Never Never Town
A ship’s horn is sounding, a seagull glides over the market, the air smells of bread and the salty sea. There is something very familiar about Never Never Town. Hmm, I think it’s the cosy sea town of Kotka! Everything seems strange somehow. The streets, houses, benches and even toilet bowls are all the wrong size, and city blocks have turned backwards – at least in adults’ opinion.
In this exhibition at the Kymenlaakso Museum, the whole family can play in a city where the sun always shines and clouds are white and fluffy. In Never Never Town, you can build colourful houses, visit a neighbour, lay on the moss hummocks of the local forest or sit down for a posso pastry and coffee at the market square. Just like adults do in a real city. The exhibition also has a super fun slide!
Never Never Town is full of games, memories and experiences for children of today and yesterday. So catch a bus and get off at the Never Never Town stop (which is not completely ordinary either). The market square, sports field, shopping centre, port, sea, city blocks, suburbs, detached houses, blocks of flats, school and local forest. A huge number of blocks of all kinds have been used to build Never Never Town where people can play and adventure together in harmony.
I ♥ Kotka
A ship’s horn is sounding, a seagull glides over the market, the air smells of bread and money. There is something very familiar about Never Never Town. Hmm, it’s our home town of Kotka!
A city is a place where people have settled for one reason or another. At the mouth of the Kymijoki river is an island on which a trading hub was established when the local residents wanted to take care of things together. First, there were buildings for different uses, and they later turned into a town. A space where the floor is soil and the walls are made of stone or wood. The ceiling is the foliage of trees and the cloud-dotted sky. Markets and squares provide a good setting for events, encounters and fun.
Step on the streets of Never Never Town and discover the stories and atmosphere of Kotka!
The identity of Kotka
The identity of Kotka was built in harbours, railway yards and factory halls. It is about cheering for the local sports club and spotting friends at the Maritime Festival parade. An integral part of local identity is the dialect, which is so loud and fast that some consider it almost rude. People have crossed both land and sea to come to Kotka and find a new life for themselves. People have come and gone, visited and stayed. Such a strong flow of lives lived has left its mark on the atmosphere of the town.
Where are you from? It used to be easier to define one’s home region, because people moved less. Today, some call themselves citizens of the world. Despite this, everyone grows some kind of roots in the environment where they spent their childhood or lived for a long time. The roots become intertwined with the beloved landscapes and familiar buildings, as well as the characteristic manners of the locals.
Rules of Never Never Town
I play to my heart’s content.
I laugh when I feel like it.
I am friends with everyone.
I adventure cheerfully.
I give you hugs.
I come up with fun games.
I keep our town clean.
Where do you want to go?
The bus will arrive soon, but let’s take a few minutes to talk about the road network and traffic safety! The city has plenty of roads, streets and other traffic routes. The pedestrians walk on both soft sand and sturdy asphalt. How many different places can I reach from this stop?
The increase in car traffic since the 1960s has changed not only the way people move, but also the entire urban landscape. With increasingly faster vehicles, traffic education has become necessary. This is where the school steps in as a good support: in August, the yellow caps of first-graders are visible on the streets and, as autumn days grow darker, schoolchildren and other pedestrians put on their reflectors.
For children, a bicycle is often the first means of transport that they use independently, first between home and school and then elsewhere in the city. Please remember to check that both you and your mother are wearing a cycling helmet. The popularity of cycling helmets has grown only slowly, even though the Road Traffic Act has been recommending their use since 2003.
Minne kaikkialle tältä pysäkiltä pääseekään?
Never Never Town is the place of play!
Children are always ready to play. Fun and games are like an invisible treasure packed in a child’s pocket. There is no need for an adult-designed toy or playground, only the imagination. Games are where children’s imagination and knowledge merge, and that reality is real for the duration of the game. For example, a detergent tub becomes a space rocket as soon as it is finally empty.
Professions from the adult world easily find their way into children’s play. In Never Never Town, you can play house, city planner or pastry seller. It’s the job of children to play – could it be the job of adults as well?
When toy catalogues arrive just before Christmas, children dream of new toys, and this is a game in itself. Although more toys are produced today than ever before, the teddy bear that stays by your side year after year might still be the best toy you ever had.
What are you doing here?
This is how a Kotka resident asks how you are. And if you’re sitting at a market café with a warm posso pastry, a marmalade-filled doughnut, in your hands, there’s not much you can complain about. There is lively and loud discussion at the tables, with screaming gulls wheeling in the sky. The morning sun shines over the City Hall and brick-and-mortar shops start opening their doors. Is there anything more quintessentially Kotka than a posso and a cup of coffee at the market?
Children’s imagination can invent a game out of anything, even stairs or drainpipes! These are called non-places, because an adult can see the correct use of a drainpipe, but for a child it becomes a mouthpiece. For a child, a playground is not enough; the entire built environment offers adventures and exciting opportunities.
The city is one big playground. When walking the streets, the child can involve their adult in a game where you must step only on the lines between the paving stones. Perhaps a similar game was played in the adult’s childhood.
Can I get you anything else?
What did this place look like 70 years ago? Back then, there were many small brick-and-mortar shops in the centre of Kotka. The red-brick market hall at the corner of the market square was a popular place to shop. It was demolished to make way for a new commercial building in 1974. Where the shopping centre Pasaati is now located used to stand the business centre Liikekeskus with its boutiques and the movie theatre Bio-Bio. On the other side of the city, a water tower dominated the landscape and people shopped at the Liitto store.
In the 1970s, large superstores began to emerge on the outskirts of Kotka. Shopping centres have become indoor mini-cities where the city centre’s cafés and shops move to. While the shops by the village road used to be the heart of the local social network, the café at the local supermarket can fill that role today.
Bio-Bio
Going to the pictures? The cinema in Never Never Town is showing pictures drawn by Kotka children. The pictures show buildings and places in Kotka as well as children’s own rooms. A few of them even include family cats.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What kinds of jobs does the city organisation have? The Never Never Town exhibition was put together by the museum’s researchers Jaana and Elina, exhibition manager Matti, digital producer Lasse, digitizer Tiina, intern Mira, AV manager Timo, conservator Suvi and curators Vesa and Maarit.
Strange professions, aren’t they? You may be more familiar with the professions of a teacher, a special needs assistant, and a nanny. You have probably had an appointment with a doctor, or at least a nurse. Cleaners, nutritionists and property managers take care of us as well as buildings.
In a city, there is a wide range of jobs for adults. Would you like to be a firefighter, a police officer, a stevedore, or a seller at a posso pastry stand? Perhaps you want to be a city architect and design the Kotka of the future? Or maybe your profession is something that we cannot even imagine yet.
Hobbies
Peace & Love
- Grandma, when you were young what did you do for the future?
- Oh my, we were involved in organising the first schoolchildren’s fund-raising procession in Kotka in 1967! We wanted to help people in developing countries, and the money from the first fund-raising was spent on aid for Peru. We felt important when we were allowed to skip school and when the money we had collected helped others. Our parents and grandparents seemed so old-fashioned and it felt like they weren’t interested in the problems of the world. You young people today think the same way, don’t you?
- Sometimes, but everyone thinks that helping others is important. But what worries me now is the wars that cause great suffering especially for children. Why are adults so stupid that they want to go to war?
- Not everyone is. Take a look at this photo I have in my album. We held a demonstration against the Vietnam War in Hamina when the US ambassador visited the city in 1970. What could we do together to help children whose lives have been turned upside down by war in different parts of the world?
Hanging out with friends
Adults, do you find loitering teenagers annoying? They have outgrown their old playgrounds and are now looking for a new place – but they are not yet old enough to sit at the market café.
Since the 1950s, young people have spent time in the city centre, at the movies, in bars and walking around aimlessly. Back in the day, not everyone had their own record player, which is why they had to go to a music store to listen to music. Walking around the city centre block in small groups was a favourite activity for young people in Kotka for several decades.
Young people have always spent time in shopping centres and street corners, as they are places where people of the same age gather. Hanging out with others is about moving on from childhood to being a teenager which may appear to outsiders, especially adults, as aimless loitering.
Fashion lovers
Youth fashions are created on the street, influenced by the ideas, originality and even commercialism of young people. People want to both stand out and emphasise how they belong to a certain group. Every age group has their own thing.
In the 1960s, people went from Kotka to London or Stockholm, and brought back a hippie tunic and a shoulder bag. Everyone wore James jeans and had a scarf tied around their neck.
The pay from the first ever summer job was used to purchase not only clothes but also a cassette player. Clothes were bought after careful consideration – there was no notion of fast fashion or the problems it would create in the future.
Why are port seagulls always laughing?
The port of Kotka used to be a space open to all, which meant that it was familiar to the city residents. Whenever relatives or other guests came to visit, they were shown the ships in the port. For the little boys, the port – even with all its dangers - was a wonderland of adventures. In the harbour, you could pretend to be Robin Hood or Tarzan while balancing on the ship ropes.
I wonder whose grandfather is the boy in this photo taken in the 1950s? You can’t play on ship ropes anymore but, in Never Never Town, you can play like boys in the old days. Balance on the ropes or climb up a crane!
When the boys grew up a little, they went to the sailors to buy matches and tobacco. For girls, on the other hand, the port was less familiar as those who visited it could get a bad reputation – some deservedly and some less so.
A ship comes loaded with paper
Kotka is a true seaport! In the old days, cargo ships were loaded and unloaded near the city centre. Boards, pulp and locally manufactured high-quality paper were shipped from Kotka to different places around the world.
Approximately 2,000 ships visited the port of Kotka every year, which is why there were foreign sailors moving around the city every day. Foreigners could get some weird looks, but the locals were more than happy to buy the oranges, bananas, coffee, chocolate and gum that came with the ships. Nothing made a child happier than when the father brought home a toy bought from a sailor – no one else had a similar toy! The ships also brought with them groovy music and harbour culture that made the atmosphere in Kotka international.
Keep Kotka clean!
There’s so much plastic everywhere that it causes serious problems for the aquatic environment. Large pieces of plastic waste end up on beaches and floating waste boards while smaller pieces of waste end up in animals’ diets and even in waterfowl eggs.
Microplastics mean small pieces of plastic waste that are created when things like sweet and ice cream wrappers break down into smaller pieces. So go on a rubbish hunt: pack a thermos bottle full of cocoa and collect litter from nature and the city streets!
The storm water inlet on your home street is there to direct snow and rain back to nature without purifying them. Therefore, the inlet is not a rubbish bin, as the cigarette butts dropped there end up in waterways. Protecting the Baltic Sea starts with you and your local storm water inlet.
Have you heard of Rämsänkylä?
Rämsänkylä was a residential area on the island of Kotkansaari. It had no detailed plan and was established naturally. Modest wooden houses dotting the area had tiny one-room homes, where people lived in close quarters with their families and subtenants. The small rented houses of Rämsänkylä were demolished in 1910 to make way for the growing town.
No matter how small, they were still homes! Not everyone has one, as there are still homeless people in Finland. Homelessness is caused by inequality and many other social problems. Everyone has the right to a worthwhile life, which includes housing. In 2022, there were 25 homeless people in Kotka.
One more thing: In the 1950, one of the city blocks had a wooden waste container in its courtyard. The container soon became a kingdom of rats. Neighbourhood boys tried to eliminate the creatures with their catapults but with no success. A few years later, an incinerator was built in the yard. The residents could put their waste there and burn it, which solved the rat problem. Nowadays, fortunately, waste is properly sorted.
Nutikka, an ecological innovation of its time
Look at the beautiful details of that house! Its decorative style is called Jugendstil, and the house is well over a hundred years old. But even older is that wooden house over there! Its frame is made from pieces of board called ‘nutikka’, which sawmill employees could get from work. The house still stands, as if forgotten when the other wooden houses around it were demolished to make way for blocks of flats.
During the war, numerous buildings around it were bombed and, after the war, many families were looking for a new home. The apartments were small, storage space was scarce and the interior was modest. People owned only a fraction of the clothes and stuff they have today.
On the other hand, there were a lot of residents! Large flocks of children ran in the courtyards of block of flats. The large laundry drying racks in courtyards served as climbing frames and, in wintertime, as a base for ice skating. When there were a lot of people living in the same area, visiting each other was a significant part of the culture: you could visit friends without any major plans.
Keskustan kerrostalo
Do the neighbourhood cats swing in the playground at night?
Children’s happy voices ring out from behind the garden fence, and someone rides a bicycle on the street. A bus picks up teenagers and takes them to the city centre. You are now in the suburbs! They are kind of a town of their own and kind of not at the same time. Street lamps shine bright, but the great tit will not let them disturb its song. As spring progresses, the blackbird adds its notes to the tune.
In the 1950s, cities began to grow, and, on the island of Kotkansaari, the town grew until it reached the coastline. Then came the suburbs where detailed plans were made for blocks of flats, terraced houses and detached houses as well as shops and schools. A good suburb is a peaceful and community-oriented residential area where everything you might need, be it the services of the city or the peace of nature, is nearby.
For children, the suburb is the centre of their lives. Each city district is like its own little village, where children’s everyday life revolves around home, school and hobbies. Growing up in such a child-friendly environment is a joy. It takes a village to raise a child, and the parents of today use WhatsApp to look after the children of the neighbourhood.
Playhouse dreams
Margarita’s father and grandfather built the 4-year-old girl a lovely little playhouse. It is the home of dolls and teddy bears who like to drink coffee and eat pancakes and cakes baked by Margarita. Isn’t that cupboard in the play kitchen beautiful?
Sometimes Margarita’s friend Eeva-Liisa comes to visit. Eeva-Liisa’s doll has just gone to sleep in the playhouse bed. The doll came to Kotka from Sweden and is quite astonishing, as its eyes close and it can be bathed. The fine teddy bear is also quite the cosmopolitan: it is from London and has travelled with Eeva-Liisa all the way to New Zealand and back.
The dolls of Margarita and Eeva-Liisa get to go outdoors even in winter when the little mothers place them on a sled. Margarita’s mother and aunts have sewn pretty clothes for the girls’ dolls, because the sewing machine in the playhouse is only suitable for pretend sewing.
Why don’t animals live in houses?
Shush! Do you hear that? The noise of traffic fades away and birds sing in the trees. You have entered a local forest. People say that forests have a calming effect, which is why you should leave the suburb and explore forest paths. The moss hummocks of this forest invite you for a nap or to read a book.
While enjoying nature is about feeling carefree, you still need to be responsible when it comes to litter! This means that you don’t bring to the forest anything you cannot then take back with you. An empty candy bag abandoned by a forest path will stay and harm nature for more than a century!
There are many types of dwellings in a forest: the great tit nests in a nook or in a man-made birdhouse. If something is built shoddily, people might say “it’s like magpie’s nest”, even though magpies use sticks to construct masterful roofs for their nests. Squirrels build spherical nests high up on a pine or spruce. But who in the local forest builds with branches, construction waste and cardboard boxes? It’s the children who have built a hut!
Is there ice cream packaging hiding in the sawdust of post-war houses?
After the Second World War, the banging of hammers could be heard on the outskirts of almost every Finnish city. New suburbs were established.
This is how post-war same-model detached houses (rintamamiestalo) were built: on top of a concrete basement floor was erected a load-bearing frame made from boards. The walls were boarded on both sides and cavities were filled with sawdust. There was a chimney in the middle of the house and it was surrounded by a hallway, two rooms and a kitchen. Bathrooms and toilets were located in an outbuilding.
The post-war detached houses symbolise a new era and a democratic society where both working-class families and teachers’ families could live in similar houses. The road to modern life was paved with sawdust.
Now it's your turn to build a colourful house in Never Never Town!
Is it possible to walk to school on your hands?
The school bell is ringing! Children run to school, as the first lesson of the day will soon begin. School is not just a place for children and young people to complete their compulsory education that was introduced over a hundred years ago. The school is also a world of its own, and the daily journey to school engages children in their home region.
Perhaps your grandfather has told you stories about how they used to ski to school in both summer and winter? Pupils have always used different means of transport to reach their school: on foot, by bus, bicycle, train, taxi, moped, skateboard and scooter. Sometimes, they might spot an animal on their way to school, at least a city fox, a squirrel and maybe some others?
Even years later, you can still remember every bend of your route to school, all the tree stumps and big rocks that looked huge when you yourself were still small. Your way to school is where you make friends and memories, laugh and joke around and maybe sometimes get a little fright. The way from school to home might be more winding than the route in the morning, as children play with their friends or hang out at sports fields and libraries.
Can a detailed plan be used to decide that there will be an amusement park in our backyard?
This is how a city is built: first, a master plan is prepared to determine whether a particular strip of land will house an industrial area, residential area or something else. After this comes a detailed plan that decides what kinds of houses can be built in the area. The planning also decides which sites of natural and cultural-historical value will be preserved, even if new things are built around them.
The building styles and planning solutions of different eras can be seen in perfect harmony in the city. What kind of city of the future would you design to make it a healthy and comfortable place to live for everyone? Good urban planning supports sustainable development with the aim of keeping the world beautiful and habitable for future generations.
Do architects also design bouncy castles?
When a detailed plan is complete, it is time to build houses. Planning regulations and building guidelines ensure that the buildings fit their environment. For example, only two-storey houses or houses of a certain colour can be allowed in certain areas to achieve a pleasant and cohesive look. Have you noticed whether the houses in your neighbourhood look the same?
The work of an architect is diverse and demanding, as the architect needs to take into account things such as the direction of daylight, the different materials needed for the building and the connections between spaces. The work starts with the planning phase where the purpose of the building is discussed. Based on this discussion, the architect draws up drafts of the spaces and their placement. Residents can be involved in the planning work: this is called interactive planning.
It’s important to take into account the characteristics of the environment when designing a house. A well-made plan proceeds to the actual construction, and every new building always changes its environment.
Karhulan kanjoni
Karhulan kauppala muotoutui liikenneympyrästä lähtevien teiden varsille. Vuoden 1954 opaskartan tiet ovat monin paikoin ajan saatossa muuttuneet, mutta jotkin maaston piirteet ovat yhä ennallaan. 1960-luku oli monenlaisten muutosten vuosikymmen, mutta silti ihan kaikkea vanhaa ei purettu uuden tieltä, vaikka uusi nähtiinkin parempana.
Kaupunkisuunnittelussa on aina huomioitu tulevaisuuden tarpeet ja rakennustekniikan kehitys. 1970-luvulla Karhulaan rakennettiin moottoritie, joka kulkee kanjonissa Otsolan suoran paikalla. Parikymmentä vuotta myöhemmin kanjonin päälle suunniteltiin parkkihallia ja liiketiloja, mutta nämä visiot jäivät pahvisiksi suunnitelmiksi pienoismalliin. Niinpä hurautamme yhä autolla kanjonia pitkin Karhulan läpi vain taivas kattona.
The Ruotsinsalmi sea fortress, the port, the forest industry… They have all left a strong mark on the urban structure of Kotka. Take a look at the screen to see how the urban structure of Kotkansaari has changed over time.
You’re it!
The joyful shouts of children echo around the courtyard. One after another, the tagged one becomes it and, as the game nears its end, the only one who has not been tagged is the fastest runner in the courtyard.
From the names of yard games, children already know how to play, and everyone knows the rules of both tag and dodgeball by heart. When playing, you often run around a lot and need many players. This is no problem in the courtyard of a block of flats! In winter, in the snowy courtyard, it is time for different games. Some places where children play are forbidden, but who among us has not got wet in a muddy ditch despite our mother’s warnings!
Courtyards formed between blocks of flats have always been an important part of suburban living. The shared adventures of children living in the same building can spread to many places, such as sandpits, swings, staircases and basements, and they will be remembered for a long time. More places for hiding from the watchful eyes of adults can be found in a local forest. Have you already been there?
How were the children dressed?
Apron dresses protected young children’s clothes until the 1960s. Yellow and brown were the colours of the 1960s and 1970s. The sailor suit has been a popular children’s garment since the mid-1800s.
Siblings were bought red coats from Sokos in 1971, and the coats were admired at school. At the beginning of the 1900s, few children had actual outerwear; instead, they wore layers of woollen clothes. The green overalls, sewn by an aunt, are from the 1950s. In the next decade, children’s waterproof dungarees were like a uniform for children’s outdoor games.
Fairytale characters became part of children’s clothes. In 1957, Pentti’s aunt knit him a sweater to which epaulettes, inspired by the TV series “The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin”, were attached. In the early 2000s, Pokémon were Eetu’s favourites.
How many homes are there in Kotka?
Your own keys and belongings, familiar scents. Doesn’t that sound like home? A home is where daily life happens. Families, life situations and housing needs are different, which means that there are many types of homes.
When we come home, we expect it to be the same: a safe place where you feel good and can be just the way you are. For children, home might mean their own room that has all their things and which they miss when they’re away. For adults, it may be a house with a garden that expands into the neighbourhood and city. Not everyone has their own home, which may be due to a variety of reasons.
A home can be a state of mind. Adults may still refer to their childhood home as home, even if they already live elsewhere. The feeling of home can already develop when you’re planning your home in a specific place. You can also find a home in things that are important to you, such as religion and art, or near a loved one.
So step into the daily life of Never Never Town.
Why are blocks of flats like giant Lego structures?
Someone is walking around upstairs, and it sounds like people next door are using their vacuum cleaner. The entrance door downstairs clicks shut and the brisk steps of your neighbour echo in the staircase. In a block of flats, people live side by side and on top of each other on at least two floors. The staircase is a common space through which the residents slip into their own flats that have the same floor plans.
In the early 1900s, flats were intended to make housing more logical and living spaces more clearly defined. The first blocks of flats were built from stone. With urbanisation, more space was needed. At Kotka in the 1960s and 1970s, the construction of the Karhuvuori suburb began in the middle of a pine forest. The suburb was established rapidly, as the houses were built using concrete elements.
The ideal house has space for its residents’ needs, i.e. resting, being together, doing housework and washing. This type of clearly defined home was a way to reach both the middle class and a feeling of belonging.
Teen Life!
Piia has just gone to confirmation camp and found her first boyfriend, Marko, who attends a neighbouring school. The teen couple listen to music in Piia’s room and read teen magazines together. Marko brought a few new posters to decorate the walls of the room.
The walls are already decorated with friends’ photographs. Piia got a camera for Christmas, and taking pictures has become a new hobby in addition to playing sports at the local sports club Karhulan Veikot. Consideration is key when it comes to film photography – the roll only has room for 24 photos.
Good Night.
Having a separate room for sleeping is a fairly new invention. Before modern blocks of flats, people slept in their farmhouse living rooms, and in cities whole families shared a small stove room where the floor was covered with bedding every night. Bedrooms became more common when people wanted to have designated spaces for each aspect of life. Bedroom furniture has remained relatively unchanged over the decades: beds, bedside tables and cabinets for storing clothes. Modern bedrooms may also contain a space for remote work.
That ‘70s Show
Take a look at Kirsti and Tauno Mussalo’s newly purchased sofa furniture! There’s no better place for relaxation after work, and the children can use the pillows for their games.
The eldest daughter, Tiina, just became the first in their family to complete the matriculation examination. She has now started her studies at the University of Helsinki. The old sofa found a new home in Tiina’s student flat. Kirsti is proud of her daughter and thinks what a good decision it was to buy encyclopaedias for Tiina when she was young, even though they seemed expensive at the time.
Ouch! Kirsti steps on Pekka’s toy car. The cars tend to be left all over the living room floor, even though Kirsti has reminded Pekka that he should put his toys away after he has finished playing with them. Still, Kirsti is happy that not all their children have yet flown the nest. Pekka has placed some of his toys on the bookshelf where they can be displayed along with Tiina’s student photos!
Living room
Back in the day, large manors could have a hall, dining room, guest room, master bedroom and library – in a modern flat, all these could fit in one living room! The name of the living room already tells you what use the space is intended for: comfortable living. Therefore, sofas and armchairs have retained their place as key features of living rooms for decades. Instead, bookshelves and record towers have disappeared in the digital age as books, discs and films have moved to streaming services.
Television
In the old days, there were no TV programmes around the clock, and until 1986, there were only two channels. Sometimes people just looked at the test card. You could change channels by pressing a button on the television.
The kitchen is the heart of the home
If you were a mother like Anneli here, what would you cook for your family today? It’s nearly five o’clock, and the father of the family, Martti, will soon be home from work. Tanja and Tomi are already waiting for their dinner.
Tanja likes casseroles of sliced potato, onion and Baltic herring, but Tomi would rather eat sausage sauce and potatoes. As side dishes, Anneli has placed on the table grated carrot and crispbread as well as cold milk. Today is Tanja’s name day and the family will celebrate it with a delicious dessert: wonderfully soft whipped pudding made from lingonberries they’ve picked themselves.
After the meal, the mother stays to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen, the father lies down on the sofa and the children go to the courtyard to play with the other children in the block of flats. Soon, a large group of children will be in the courtyard, playing together. The game starts N-O-W!
Kitchen
Before the modern ideals of housing, food was prepared in a stove room or a farmhouse living room where all other aspects of live also took place. Since the early 1900s, architects have designed dwellings that have their own space suitable for cooking, the kitchen. In blocks of flats, the kitchen can be a small kitchenette, a room of its own or connected to the living room. The long history of farmhouse living can still be heard in the Finnish word tupakeittiö, which means that the kitchen and the living room are in the same space.
Luxury – bathroom
Here, the newly-wed young couple Pirjo and Harri Hakala are building their life together. They bought their first home in the new blocks of flats by Never Never Hill. They spent their childhoods in Kotkansaari in blocks of wooden houses where the toilet was at the other end of the courtyard and the residents bathed in the shared sauna once a week.
Now, Pirjo admires her brand new bathroom and decides to run herself a warm bath as soon as they’ve finished unpacking. Harri thinks that he would rather go to the housing company’s communal sauna at a time he has reserved rather than lie in the bathtub.
However, the bathtub will come in handy when the couple’s firstborn child arrives. In addition, the bathroom is full of other interesting things. In fact, the walls are covered with a product from Hannu’s workplace – the ENSO tile. Harri looks at the results of his own work with a smile and thinks that the tile is just as beautiful, durable and convenient as promised in the advertisements.
The biggest toilet bowl in Kotka – do you dare to get flushed away?
After moving into blocks of flats, residents got access to such modern amenities such as running water, bathrooms and toilets. Previously, people washed at a washing table or in the sauna at the back of the yard. They had to carry the water they needed for washing, and they could only have running water if the person carrying the water actually ran. The toilets were located in outhouses, which is why people had chamber pots in their bedrooms. In wealthy families, carrying water and emptying chamber pots were duties reserved for servants, but modern families living in blocks of flats no longer needed a servant. Poop could be just flushed away.
Toilet bowls cannot handle just anything! Only human waste, toilet paper and ordinary washing water can be flushed into the sewer. Anything else might block the pipes and create bad smells. Never Never Town has a strange toilet bowl than can flush away children. This toilet bowl does not accept anything else, especially adults.
Where does flushed poop go?
We can’t survive without water! We use water for drinking, cooking, washing and doing laundry. Factories use water in their processes. Each of us uses about 120 litres of clean water per day. Save water! Favour quick showers. Avoid rinsing dishes under running water.
The domestic water used in South Kymenlaakso comes from the treatment plant for artificial groundwater in Kouvola. There, harmful elements such as bacteria and fluoride are removed from the water. After that, the water is disinfected with chlorine. The treated water is directed to the water supply network and to water towers that are used to balance the variation in consumption.
Did you know that your poop travels through pipes and ends up in Mussalo? There, the waste water treatment plant purifies the waste water of Kotka residents. When waste water is screened, poop and toilet paper and quite a lot of things that should not be put in the toilet are removed from the water. Poop continues as screenings to Kotkan Energia for incineration, which in turn heats local houses – including yours. Purified waste water, on the other hand, travels along the outlet pipe to the Baltic Sea.
Grandpa's House
When they carried this chest of drawers up the stairs of their block of flats, Unto Mulli hoped that this would be the last time he moved. The first move came when Unto and his new bride Pirkko, who has now just passed away, moved from their home island in the Gulf of Finland to Kotka as evacuees.
Their first home together in Kotka was a small stove room from which they moved to a post-war element house they had built themselves. Decades passed and now the grandchildren visit Grandpa Unto in a block of flats. Fortunately, Unto and Pirkko’s children and their families visit often, and with them Unto can still reminisce about the good old days wearing woollen socks knitted by Grandma Pirkko.
Otherwise, life in a block of flats is quite grey. The neighbours are nice though and there are always people, like Harri from downstairs with whom Unto can chat on the benches of the building’s shared sauna.
Living in a Block of Flats is a Luxury
Well, thinks the family Kiiski, living in a block of flats is a luxury! Salme, who works at the bank, and her husband Eero, who works as the head teacher of the local upper secondary school, are pleased that they were able to have their own bedroom when they moved into their new flat. They even purchased new furniture for the bedroom. The ten-year-old twins Anu and Mika also got their own small rooms, so what else could the family wish for!
The family do not need to spend money on construction; instead, Salme can spend their Finnish marks on interior decoration while Eero takes care of their recently bought car. It’s a Volvo, a reliable family car and safe even in winter conditions. Whenever the family drives on holiday, the children collect the registration numbers of the cars they see on the way and the cassette player plays the song of the local star Junnu.
Sleepover
Behind this closed door, little girls are giggling even though it’s the middle of the night! Marja Miettinen has invited her friend and neighbour Anu to her home for a sleepover. The girls are using torches to read comics, and they still want to play with their dolls. Soon, the dolls fall asleep in the little mothers’ arms and, soon after, the girls are asleep too.
Marja’s mother Tuula stops by the children’s room to check that the girls are sleeping, and adjusts their blankets. It is so nice that the children have already made new friends instead of missing the ones that they left behind in their old neighbourhood in Savo.
