Moomin World!

 Moomin World

Meet the Moomins!  

They are a family of characters popularized in a series of children’s books written by Tove Jansson, of previous blog fame.  They have expanded beyond books and are also the stars of several television shows, movies, video games, toys, and pieces of adorable kids clothing.

The Moomins are an interesting lot.  They live in a giant blue house.  Everytime Moomintroll (the younger, main character) brings home a new friend his dad Moominpapa builds on a new room to the house so the friend will have somewhere to stay.  Which is the cutest thing that I’ve ever heard.  All of the characters struggle with various neuroses.  Most of the stories involve a lot of good natured, aimless Finnish walkabout.

But things get heavy too.  In one of the books a comet seems to be about to crash into earth and destroy Moominvalley and the characters all wrestle with questions of mortality and finality.  In another book Moomintroll is surprised when he awakes from his hibernation early while everyone else is still asleep.  He realizes he is the only Moomin to ever be awake in winter, and that fills him both with awe and anxiety.  He wonders if he is still a Moomin, because Moomins hibernate during winter and he’s not hibernating.  In the final book the Moomins have all disappeared from Moominvalley, and the creatures who remain are left to puzzle out the purpose of existing when the people we love are gone.  

The tonal shifts between levity and gravity can be a bit jarring – like if Winnie the Pooh poured his honey down his throat and all down his chest and realized that his tummy was still rumbling then launched into Hamlet’s soliloquy, or a philosophical rant about the artifice of scarcity.  But, maybe that’s how life is.  There are nine total books in the series (some of which we have read) and a handful of television and movie adaptations (some of which we have watched). 

I do find it interesting that Jansson wrote Comet in Moominland as Finland was in the grips of war and hardship.  Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is widely recognized to be an allegory about World War II.  The latter involves setting off to parts unknown on a hopeless quest against all odds to destroy an overwhelming evil.  The former involves finding comfort and solace in your home and drawing strength from familiar surroundings.  Both involve the value of friendship.

Moominworld is the top tourist destination in Nantaali, and one of the top ones in all Finland.  

There aren’t many attractions in the American sense.  There are no rides, and only one show.  Instead pretty much the whole park is a recreation of Moominvalley that you can explore.  You can visit the Moominhouse, which is five stories tall and crammed with details.  

There are two nature walks you can take that lead you to various places of interest – Snuffkin’s camp, Moominpapa’s beach cottage, the Hemulen’s house with his assortment of collections.  

And the characters all sort of wander between the communal areas and their homes.  For example Snufkin spends some of the day at his camp reading aloud, and park visitors can just hop in and listen to a story.  The police officer goes on patrol.  It all feels very organic.

The kids loved all the characters.  They got photos hugging each character at least three times.  

None of the characters ever seemed inconvenienced or annoyed.  For whatever reason Milo’s favorites were Thingumy and Bob – two bizarre visitors to Moominvalley who steal and hide things good naturedly. 

We saw a show that was in Finnish with English and Swedish subtitles on a big screen.  

It was fun.  Lots of singing and dancing.  At one point the Groke make an appearance.  The groke is the “bad guy” of Moominvalley, if there is one.  Everyone’s afraid of her.  The thing is, she’s not really that scary.  She sort of just looks like a large grey blob with a mouth.  She’s not even that bad.  She’s never hurt anyone, and when she’s around the flowers all start to wilt and people feel cold.  She’s most often described as misunderstood.  So at one point during the show Moomintroll opened the door, and for less than a second a cardboard cutout of the Groke was visisble at the door. 

And people lost it.  Screaming.  Crying.  Like gnashing of teeth and gouging of eyes levels of despondency.  Most of the children in the audience were crying.  Crying isn’t even really the right word.  Wailing.  I’m pretty sure some of the grownups were crying too.  That half second view of the Groke might have been the worst thing that’s ever happened to some of them. 

Later we were playing a carnival game and the kids won a prize.  Because it was near the end of the day at the very end of the season the only prizes they had left were Groke keychains.  The employee told us she was sorry and understood we probably didn’t want them.  But our kids sort of like villains.  Plus they ain’t scared of no Groke.  So we took it.  In fact Oscar later also bought a Groke stuffie as his special souvenir.  

For the rest of the day we heard people gasp as we walked by.  Characters in the park would point at the keychain and then cower and start shivering.  I think some of them might not have even been acting anymore. 

I sort of get it.  It would kind of be like if someone bought a Voldemort stuffy at World of Harry Potter and walked around showing it off.  Except instead of being the lord of evil and a child murderer, Voldemort was actually just a middle aged IRS collector who smelled a little bit bad.

We spent about six hours in the park which was more than enough time to see everything.  The kids probably would have been happier staying for longer.  But everyone was getting pretty tired.  So we left and grabbed some food.  Hesburger again.  Then we went back to the apartment and got our first decent night of sleep of the whole trip.

The next day we played in a local park and had a light breakfast al fresco before taking the bus back to Turku – much less eventfully this time.  

Well almost.  Milo lost a tooth on the bus ride back to Turku.  It popped right out at the bus stop.  It bled quite a bit, and he just stood there – looking like Rocky Balboa calling for Adrian with his tooth floating in the blood cupped in his hand – a lone dumpling in a brothy soup. 

And despite the anxiety of not having a place to put the tooth, and worries about the Finnish tooth fairy and the conversion rate between the Euro and the dollar, he had a great attitude.  Sisu.  We found the easier route back to the rautatieasema, and had about an hour wait for our train.  

Then it was only a ninety minute journey – again in a playground car – before arriving at our home for the next seven weeks:  Tampere.

Hei Hei