Mökki life and Moomin minutiae in Finland
Moomins are synonymous with Finnish life, like saunas, porridge and mökki (summer cottages) culture. The large-snouted white fairytale creatures feature in the Moomin books, which are published in nearly sixty languages. Moomin World, a theme park 100 miles from Helsinki, crawls with tourists come summer — some feat, in a country with roughly twenty-one inhabitants per square kilometer. Moomin merch is ubiquitous too; fans are cult-like in their collection of rare mugs and first editions. Every day, Tove Jansson’s iconography is inked into skin. And it’d got under mine, in a way. In my twenties, a boyfriend’s collection of paraphernalia from a Finnish former partner quelled any curiosity about Jansson’s imaginary oafs (and Finland).
