Mäntyviita – The Heart of Tapiola

Tapiola’s original, old town center is practically Mäntyviita; a short stretch of a road between the streets of Menninkäisentie and Kimmeltie. The first tower, Mäntytorni, completed in 1954, rises towards the sky as a bold landmark in the middle of it. It is a unique building. There are 54 apartments in the tower, all of which are small studios with kitchenettes. Each apartment has a graceful French balcony. On them, you can occasionally see residents smoking a quick cigarette or dusting their clothes.

When we settle in Tapiola in the summer of 1960, there is a bookstore and a bank on the ground floor of the tower. In addition to business premises, the tower basement has a public sauna – available also for non-resident bookings – and a large laundry room; tiny studio apartments cannot fit in a lot of household appliances. The top of the building, on the eleventh floor, holds a café with wonderful views over the bay of Otsolahti to the Gulf of Finland. You can reach the roof terrace by elevator or, if you are really energetic and when the elevators are out of order again, by climbing thirty-one meters to the top, up the countless stairs. Of course, we counted the number of stairs, I’ve only forgotten the outcome. After such an effort, it’s time for lemonade. You can also get bad-tasting ice cream at the café. The ice cream quality comparison is easy to make, because Valio’s bar is within sight, close to the movie house, Kino Tapiola. The bar offers Valio’s own products, which are excellent – except pistachio flavor. I don’t know the manufacturer of the tower café’s ice cream. Maybe it’s made in the cafe’s kitchen. They offer only three flavors, all tasting strange. A complete consensus remains among the boys on the hood on this. It’s unheard-of for me to refuse an offered treat like that, but this is what happens. There’s nothing wrong with their sugar donuts…

Another modern speciality of Mäntytorni is a garbage chute; making it unnecessary for the residents to go up and down in the elevator with their waste. Grab garbage unsorted in a plastic bag, open your front door, walk a few steps – and boom! The matter is taken care of. How clever! A family we know, living on the first floor right next to the shaft, strongly disagrees.  In summer, the smell is unbearable.  Besides, the chute is difficult to empty. Miscellaneous bags hit the concrete floor, spilling their contents on the bottom of the shaft and around the walls. When a fenced area, shared by Mäntytorni and Kolmirinne houses on Menninkäisentie, with standard fiberglass containers is completed in the 70s, the shaft is taken out of use, to the relief of many residents.

The small bookstore on the ground floor of Mäntytorni expands to the space next door when the bank, Pohjoismaiden Yhdyspankki, moves to larger premises vacated at the beginning of the adjacent block of shops. At the same time, the store’s selection also expands: more books can be accommodated, and now there is more room for magazines, games, collectible miniature models, philatelic and artist supplies and much more. I’m well acquainted with the pair of nice ladies running the store, as I’m regularly visiting Mäntykirja, exchanging my small weekly allowance for comic magazines or Airfix’s small, plastic war machine kits. Once, I’m allowed to follow the shopkeeper to the downstairs storage room. It is a breathtaking experience. To a ten-year-old boy the storage space looks like a huge treasure cave. The treasure cave atmosphere is enhanced by the bank vault left in its place. That too is full of books. Valuable books without a doubt.

The symbiosis of Kino Tapiola and Valio’s bar works very well. If there’s any money left after buying a movie ticket, we’ll go to the bar and drink milkshakes before the flick. Valio’s bar is divided into two parts: the café on both sides of the entrance and the restaurant space reserved for diners at the back. You’re not allowed to enter the dining section with a milkshake in your hands. And none of the kids want to go there anyhow. The foul tobacco smoke is wafting also on the side of the café when the bar is full of customers. Smoking also is allowed in the café section as well, but only at a couple of tables. Smoke, of course, drifts everywhere anyway. Such are the times.

Milkshakes are the best thing that’s made of ice cream. I get to choose the flavors again this time. Of course, they don’t have dozens of ice cream varieties like today; there is vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, and that awful pistachio. Add a splash of lemon soda to the mixture. Then mix in milk, put it in the blender for a few seconds and the treat is ready. This time my shake is made of strawberry and vanilla. Delicious!

We are going with Pekka and Heikki to watch the second part of the Zorro B-movie on the afternoon matinee in Kino Tapiola. Zorro has been trapped for a week between two huge stone walls rolling towards him. There is half an hour before the movie starts, so we think we have plenty of time to grab one long cold one. There’s nothing to be done, but to join a long line of people who’ve had that same idea. We barely get our shakes before it’s time to go. And when the woman behind the counter, in a hurry, spoons a pistachio ice cream ball into the milkshake, half my shake is left on the table half-finished. On the screen, Zorro saves himself from being squashed by some stupid miraculous trick. A real afternoon of disappointments.

The disappointment is somewhat alleviated in the evening. I’m going to the third show on Saturday at the local movie house, Kino Tapiola. This is nothing out of ordinary. Movie tickets are cheap and Kino Tapiola shows several movies in the afternoons and evenings on weekends. The age limit for this evening’s movie is 12 years, which is a guarantee for real suspense. I will be 12 in fall, but my height growth has already taken long strides. I rush to buy a ticket directly from the ice rink in full winter game gear, so the lady at the ticket counter doesn’t raise any doubts about my age. Hitchcock’s ”Torn Curtain” is exciting. So exciting that every now and then I have to look for my dropped ice hockey glove on the floor.

On the other side of Valio’s bar is TUKO’s small general store, Talouskauppa, better known as Kulmakauppa. There you can buy one-penny jelly bear candies and several other varieties of sweets. The craze for collecting bubble gum cards has taken over all boys and girls on the neighborhood. This time, my FBI Jenkki series hunt is going on. I’ve managed to collect the entire ”Modern Weapons” series, and I’m missing only a few of the FBI cards.  All the jaws of the local kids are chewing large slabs of gum. 

The card doubles are taken to school, although they don’t look favorably on the exchange of cards during the breaks. Some cards seem almost impossible to get. After all, I’m now only missing one, the number 44. My friend Saku tells me that one of the boys in my parallel class, has friend, living in Helsinki, who has it. You have to believe in that information, because Saku can describe the lost treasure in detail. It’s hopeless!

At this point, my grandmother’s long-term customer relationship with Kulmakauppa gives me a pleasant surprise. I have told my granny, Senja, about my card hunt. My grandmother and I wander from shelf to shelf in the small store, buying vegetables and fruits. Every once in a while I look at the big carton box, full of Jenkki chewing gum packs, next to the cash register. I can afford five packs. Is the missing number 44 among those and how on earth can I choose the right ones? There are dozens and dozens of unwrapped packs in the box. I search through the packs and think feverishly. My grandmother whispers something to the shopkeeper. The saleslady immediately comes to me on the other side of the counter.

– Only one card is missing? What if I help you a little bit? When you very carefully part these wrappers, you can see the card inside.  And nobody will notice anything. What picture is on that card?

– There should be one agent who shoots from around the corner with a submachine gun with a curved barrel.

– Aha!  Let’s take a look at a few of these. With some luck we may find it here.

We must have cracked open more than twenty wrappers. It’s not among these… Even the nice lady is starting to doubt the reasonableness of our mission.

– Well, if just a couple more.

Hurray! A submachine gun guy with a curved barrel completes my FBI collection. I pay for the pack and run home ahead of my grandmother. The card 44 has been found!

Mäntykirja bookshop also keeps a small selection of toys after the expansion, but the actual toystore is Villa-Kerä, translated as a ball of wool, next to the bank. The etymology of the name is quite easy to guess. The shop sells sewing and weaving supplies and threads. However, toys and hobby materials have taken over an increasingly large part of the store.  The sewing department is now tucked at the back of the shop. The store front is reserved for toys, with a selection varying according to the season. Here you can get anything you might need for indoor and outdoor games. The shop offers Märklin miniature railway starter kits as well as additional parts and special products for true enthusiasts. Every time we visit the store we stop to admire the fabulous, chrome-plated Santa Fe locomotives and carriages of the American prairies displayed in a glass showcase. Villa-Kerä also sells Revell’s luxurious assembly model kits; the big ones with several hundred parts. Some models even have electric motors that run on batteries. Too expensive, except maybe as a Christmas present.  But now it’s summer and I have enough money for a balsa wood airplane with a rubber band motor.

At Christmas, my gift wish comes true. Out of the wrap of brightly-colored paper, Revell’s giant box of an assembly car kit of Ford A Model is revealed. I open the package on the Eve, but I wisely close it. The sight is something different from what I’m used to in the world of miniature models: hundreds of parts, small cans of paint, an engine in its own plastic bag and a multi-page instruction manual – in English. During the Christmas holidays, my father tries to start the project, soon finding it too difficult and, above all, too time-consuming. In the spring, when my uncle’s family visits us, I present the challenge to my engineer uncle. He is only happy to take it. A few months pass. I’ve already forgotten the A-Ford model. At the end of summer, we visit my uncle’s big house on Halkosuontie. After the coffee is served, my uncle invites me to join him. In the corner of the garage, on a well-lit work table, sparkles an assembled, painted and motored A-Ford. When we get home, I impatiently grab the beautiful car in my lap and run towards the group of boys loitering in the yard. And of course, the inevitable tripping happens. If there is an age recommendation printed on the side of a box, it should be taken seriously, is the lesson of this episode.

After Villa-Kerä, starts a chain of three Elanto shops: first, meat and cuts, then bread and milk, and lastly colonial goods. The butcher’s shop also sells vegetables. I often go shopping with my mother, with the obvious idea that I can be sent on errands alone in the future. You get a taste of the sausages as well as the cucumbers. For a good customer, these are offered without asking. I’m also given a slice of sausage. I immediately fall in love with the exotic taste of garlic-flavored full-meat sausages. And no one wants a bitter cucumber.

After buying a broiler, a length of a sausage and a cucumber, we move to the neighboring milk shop. No tastings are offered here. Fresh bread and buns are displayed in glass cabinets, and when the product is selected, it is wrapped in recycled yellowish paper. Today we choose a sour bread and a half of a long wheat bun. For milk, you must bring a small bucket with a lid. Last in the line is the best, the colonial goods store. The salespeople are not as nice as in Kulmakauppa, but the selection is similar. My mother buys bananas and my favorite halva, a Middle Eastern sweet made of sesame flour and honey. Suddenly I shout out loud: ”My willy is hard!” The ladies look at each other quite confused. My mother takes care of the problem and asks us to use the staff toilet. I have a terrible need to pee…

Some years later, we go on a rat safari with Hassan and Simo to Elanto’s big waste containers. The blue-gray metal bins are bursting with miscellaneous waste. Nothing is sorted, nothing is recycled, nothing is locked. The foul smell is overwhelming. Fortunately, the trash bins are in a deep ditch behind the store block. Fearless white hunters stay safe on the embankment – like brave lion killers on elephant backs in Africa… The place buzzes with rats; fat, well-fed monsters the size of muskrats.

Hassan has a brand new Diana air rifle, I have an air pistol of the same brand, and Simo has a self-made slingshot from a juniper branch and bicycle inner tube.  As the sun goes down, the movement intensifies, and when there is still daylight, the big, fat rodents are clearly visible against the yellow wall of the building. The air rifle is a powerful weapon and it only takes a few seconds for an experienced user to load it. The pistol is better than the slingshot, but its loading mechanism is rigid and the lead bullet has to be eased into the barrel. While the rifleman fires three shots, I manage to fire one. Simo has no loading problems, but the slingshot only hits by accident. Adrenaline is buzzing in my ears as we lie down on the grass with guns – and a slingshot – in hand.  A squeaking sound of the rats can be heard from the containers. Here comes the first one! The animal is like on a tray with the yellow wall behind it. Salvo! Hassan hits! The rat doesn’t die. It curls up to screech.  Hassan hits again. The whining stops. I get my gun loaded. We wait in silence. Two big bandits climb up to sniff out their dead fellow. We shoot again. I’ll get hit. Simo hits a dead rat. Hassan manages to shoot twice. Two dead and one deadly wounded. The day turns quickly into evening. It’s almost too dark. Safari has to be stopped. Five dead and at least two wounded rats is a good catch. I breathe heavily like I’m running. Hassan’s armpits are wet. Simo scratches his nose and wonders about his broken slingshot rubber. The fearless rat killers have struck again… Hassan goes the next day to ask at Elanto’s butcher’s shop if they would pay us money to kill the rats.  The matter remains on the table.

Right after the block of shops, there is one very important destination on this side of the street, Tapiolan Yleishuolto, general maintenance service. ”We fix anything” would have been a suitable slogan for a sign outside. Yleishuolto operates in the two garages of an apartment building. The premises are barren and almost windowless, but that does not affect the customer service culture. The place is buzzing with customers. Especially during the winter holidays, young people crowd the sales section where the season’s sports equipment is on display. When I take my skates to be sharpened or a broken ski repaired, I can admire Järvinen’s selection of racing skis and the new Koho hockey sticks neatly lined on the rack. The curve-bladed, glass fiber reinforced Pro Hook is every boy’s dream. The price is just so high. But no worries. Yleishuolto also sells Koho’s factory reject sticks. They cost half the price of the original item. According to the big guys, there is nothing wrong with those, so… There is a ”rejected” stamp burned on the wood, but it can be sanded off easily. With a black marker pen, you can write anything that pops into your mind on the stick. These rejects can be spotted in great numbers on the general skating area and in the ice hockey rink.

A tiny post office is located on the other side of Mäntyviita. It serves as a post office and a bank. I have a deposit account at that bank, Postipankki. The bait is a membership in Kultapossukerho, the Golden Piggy Club. In addition to a nice piggy savings bank, the member receives the club magazine in the mail. The bank competing for children’s weekly allowance is directly across the street. Pohjoismaiden Yhdyspankki offers a Maapallokerho, the Globe Club, and a globe-shaped savings bank. This club also has its own magazine and, as an additional attraction, collectable stickers, which you get every time you make a deposit: a space exploration series for boys and butterflies stickers for girls. Better have both, many of my friends think. I also have a piggy and a globe.

The only truly unpleasant place in Mäntyviita is the dentist Alaranta. When our neighbor Paalanen’s dentist family moves out, Alaranta becomes my regular place for dental care. She’s diligently riveting fillings to my cavities… At school, they remind us to brush my teeth regularly and give out stickers to paste on the bathroom mirror. Yes, I brush every morning and before bedtime, but sweets and all kinds of sugary things are available all the time. Since my grandmother is a semi-professional baker, specialized in sweet cakes and such, I guess it would have been strange if there were no cavities. Xylitol gum is still waiting to be invented. All chewing gums are sweetened with real sugar and are gnawed by all the jaws of the kids in their chewing gum card collecting frenzy. You might think that as a regular customer of Alaranta, I would have somehow adapted to the situation. I fear the dentist more than anything. The antiseptic scents and bright lights of the waiting room make my knees tremble. Anesthesia is only offered for tooth extraction and maybe root canal treatment. Whether the anesthetic is so expensive or whether all dentists are sadists was beyond me during the Tapiola years. The doctor’s standard statement is: this is such a small cavity that it doesn’t hurt at all. It hurts.

Below the dentist, right at the street level, is another shop where painful procedures are performed. The pain is more mental this time. The place is the legendary Mäntyviita barbershop. On the door it says: Parturi – Barber’s – Raksalon, Amerikkalaista parranajoa – American shaving – Amerikansk rakning. On the windowsill, always there during the opening hours, lies a skittish Chinese palace dog. Every time a customer opens the door, the little dog barks its greetings…

Once again, in honor of the starting summer vacation, I direct my reluctant steps towards the barbershop. This time my granny, Senja, accompanies me to make sure they cut enough. The Beatles have just broken through in Finland. Their music is even played on the radio. Many newspapers and magazines present the Liverpool foursome on their sensational front page stories. In my friend Matti’s tiny room, we have already been introduced to this new, joyful popular music. We’ve also admired the stylish, long-haired young men smiling on the album covers. After we’ve got through the dog’s greeting, I say aloud: ”I want a Beatles hairdo!” One woman drops her cigarette on the floor. The another hairdresser almost does more than shaving for a client sitting next to me. Having successfully stamped out her cigarette, the hairstylist grabs a couple of weekly magazines. She kindly points out that for a Beatles hairdo I need a little more hair than mine which barely reaches above my ears. Grudgingly, I have to believe her, when she shows a few magazine pictures as the undeniable proof. I leave the barber shop once again with the regular summer crew cut pulled up with wax, while my content granny stays behind to pay for the humiliating procedure. Comforted by the fact that it will grow back into human hair in a few weeks, I run to the grass fields of Silkkiniitty to rejoin the soccer game we started.

Mäntyviita gave me my first job. Tapion Honka sports club’s swimming division holds a sale of Christmas trees on the empty lot, opposite Elanto’s bar, during the Christmas week. I’m a little shy about starting a sales job, since I haven’t tried anything like that before. A couple of swimmer friends give me encouragement. I watch the salesmanship of the big guys, and it doesn’t seem too difficult. We agree that on Friday evening I can manage the sales alone. The older guys happen to have other things to do then. As we are tying the fir trees to the racks in case of thieves, one of the guys beckons me over.

– The big ones are 25 marks and the smaller ones are 15. Then, as a friendly tip, because you don’t get paid for doing this, you pocket a fiver per tree. Got it?
– Yeah, kinda salary?
– Just don’t say anything about it to anyone. All clear?
– Yeah. Keep my mouth shut.
– Yep.

That Christmas, my family is happily surprised to receive many expensive Christmas presents. When my mother asks where I got that kind of money, I say I saved all my weekly allowances of fall. This nicely increases my glory. Even my father praises me for my exemplary thriftiness. I have bought a present for myself too. A brightly wrapped thing, in the shape of a hockey stick, is standing behind the Christmas tree. The package is curved at the bottom.