Summer madness in Helsinki
“For the bravest in the group. Exit Flow from the back.” “We’ve found it. It is insane.” “This is the best thing I’ve ever done.” The WhatsApp messages came through thick and fast. Then, a video of pitch darkness, rising steam just visible, festoon lights swaying in the wind. The unmistakable trill of “Bohemian Rhapsody” bleated out by drunken strangers. Separated on the last night of “The Flow,” Helsinki’s biggest music and arts festival, I’d lost my comrades to Sompasauna, a twenty-four-hour lakeside guerilla sauna-cum-DIY community space where anyone is welcome, and (almost) anything goes. For the uninitiated (me), getting naked and jumping in freezing waters seems a bizarre end to an urban music festival.
