Midsummer

The second high point of the year comes exactly six months after Christmas, when the interminable nights of winter have given way to the white nights of the Finnish summer. Midsummer, celebrated at the summer solstice, has been very important since pagan times, especially in northern Europe, where the difference between the dark and the light seasons is particularly dramatic. In the north of Finland, Midsummer marks the peak of the exotic appeal of the Arctic, as the sun remains above the horizon all night.

Midsummer in Finland is a celebration of the countryside. Towns and cities are deserted, as this holiday is traditionally celebrated in a rural setting, preferably at a waterside summer cottage. It has also been a traditional custom to cut birches and bring one birch in each room of the house. Today this custom is not used that much more. At Midsummer, trains, buses and trams are sometimes also decorated with birch branches.

Lighting a bonfire is the high point of Midsummer night. Originally, bonfires were only part of the eastern Finnish Midsummer celebrations. In western Finland, bonfires were traditionally lit on Ascension Day and at Whitsun, and in Ostrobothnia on Easter Saturday. Nowadays, Midsummer fires are lit all over Finland, except in the Swedishspeaking areas along the coast, where a Midsummer pole, similar to a maypole, is erected instead.

In the old days, every village used to build its own bonfire, as Midsummer was a village feast day. Today, the biggest bonfires are seen at public Midsummer celebrations, where you have to buy a ticket to get in. In addition to the leaping flames by the shore, the ideal Midsummer includes silver birches, maidens in national costume and, flying above it all, the blueandwhite flag of Finland. Midsummer is the day of the Finnish flag and up and down the country the white flag with the blue cross can be seen flying proudly through the white night.

The fire plays an important role at Midsummer.