The idea of going for a week to a Finnish cottage did not appeal to me at first. “How can you relax in a small house, without a maid, without restaurants, without entertainment?!” I shook my head. So, tormented by doubts, I set off for Suomi.
Complications arose already at the stage of choosing cottages. There are plenty of options, but only two turned out to be optimal. Our requirements were simple: a cottage designed for two adults and one small child, in a picturesque pine forest, away from large populated areas and other houses, in a place sheltered from the wind, with developed infrastructure. This very developed infrastructure implied a cottage of 4*–5* level. The “star rating” depends, among other things, on the area of the dwelling – and we simply had no need for a large one. Things would be much simpler if we were looking for a house for a large and noisy company. If your goal is different, then the first thing to pay attention to when booking a cottage is not at all the photograph of the latter, but special designations. Personally, we were interested in a 4* “2+2” property. At the travel agency the numbers were translated into Russian something like this: “The cottage is designed for two adults, but if absolutely necessary, you can squeeze another couple of people in there.”
Learn to read the map
The road to the border flew by in one breath. After Imatra we turned onto a secondary highway and plunged into twilight. The headlights for seconds caught signs out of the darkness, and then – as luck would have it – my navigational instinct failed me. The mistake cost us a couple of hours of wandering through fairly dense Finnish forests. The course of events was changed by a local farmer. Naturally, the native spoke neither English nor Russian, but, waving his arms widely, invited us into the house, where in a half-empty hall, a large family was sitting at a huge oak table playing cards. For some reason, I immediately remembered the fairy tale about “Tom Thumb” – so simple was the life of Finnish peasants. However, you can’t deny these people hospitality! It’s unlikely that in our native expanses any villager would risk inviting a stranger into the house… Fortunately for us, the owner’s older daughter explained in quite decent English where we were and how to get out of here.
Good. Finnish.
Thus, we arrived at our destination four hours late. The owner of the cottage did not wait for us, entrusting the cares to his wife. Armed with all the Finnish-English phrasebooks they had, the owner’s family long and thoughtfully explained to us all the subtleties of that very infrastructure for which we had paid a pretty penny. A washing machine with unimaginable little buttons (the instructions for it were in Swedish, so most of its capabilities remained a mystery to us), a roomy dishwasher, and a refrigerator from the glorious company Rosenlew (remember in “Kidnapping, Caucasian Style”? “Rosenlew refrigerator. Good. Finnish”). In general, support for the domestic producer in Finland is carried out on a grand scale – blankets, pillows, plumbing and appliances – everything was locally produced.
Half an hour after our hosts left (their farm was located about 500 meters from our house), we were already sitting by the fireplace, enjoying the crackling of pine logs. Of course, we could have not lit the fireplaces – heated floors throughout the house created a fairly comfortable atmosphere, but the fireplace… two armchairs in front of it and a pipe! It’s a pity that none of us had mastered the intricacies of playing the violin. The days flashed one after another. During the week no one disturbed us, and this is stipulated by the contract: the owners of the house appear only at check-in and check-out. The main condition is that by 12 noon on the day of departure the house must be tidied and clean (floors, stove, sauna – washed, rugs shaken out, dishes washed and put back in place, etc.). If you don’t want to spoil your vacation impression with a general cleaning at the end, warn the owners in advance – for €60 they will do everything themselves after your departure.
The routine of our vacation was simple and unpretentious: getting up, a walk in the forest (inhaling pine air and admiring landscapes of incredible beauty), lunch (its preparation for some reason did not take much effort), a healthy afternoon nap, an attempt to go fishing (all the tackle lies in the woodshed; in some cottages a boat is also provided). By the way, I was told a seemingly fantastic story about fishing. Upon arriving at a similar cottage, a Russian tourist found in the shed a stick with an implausible, toy-like float and a huge hook. Offended, our man handed the rod to his little son to tear apart. The boy, playfully, cast it into the water… and after 5 minutes pulled out a bream! By the way, in the visitor’s memo hanging in every cottage, it is stated in black and white: “Fishing with a worm is an inalienable right of every citizen,” but for spin fishing you need to get a separate permit.
100 degrees on the chest
We were generally skeptical about the sauna, but after examining it, we realized: Finns know a thing or two about living in the lap of nature. Not a single hotel (and I have happened to stay in quite famous hotels in the world) can compare with this house in terms of thoughtfulness and quality of execution. On the first day, personally, I ran out of the sauna after a couple of minutes there. The next time I overcame myself and sat longer – a second wind opened up. By the end of the trip, I was already alternating the steam room with running around the yard in the nude. Several times I even had the urge to dive into the lake, located ten steps from the entrance to our house, but common sense suggested that an organism poisoned by the metropolis might not withstand such a shock.
I will say one thing – now I look without laughter, but on the contrary, with envy at the heroes of “Peculiarities of Russian Hunting,” as well as fishing. The week of easy living ended long ago, but osteochondrosis and other “office” ailments still do not bother me. Believe me!