Vappu traditions in Finland
The ultimate student holiday is here! It’s time to grab your overalls and your highschool graduation cap and head for a May Day -themed picnic among other festive students. May Day is usually considered as a holiday celebrating workers, but in Finland it is truly taken over by higher education students with their carnival traditions. Some student organisations start their vappu celebrations two weeks in advance. ISYY’s vappu traditions last for the whole May Day week and include, for example, the Savo-Karjala Excursion. Read more about Vappu in Finland here.
Students' celebration
30th April is the day for student celebrations all over Finland - there’s usually a student cavalcade and traffic is closed so students can parade through the city waving student association flags and sporting their student association's overalls and highschool graduation caps. ISYY has similar traditions in both campus cities. In Kuopio, the Veljmies statue, which is in the market square, is washed and given a cap by two nominated student actives Kunniankantajat ('carriers of the Honor'). The traditions in Kuopio end with Professor immersing in which a teacher is dipped in a fountain.
May Day delicacies
After the student celebrations, it’s common to have a Vappu picnic. The feast includes delicacies such as a sugar-coated doughnut (munkki) and funnel cake (tippaleipä), which is coated with powdered sugar. Tippaleipä translates literally as ‘drip bread’, which refers to it being made by dripping the batter into hot oil through a funnel. To wash all the sugar down Finns usually drink sima - a sweet, sparkling low-alcoholic beverage which is made by fermenting honey, sugar, water and lemon. Traditional sima also includes a few raisins as they don’t just add to the sweetness, but also indicate when the fermentation process is complete by rising to the surface. Read more about Vappu delicacies here. |
