The sea lions
Four spouting water around the base.
Ximonic (Simo Räsänen) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sanja7s — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Volker von Bonin — CC BY 4.0 · Daderot — CC0
Finland's largest popular celebration, running from the eve of **30 April** through **1 May**. Its origin is labour day and a spring festival together, but it has become above all a students' festival: everyone — including people who graduated forty years ago — wears the white cap with its black band, and they gather around Havis Amanda to crown her, after which Kaivopuisto park fills the next day with tens of thousands for a mass picnic. Alcohol is heavily present at this festival specifically. **If you visit Helsinki on those two days expect a completely different city** — and places closed on 1 May.**
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Havis Amanda is a bronze fountain at the edge of **Market Square** on Helsinki's harbour: a female figure standing on a rock ringed by four sea lions spouting water, with four fish at the base. **Ville Vallgren** sculpted it in Paris and it was unveiled in Helsinki in 1908, intended to represent the city itself rising from the sea — the maiden of the Baltic. Its unveiling caused a **major scandal**: women's associations and newspapers objected to its nudity and to the sculptor's use of a French model, and the public argument ran for years. Today it is Helsinki's first symbol. And it carries a living tradition: on the **eve of the first of May** — Vappu — Helsinki's students gather round it in their thousands and place a white graduation cap on the statue in a televised ceremony. It is the largest annual gathering in the city. **Free and always open**; the fountain is shut off and covered in winter.
Four spouting water around the base.
Food and craft stalls on the harbour behind it.
Market Square, Helsinki