I went shopping for lunch today. While I was at it, I took some pictures in the city center of Lahti, Finland. This series was inspired by @evenuncovered who has published similar cityscapes during the Covid-19 epidemic.
This McDonald's seems to be open.
Drive-thru only, terrace area closed.
Long lines. I decided not to order my lunch from this place.
Not a soul in the park. An elderly person is crossing a street in the lower left corner. The amount of traffic was otherwise pretty normal. But the number of pedestrians was even smaller than usual.
The playground was empty. I'm in a local Facebook group for parents. There has been a lot of discussion there on whether or not it's ok to take kids to a playground. Experts have given conflicting advice. This country has pretty good compliance when it comes to recommendations like social distancing at this time. The whole social distancing thing is not exactly unnatural for our people under any circumstances anyway. A week ago or so there parents in the Facebook group who were of the opinion that they didn't have to observe social distancing because they had seen or heard about other people who didn't. How stupid can one be? When it comes to social distancing measures, it all adds up.
The number of cars didn't strike me as unusual.
The market square is in front of the buildings in the distance.
Buses run normally.
That was the only cafeteria open anywhere near the market square. It was a bit surprising because you were not allowed to eat in the terrace area of the McDonalds.
A security bunker against the devil on the hill. Probably closed as it should be. There is no security against this devil in a bunker together with many strangers.
Another cafeteria in the market square. This one was closed.
Rautatienkatu. Sokos in the center-left is the largest department store in the city. Didn't go in. It's probably open but with reduced hours.
The market
Only a couple of stalls were open.
This the pub that our go club used to meet in before the epidemic. It became our regular place only after our regular place was closed due to water damage last November. Closed now.
Hiidenkivi, the long-time regular meeting place of our go club. The owner had to close it last November because there was water damage in the bathroom. I'm guessing some pipe had leaked, leading to the bathroom having to be renovated.
It says the place is closed because of the renovations as of November 10 2019. First the renovation, then corona. Very bad luck!
I like the owner of this pub. Years ago, when we were living in a rental in a neighboring municipality where my wife worked at the time, I met the owner in the parking lot of a supermarket by co-incidence. He remembered my daughter's name. He's a cool guy and the atmosphere in the pub is quite nice despite the very reasonable prices. I think @gamer00 gave him one of his go sets to keep for go players. I really hope he, too, can get his business and livelihood back on track after this crisis is over.
I'm very glad I inspired you, it's so interesting to see what other cities look like these days. Keep at it!
If you ever hang out in Instagram, check out the #massisolationproject. It's a photography project started by the Gallery of Photography Ireland, and is now spreading in Finland too.
Interesting. Thanks for the tip!
Twitter:
Love seeing these! I wish I could go out and capture the moment in a lifetime too. Nice, quiet and peaceful + a bit paranoid :D
Yep! But believe it or, it does not look terribly different from what it normally does. :)
I really want to do this in London, but it's too risky here for that.
Risky how?
Nothing like a MCovid to lift ones spirits sure all the preservatives in those things give corona a chance lol the Big Mac is probably like this is my humans insides to destroy didnt your own human corona
Heh.
I am impressed by the empty streets, the streets that were always full of people doing their errands. Please take care @markkujantunen
In fact, the streets are very, very rarely full of people here, believe it or not.
Thanks, and you take care, too.
Soooo eerie. Great for photographers - bad for the economy - good for health - etcetera. Nice to document this though - it's going to be a rare sight again in a few months time.
Yeah, the empty market was really the most striking difference. I don't even have to imagine how this type of street views might look to a Latin American or an Asian person. Two have told me in this comment thread. :)
But streets really are relatively devoid of people here even normally. From your reaction, I gather that Rotterdam would be much, much busier on a normal day.
In my estimation, the number of people you see walking the streets and squares is roughly only 2-3 times greater during a normal day. That's still empty by nearly any international standards. :)
Lol. Yeah. Our streets in the center are relatively busy although it's nothing compared to Amsterdam where it's crowded. People from Amsterdam coming to Rotterdam always comment on the wide streets and lack of people :D But we're the 'second city' so to say - you must have some busy cities over there as well.
I live outside of the city center - although very well connected by subway and metro (10 mins), and my neighbourhood is calm although kids play outside and some of the migrant families still seem to be less informed than those who were born here. So they still are together in groups a bit more often.
I haven't gone to 'the city' yet - maybe I should, but I'm also very happy staying at home, reading a book outside in the sun (my frontdoor goes to some sort of shared garden), and just leaving the world for what it is :-)
Lahti (pop. 120,000 in the urban area) is noticeably less crowded than Tampere (pop. 320,000 in the urban area) where I'm from. The city center of Tampere is on a relatively narrow isthmus between two large lakes. There are practically no traffic jams in Lahti ever. Helsinki is the busiest city, I think. But I wouldn't call it crowded during a normal day.
120.000 is a nice medium-sized city, probably lots of amenities while also having nice and quiet streets :D Perfect! Helsinki looks like a nice city I want to visit, I once almost took the Ferry from Tallinn but it didn't happen in the end. Still on my list though :-)
There's a concert hall, a stadium with three large ski jumping hills and three harbors. The symphony orchestra is better than average. The downside is that there is little higher education offered. There is a polytechnic for tertiary education but no university. Why does this matter? It actually has far reaching implications. The most academically gifted young people leave for starters. There main industries here are manufacturing, logistics and government services. The population is stagnant. It is not shrinking but it isn't appreciably growing, either. As a result, the cost of housing is quite reasonable. The house we live in would've cost 50% more in Tampere.
I've made a few photography posts from photos I took in Helsinki:
In the beginning, you can see some pictures of Helsinki taken from the Tallinn ferry:
https://steempeak.com/tallinn/@markkujantunen/tallinn-day-1
I took this last summer:
https://steempeak.com/photography/@markkujantunen/summer-night-in-helsinki
Suomenlinna fortress island:
https://esteem.app/photography/@markkujantunen/suomenlinna-fortress-island-lunch-at-ikea
Now I definitely want to visit, the Island looks very photogenic - great pics!
Yes, this is sad, and happening in many cities and sometimes whole countries all over Europe. Maybe another plus for distance learning? I'm actually going to do a small research project in the next few weeks on Distance Learning so I'm curious what I'll encounter. But Corona made distance learning suddenly reality and if Universities and other higher education would be more open to it we wouldn't all have to leave the non-University cities and have better spread of educated people across our countries and within our countries.
Wow those clouds in the first pic are amazing! Love these photos. Gives me the WWI vibe and the movie-vibe.
Thanks!
I haven't gone out in a while and looking at pictures like these help me see the outside world!
I'm glad I could be of help.
In Sweden social life seems to not be affected at all by the pandemic. A friend of mine sent me yesterday a short video from downtown Gothenburg with lots of people outside. Curious how all this unfolds, and if Sweden won't be affected too much it will prove the lock down was exaggerated.
I really, really hope Sweden will be fine. Because if that turns out the case, the lockdown procedures can be canceled very quickly. But I'm afraid that won't be the case. From what I've heard, Sweden is approaching a level of incidence of severe cases of COVID-19 at which ICU beds run out.