Born in the wind, bred by the wind: Petra’s Helsinki
Petra Tandefelt has her roots deep in the rocks of Suomenlinna, a unique sea fortress and a home for 800 Helsinkians. It’s possible that without Petra’s great grandfather the fate of Suomenlinna, one of the 59 Helsinki neighbourhoods, could have been very different from the Unesco Site that it is today.
Petra Tandefelt’s view on Helsinki is extraordinarily unique – literally. For most Helsinkians the city life means busy streets, buildings, cars, parks, buses, people, but for Petra it means the sea, the waves, the wind, and only a distant silhouette of the city: the roofs of Katajanokka, the towers of Suurkirkko and Uspenski Cathedral (the island is only a 20 minute ferry ride away from the heart of Helsinki).
“I am born by the wind, bred by the wind. Since childhood, there has always been this presence of another reality for me on the islands. Still to this date I love being alone, and never feel lonely.”
Living in Suomenlinna, a small world of its own, has made Petra who she is today. Made up of seven islands, Suomenlinna has no cars apart from the maintenance ones, no asphalted streets and just one little supermarket. Even by the standards of Suomenlinna Petra’s viewpoint is unique: her family home, one the few Russian built wooden villas left on the islands, is situated just outside the walls of the nearly 300 year old sea fortress, on a narrow slice of land between the rocky wall and the waves.
As you meet Petra, it’s easy to sense how this view, this “being on the edge”, has impacted her as a person. In fact, meeting her makes one wonder that perhaps there is a special breed of Island People on Earth, recognisable from their freedom of spirit, imagination, love for the wind, and (not so well hidden) dislike for unnecessary rules (…don’t get Petra started on the newly added warning signs and security fences on the shores of Suomenlinna!).
Petra grew up playing on the shores of the island and in the tunnels of the fortress. Her parents were artists and moved to Suomenlinna in the 1960s, attracted by its beauty and cheap living costs, like many artists at the time. When Petra was born, her parents lived in a tiny apartment by the Ehrensvärd Museum with no central heating, no running water and an outside toilet. Petra’s mother was rushed to the mainland to the maternity hospital by the coastguards. “It was a classically dark and stormy night, like the nights here in Suomenlinna in October usually are”, Petra laughs now, as she starts the story about how she grew up to be the person “who loves the sea”.
“My childhood was all about playing freely and wildly on the rocks of the island, spending a lot of time on my own. I was an only child and it had an impact on my imagination I think. When I went out, there was always something to do. I just imagined myself a playmate and so the holes in the walls of the fortress became a kitchen or a cottage or a secret base for whatever was the imagined reality of that moment. There was always this presence of another reality for me on the islands. Still to this date I love being alone, and never feel lonely.”
In addition to the nature of the islands Petra’s childhood was marked by the community, the circle of artist friends her parents had. Petra remembers that while she was little there were clear hierarchical divisions that marked the community on the islands: “The artists and museum people lived on the Susisaari island and had no running water or sewers, the army people lived in the buildings by the Suomenlinna church with running water and sewers and even central heating, and then there were the workers of the Suomenlinna dry dock, who lived on the Länsi-Mustasaari.”
By the time Petra was a teenager her parents bought the house she is living in now. The beautifully decorated villa was nearly rotten, as her parents saved it, and her step father, an interior architect, renovated it with great care. “A lot of the buildings from the Russian era were torn apart when the fortress became part of Finland in 1918. This house was saved because it was then privately owned.”
Since her birth Petra has lived elsewhere in Helsinki for some periods of her life, but she has always returned to Suomenlinna. “I guess it’s my genes that pull me back here time after time”, she says.
Indeed Petra’s family roots reach much further in the history of this unique place than her birth. Suomenlinna was built as a maritime fortress during the Swedish era. The work began in 1748 and many of Petra’s ancestors, who were military officials, were involved in the process, designing and building the fortress, and serving there. Some of the designs are actually signed by one of Petra’s ancestors. In 1808 the fortress surrendered to the Russians and remained under Russian rule until 1918, when it was transferred under the rule of the newly independent Finland’s government.
Among the first Finnish officials to arrive at Suomenlinna then, was Petra’s father’s grandfather Heikki Tandefelt. He had been trained as an artist in Florence and Paris and had strong connections to central Europe. As someone in touch with the European “museum scene” of the time, he had a vision for what could become of Suomenlinna. Heikki Tandefelt started the Suomenlinna museum and was its very first curator.
Much has changed since Petra was a child, but she can still catch the core of the island when she wants to. “My favorite thing is still the same. I find a spot on my own by the sea, lay there on my back, listen to the waves and feel the energy of the rocks. When there are no visitors around, I can still grasp the same feeling as I did as a child.”
Petra encourages her grandchildren to do the same: “Whenever they are bored I tell them to put the screens away and just go outside. There’s always something to do. And now with them, I’m not even scared to go into the tunnels. With them, I’m the brave one!”
For Petra, the best time of the year on the island is either autumn, with its stormy nights, or spring. “I love it when everything is dramatic and death and birth are present. Here you can always sense the existence of another magical reality.”
That’s when there is most peace and quiet on the islands as well. “It’s almost ironic that as we locals sometimes feel frustrated with the tourists pouring in during the summer, it is actually my great grandfather who is to “blame” for Suomenlinna being such a popular visitor destination.”
Indeed, Suomenlinna attracts over 800 000 visitors per year. There are guidelines for how to visit the fortress with care, keeping in mind that in addition to being fragile cultural heritage Suomenlinna is also a home – for current day Helsinkians, humans and nesting birds for example.
Petra returned to the island for the last time in 2003 when she moved to the family villa and took over the Toy Museum her mother had started in the basement of their home 20 years earlier. Now, after 20 more years of hosting visitors from all corners of the world in the museum and her cafe Petra says it’s time for something new: The extraordinary collection of toys (collected over 40 years!) is looking for a new home. “I don’t quite know what the new will be yet, and whether it would mean leaving Suomenlinna” Petra says and pauses and then smiles like Island People do: “But I do know that even if I leave this place, it will never leave me. It made me who I am.”
All photos by Outi Neuvonen
