Helsinki Pride

Hey everyone!

I began my conversation with #MyHelsinki during 2023, and to be asked to be their official ambassador for Pride this year was absolutely an honour. I was treated insanely well and my schedule was just amazing, I got to see so many sides of the city and participate in the Pride parade. Helsinki quickly became one of my favourite places I have ever visited, not just because of thesemi amicable political system, their youngest president during the previous term being an LGBT ally, but the entire vibe was just lovely. Everyone was friendly and I was fascinated with the interesting history with Russia and Sweden, currently with closed borders to Russia but many of the residents sharing fond anecdotes of years gone by.

Something about Helsinki just makes sense, I think that there is a huge component that starts within the educational system. Yoohoo Tours, my guide for the weekend, took me to the library in the heart of the city. In the library, there were 3d printers, sewing machines, fully decked out musical studios, video games in booths, and free to use spaces for young creative people. To have access to that, and to see it being treated with respect, was extraordinary and made me want to query the difference between the UK’s curriculum and Finland.

There definitely seems to be a sense of responsibility and community built in to the foundations, whether that’s incentivised by things like the recycling system that includes paying an additional percentage for a plastic contained item like a bottle of water, and then collecting discarded bottles of water to then recoup that 10 cents, it works. The day after Pride, which I’ll talk about in a moment, it was like there was no Pride parade. It was perfectly clean!

The events started within the square which was down a very steep flight of stairs from the white cathedral in the middle. It was gorgeous and full of my old favourite groups, from the Dikes on Bikes to the Leather Daddies, and of course the iconic Tom of Finland supporters who I got to chat to a little bit and learn about his story. There was protest against the conflict within Israel and Palestine, but it wasn’t misdirected against themselves. It was unifying and for me brought me back to my favourite experiences of pride.

The entire city came out to celebrate, and I was amazed to see how many Finnish people are total dare devils, all of the buildings were kind of like adjacent to a rockery, so there was like huge rocks in the side of the street and people were perched like birds. I kept thinking they were gonna fall off, but everyone came out to enjoy the sunshine, which was literally all day long. I think there was only 3 hours of darkness during my stay and I luckily experienced the best weather of the year.

I got to sit on a float, and we got to see the entire city, which I loved, before heading to a picnic in the local forest, which was a meeting place for people who were at work in the morning and had a main centre stage. The acts were totally fascinating, there was a drag performer from Spain, there was a super cool punkish singer who was protesting war with paper planes and the crowd were participating in the chants. There was also a Finnish popstar who had come out as gay in the previous few years who shared his new duet, and it was just a joyful celebration.

Yoohoo brought some of the most delicious salad, it was gorge and it came from a vegan cafe in the city who’s name I did not take down but will put in when I find out, I’ve recreated it several times since I’ve been home. I ventured around to some of the stools and then headed back to the hotel. I had such a phenomenal time, and I can’t wait to share the video footage I captured as it was an incredible experience.

Thank you My Helsinki for asking me to work together, I can’t wait to do more in the future and come back!