jeny beret

First part of this incredibly long post is gonna be like general Vantaa knowledge and then I go through some references in the song. Not to doxx myself but I have lived in Vantaa preeetty much my whole entire life so I am a Vantaa Expert of the Highest Order.

So as you all know by now, Jere is from Vantaa. And I'm sure many of you already know a thing or two about it, some of you have visited (in fact if you've ever flown to Helsinki, you've been to Vantaa, because the airport is 1000% in Vantaa and in fact not at all in Helsinki) but I'm here to yap about it anyway! You wanna know every detail of that song? I'm here for ya. Have you always wanted to know why Jere always has beef with Espoo? It's because he is from Vantaa and I'll explain it to ya.

So Vantaa is the fourth biggest city by population in Finland. It is part of the Helsinki region (or pääkaupunkiseutu, capital region) together with Helsinki, Espoo, Sipoo and Kauniainen. However, Vantaa is not really a city, it's more like a bunch of villages in a trench coat pretending to be a city. Because Vantaa doesn't have a city center. There's no "downtown Vantaa". It's divided into seven major regions (suuralue), that are then subdivided into 60 city districts (kaupunginosa). So it's like... 60 villages pretending to be 7 small towns pretending to be one big city. Jere has been very open about where in Vantaa he is from, so he is from Ruskeasanta district in Tikkurila region. Tikkurila is also the name of the "main" district of said region, and that's where you will find the Käärijä mural.

Personally I have lived in 7 different districts in 4 different regions.

Now, the other thing about Vantaa is that it doesn't have a very flattering reputation. That's why this song is honestly like.... kind of amazing, and the whole campaign he had all week to get the song to trend and make it big is so cool because we're not used to such love lmao.

To get people from all over the country to hype up Vantaa is just. Unprecedented.

This unflattering reputation has a somewhat complicated context. So a very quick recap of history is in place.

First of all, Vantaa has a loooooong history, but it has not been a city for very long - hence the villages pretending to be a city structure. In fact, Vantaa became the city of Vantaa only in 1974. Before that it was basically a suburb of Helsinki under different names. As a city Vantaa has quite a working class history and also a strong presence of agriculture still to this day. That's why you'll hear especially people from Helsinki saying Vantaa is "countryside" or that Vantaa is "the countriest city in Finland." And it's not untrue, like I said, agriculture is still present in Vantaa in a way that it isn't in Helsinki or most other big cities. There are places in Vantaa that yes, definitely do look like they could be somewhere very far away from any big city. Places that look like tiny country villages. Big fields that are still being farmed to this day. Districts within Vantaa vary a lot, and some districts still look the way they did 100 years ago with small farm houses etc., (some old mansions of the Better Folk too, yes yes) some places look like the way they did when they were built for factory workers in the 40's or something, and some have only been built in recent years. Tikkurila, for example, is an admittedly ugly mishmash of everything, as it has seen new builds regularly for the last 60 years at least and nothing matches lmao.

We have the oldest building still intact in the Helsinki region! Pyhän Laurin kirkko, built in the 1400's.

It is in large part due to this working class history in making Vantaa a city, where Vantaa was built to be home to the working class that would then work in Helsinki or factories in Vantaa, or home to the farmers that would provide to Helsinki, that Vantaa generally speaking has a reputation within the Helsinki region as the place where the "lower class" lives.

And while class differences have softened a lot, the idea that Vantaa is somehow lower class or just generally "worse" remains.

Basically, in today's terms, Vantaa is considered trashy.

Vantaa is less wealthy than the rest of the Helsinki region, yes. But like I said, Vantaa is also a large place with various kinds of districts and people from all walks of life. Yes, some areas are deliberately built for the lower-income people, some areas are affordable only to the wealthy. But it's the byproducts of lower-income life that colour the stereotypes, so this is the main stereotype you see coming up a lot: Vantaa is full of trashy, uneducated, uncultured people.

It's a take that is very much based in classism but that's not really something people ever want to admit out loud. Like people don't want to admit they think less of people they deem poorer, do they, and these days Vantaa isn't necessarily even considered only "for the poor" but the stereotypes attached to Vantaa are very much those that are attached to poor people in general. So it is very much a classist take so here's to all of yall finns who talk shit about Vantaa how does it feel to be a classist piece of shit.

These stereotypes are also where the beef with Espoo stems from. Espoo is considered rich and snobby, Vantaa is considered poor and trashy. Like, they think they're better than us, we think they're full of shit type thing. These days it's also like a comedic thing, both sides recognise it's based in stereotypes (but like... well, let's just say I have real life experiences of introducing myself to people from Espoo and them looking at me like I have rabies. And also people from Helsinki genuenly not understanding why I would choose to live in Vantaa. Like it's impossible to like.) But most of the time these days it's just us roasting them for being snobby and out of touch and them not having any good comebacks because well, they can't just call us poor and pretend it's a joke can they, and this is of course a delicious comedic setting to a lil gremlin like Jere.

(In reality Vantaa and Espoo are very similar. Yes, Espoo is much wealthier as a city and the average income in Espoo is higher than in Vantaa, but the cities are structured in a very similar way as Espoo is also made up of similar districts - some of which are definitely not "for the rich.")

So okay, in the Helsinki region Vantaa is considered country, not a real city, trashy and poor. But then, to anyone outside the Helsinki region (or outside Kehä III, which is a highway that sort of acts as a division between the Helsinki region and the rest of the country, to put it in simplified terms) Vantaa is just another part of The Helsinki Region. The Capital Region. The Big City. To them, it's not country, it's not affordable etc. so to them, Vantaa is just as uppity and pompous as Helsinki. So they don't like it either.

(You might ask if Vantaa is the only one that gets a bad reputation. Of course not. But there are some cities with very similar histories and socio-economic situations that don't have the reputation of being trashy. I could theorise on why that is forever, but I think it has to do with the identity of the city/town, and Vantaa is often seen as having "failed" to become a "real city". If it was a "real city" then many of the issues would be forgiven, because well, that's just how big cities are, they're restless. But Vantaa is seen as a restless, trashy, wannabe-city that is really just a suburb of a real city, and that's why it gets this kind of a reputation where some other """"""lower-class""""" cities don't.)

So like. Vantaa kinda gets shit on from every direction. Either for being full of trashy and stupid country folk or for being full of pompous and self-important city folk. Like. We can't win.

And so against ALL of that you might understand why it has actually been a pretty big deal in Vantaa that King Käärijä himself has made Vantaa such a big part of his image and so openly talks (and now sings!) about how much he actually loves his home town.

Which brings us to the song itself.

SO many Vantaa references in here! Let's dive right in.

(I'm not going to translate the song because I know there are already plenty of very skilled people who do that here, but I'm just going to explain the references in it.)

Tiksimunkki = Tiksi is short for Tikkurila. Munkki is a type of doughnut. But Tiksimunkki is the name of a route that teens and young adults drive on their scooters, mopeds and maybe their first cars. It goes from gas station to gas station and it's just a way to spend usually a Friday or Saturday night, hanging out in gas stations and then driving to the next. He mentions two places, Rusa (Rusa is short for Ruskeasanta) and Ala-Tikkurila, the Tiksimunkki route starts from one and ends in the other.

Hotelli Vantaa = Sokos Hotel Vantaa is a hotel in Tikkurila, next to the Tikkurila railway station. It is an iconic hotel known widely for the club that operates in it called Tulisuudelma. Tulisuudelma hosts live shows and it's known as the sort of place where there's always a party going on.

Korso = a district (and the center of a region) in northern Vantaa that has a reputation as a very rough kind of place, with street violence and drug use and that sort of thing. A lot of that is of course heavily exaggerated, but it's not entirely untrue.

Moottoritie = So as you might know, the original song also mentions a highway in the chorus. In his version Jere sings that there's a highway next to our village. This is referencing Kehä III, which I mentioned before, which actually goes through Vantaa. I kinda love this line, because it's such a fitting way to hit many "Vantaa things" at once, like calling it a village but still mentioning the highway that is considered to separate the Capital Region from the rest of the country. Like idk, it just hits that spot that I was talking about, where Vantaa always falls somewhere in between. Not really a proper city but not really anything else either. And then later on he even says "Stadissa oon vaan maalainen, koska mä oon vantaalainen" meaning "in Helsinki I'm just a country boy because I'm from Vantaa."

(Stadi is another name for Helsinki btw, from the Swedish word stad meaning city.)

No metro in Vantaa = so metro trains used to be a Helsinki exclusive, until they built metro tracks to Espoo a few years ago. Which was a whole ordeal (which included people in Espoo being very concerned that poor people from East Helsinki would be able to travel to Espoo and no I am not joking that was a real concern they had). But now, out of the three Bigger Cities in the Capital region, Vantaa is the only one without metro trains. We're getting trams though!

Uudenmaan helmi = Uusimaa is the municipality that Vantaa is a part of, helmi means pearl, he is saying Vantaa is the best of Uusimaa and he is 100% correct.

Tiksin raitti = also known as Tikkuraitti, he is referencing the main street/promenade in Tikkurila. This is where you'll find the Prisma that has his face on it.

Reeperbahn = not a Vantaa reference but there is a famous song in Finland called St. Pauli ja Reeperbahn where Reeperbahn is a place the singer always wants to return to. So in this song Jere is kinda saying Tikkuraitti is the place he always wants to return to.

The most important line I think is

"Jos sä muutat muualle, sul ei oo selkärankaa."

Because he is very right to call people who move away from Vantaa spineless. It's true.

I joke, but like. It's a funny line, it's most likely meant as a funny and joke-y line, but I also kinda love it because I feel like it also calls out anyone who doesn't have love for their own home town, you know? Like are you so spineless not to be proud of where you come from? Will you break under the pressure and pretend you're one of the "better people" over in Helsinki, or will you tough it out and stand with the "trashy" people that raised you?

I think that's definitely a mindset people in Vantaa often have, for better or for worse. That we're tougher than people from Helsinki (and definitely tougher than people from Espoo lmao).

But it's also funny that he said that line because now he can never ever move away from Vantaa, can he. Not that we mind.

What I really love about this song is that all of the references are things that are part of the negative stereotypes. Tiksimunkki, Hotelli Vantaa, Korso, no metro, all of these are things that people use as "proof" that Vantaa is trashy and full of uncultured hicks. So for him to use these specific examples as things that he actually enjoys, because they are our things, is honestly super endearing to me.

Also there is something about the fact that he is performing this on this specific day. Now, disclaimer: I am NOT critisising Johannes in any way here, none of what I am about to say is meant as a judgement of any kind on him, okay? But the two of them are like embodiments of these stereotypes about Helsinki and Vantaa. Not only is Johannes a known nepobaby (again, not judging, it's just factual that his family is influential in the field of arts and culture) he is suuuuuuuuch a stereotypical upper-middle class / somewhat wealthy Helsinki boy, who has had every opportunity to get almost kind of exclusive education and has (according to Wikipedia) spent his entire life not only in Helsinki but very damn close to the heart of the city, so like not in some random Helsinki suburb, but in an area that is just simply out of reach for many.

Now, Jere, I would say is actually from one of the more well-off districts in Vantaa, Ruskeasanta is pretty exclusively owner-occupied detached houses (no city-owned rental apartment buildings there, for example). So being seemingly very firmly middle class he doesn't fit into the stereotype of poor, but he fits into many other stereotypes about people from Vantaa. He doesn't have a higher education, he went to vocational school (ammattikoulu) instead of upper-secondary school (lukio), and he, by his own admission, was a scooter-fixing, trouble-making lil hockey boy. So while I know Jere and Johannes are good friends and I'm sure there isn't like a deliberate attempt at "sticking it to the wealthy nepobaby from Helsinki" here at all, there is something defiant in choosing to celebrate things that are considered trashy on the day of the person who is arguably the most "upper class" in the group, whether Jere meant it like that or not.

Again, I don't think there is any ill will in there, I don't think Jere thinks of Johannes as snobby or anything like that (and I don't think of him like that either) but... Well, Jere is a lil gremlin sometimes, I just think it kind of fits that he chose Johannes' song of all songs to be a celebration of """trashy uncultured people'.""" It's just... funny.

IN CONCLUSION:

Vantaa is the place to be and anyone who tells you it's trashy or in any way worse than the rest of the country or capital region either is fully a classist piece of shit or has bought into classist stereotypes <3

So anyway, as a final fun tidbit, here is some highbrow Vantaa culture - Kaljakellunta, which is an annual event in which people float in the Vantaa river drinking beer. The more imaginative and inventive device you float on, the better.

....so maybe we are a tiny little bit trashy but hey. Don't tell me that doesn't sound like fun.