Hakaniemi (
Paddock Cape) isn't all that much to
look at, but historically
it's one of the more interesting bits of
Helsinki,
Finland.
Home to the
working class and plied by
communist agitators a century ago,
today's Hakaniemi is developing into the most international bit of
the city, Helsinki's little imitation of
Chinatown.
Home of the Proletariat
Until the 20th century Hakaniemi was just a series of fields and pastures
(and hence the name). But with the rapid industrialization of Helsinki
at the turn of the century, and the appearance of factories at
nearby Sörnäinen, laborers started to immigrate from the countryside
and Helsinki suddenly found itself with an acute housing shortage.
This shortage was solved by rapidly zoning Hakaniemi -- a part of the
larger area known as Kallio -- as a residential
district, and the area was soon filled with small wooden houses.
The center of Helsinki is separated from Kallio by a small bay, which is crossed by a bridge somewhat outdatedly known as the "Long
Bridge" (Pitkäsilta). This physical division became reflected
in class consciousness as well, so Kallio and Hakaniemi north of the bridge
became known as the area of the working class proletariat,
while the bourgeois lived and worked to the south. The Hakaniemi
market square became the scene of many a mass rally, and
during the Finnish Civil War the area, especially the nearby
Workers' Hall, was a stronghold of the Reds. Much later, when the
Social Democrats buried the hatchet and formed a coalition government
with the rightist Union Party (Kokoomus), the event was
referred to as "crossing the Long Bridge".
Even to this day it seems
that half the labor unions in Finland have their offices in the
buildings surrounding the square.
Conversion to Capitalism
After the 1960s the character of Hakaniemi gradually changed from
residential to commercial, and the population of Hakaniemi started
to decline from its peak of almost 40,000. The cramped wooden buildings
were replaced by modern multi-story buildings and a number of massive
organs of the city and state bureaucracy.
There was one last attempt to turn the tide with the construction
of Merihaka, widely agreed to be
one of the worst abominations of architecture ever to disgrace the
city (although my former home of Itä-Pasila still probably takes the
top spot).
A seaside block of unpainted and unadorned concrete towers, which
dysfunctionally attempted to separate ground-level car traffic and
upper-level pedestrian walkways, the place is now a site of pilgrimage
for photographers who like doing suicidally angsty B&W series of
urban anomie.
By the 1990s there were less than 20,000 people living in all of Kallio,
and the construction of the Helsinki metro in 1982 did not change
things. However, the arrival of a number of refugees from Vietnam
and Somalia did: the cheap, cramped apartments rejected by sniffy,
upwardly mobile Finns were fine for them, and the main
thoroughfare Hämeentie soon started to sprout a wide array of
various ethnic shops catering to their needs. Vii Voan,
a Vietnamese supermarket that imports its own goods and eschews
unnecessary fluff like advertising and fancy display cases,
is an institution
among Helsinki students who subsist on cases of cheap instant noodles.
In fact, the other significant democratic component is now young
students, some of whom have even set up communes in the area.
Things to See and Do
Not much, really. There are three primary reasons to come to Hakaniemi:
- Battling with bureaucracy (Hakaniemi is, among many others, home to
Finland's equivalent of the DMV)
- Buying ethnic food during the day
- Buying cheap booze in the bars at night
But every single bus, tram and subway car heading towards the East
still passes through Hakaniemi, so take a moment to glance out the
window and think of all who have lived, worked and died here.