Wellington boots, axes and horse things

19th February 2012
Saturday

When arriving in a new country, a quick and easy way to gain some insight into the culture is to observe what they make space for in their shops.

Having foraged and begged food for the last year or so, I haven't had much call to go to shops and try to avoid it is as a pastime. It is generally, for me at least, quite an unpleasant experience so I am mildly happily surprised on my first visit to a Finnish shop. It's big and empty of human traffic.There's a bit of food over in one corner but this one is mostly given over to the sale of clothes and things for hobbyists; fishing things and stuff for people who ride horses.

I have now visited all that Kauhava has to offer on the shop front and I can report on a few interesting observations. Kauhava itself is a small town with not much more than 8,000 inhabitants but has six large supermarkets or department-like shops and three second-hand-cum-junk shops, two of which are almost warehouse-like in their proportions.

Kauhava recently, within the last two years I believe, amalgamated with its neighbouring towns and villages to make one large municipal area governed by a single local authority serving a population of around 18,000. Kauhava is historically the centre and this may explain why there are more shops than one would imagine necessary. Finns drive a lot and a trip to the shops is usually done by car which are more expensive than in neighbouring countries. I did see some old cars for under one thousand euros but I was later warned that these had more than likely been driven into the ground with probably over half a million klicks on the clock.

Of interest to the foreign eye in the shops is the superior quality warm winter clothing, fantastic rubber Wellington boots, fishing equipment with lures locked away in glass cabinets together with the valuable electronics, ice hockey sticks, ice drills for the other fishermen amongst us, brilliant gloves, mittens and hats.

And lots of axes. Beautiful axes with hollow, carbon fibre (perhaps) handles. There are chain saws as well - not the toy-like ones we have in our garden shops. These are for real men. Who like chopping things down.. Oh, and pants. For men. Sloggi. You can't beat good underwear. Having read when in Japan that these were the best you could buy, I hunted high and low for Sloggi in England and only ever found them once; in a dingy old school clothes shop in Whetstone in faded packaging. Forget Calvin Klein, it's got to be Sloggi every time.