roads leading out of the city are filled with cars that honk and where drivers curse and arrive home two hours later.
