Finnish IRL

Juhannus empties the country

Midsummer Day is the Day of the Finnish Flag, and the decree keeps it up for twenty-seven hours straight. Around that, the country empties itself into the forest.

Finland, explained Published Updated 7 min read

Quick answer

  • Juhannus is the Saturday following 19 June, and the celebration is the evening before it. It has been a movable feast since 1955; before that it was fixed to 24 June, as it still is in Estonia.
  • Midsummer Day is also the Day of the Finnish Flag. Under the 1978 flag decree the flag goes up at six in the evening on Midsummer Eve and comes down at nine the next evening, which is twenty-seven hours and the only time it flies through the night.
  • The name is a Finnish form of Johannes. The date belonged to Ukko, the weather god, before Christianity gave it to John the Baptist.
  • Six people drown over the Midsummer weekend in an average year, on ten years of figures, and 78 per cent of them are men. That is the part the travel pieces leave out.

What you'll learn

  • Why Midsummer moves, and what it was fixed to before 1955
  • The flag rule, which is the only statutory thing about the whole weekend
  • What the day is actually made of, at a cottage, in order
  • The words for all of it, including the ones you will only ever hear in June

The Finnish flag comes down at sunset. That is the rule, it is in a government decree, and the decree gives a hard stop of nine in the evening for the months when the sun is being difficult.1

Once a year the same decree suspends itself. On the Day of the Finnish Flag the flag goes up at six in the evening on Midsummer Eve and comes down at nine the following evening: twenty-seven hours, straight through what would be the night if there were one.1

That is the most precise statutory fact about Juhannus, and it is a good summary of the whole weekend.

A large Midsummer bonfire burning by the water at Imatra
A kokko at Imatra. Somewhere behind the photographer a flag is up, and it stays up until nine the next eveningPhoto: MKFI / Wikimedia Commons

The date moves, and it has a reason

Midsummer Day is the Saturday following 19 June, so it lands somewhere between the 20th and the 26th. The flag decree defines it the same way from the other direction, as the Saturday falling between those two dates.1

The Annual Holidays Act names Midsummer Eve among the days that do not count as working days, which is why the Friday behaves like a holiday without being one.2

It has only been movable since 1955. Before that it was fixed to 24 June, which is where Estonia’s jaanipäev still is.3

The name is older than the church that supplied it. Midsummer at the lightest point of the year was a festival of Ukko, the weather god, and Christianity later gave 24 June to John the Baptist. Juhannus is a Finnish reshaping of Johannes, and the dialects had their own versions of the same name: johannes, juhananpäivä, juhani, jussi. Western dialects borrowed a completely different word from Swedish, mittumaari.3

What the weekend is made of

Nothing here is a rule. It is what happens, in between the grilled sausage, the first new potatoes with dill, and the forecast everybody has already checked twice.45

  1. 1
    Thursday or Friday: the country leaves
    Midsummer Eve is not a church holiday, but the Annual Holidays Act lists it among the days that do not count as working days. Offices empty at lunchtime, motorways out of the cities fill, shops shut early on the Friday and mostly stay shut on the Saturday. Alko closes for both, which is why the Thursday queue is the one piece of Midsummer planning every Finn does. A Finnish city at Juhannus is the quietest it will be all year.
  2. 2
    The mökki, and the sauna in it
    The destination is a cottage, somebody's cottage, or a rented one. The sauna is heated on arrival because that is what arriving means: Finland's own UNESCO file puts summer cottages among the main places saunas are, and the national heritage listing behind it notes that Finns sauna across the whole of their lives. The rules there are fewer than you have been told.
  3. 3
    The kokko, if there is one
    A bonfire by water, lit on Midsummer Eve, and the single communal event in an otherwise private weekend. It belongs to the east and the lakeland. On Åland and along the Swedish-speaking coast a pole goes up instead, a juhannussalko raised and danced around.
  4. 4
    The night that does not arrive
    In the south it does not get properly dark; north of the Arctic Circle the sun does not set at all. People stay up because the usual signal to stop never comes, which is also the honest explanation for most of what goes wrong.
A red wooden summer cottage among trees at the edge of a Finnish lake
The destination. Most of Finland is inside one of these for the weekendPhoto: Νικόλαος Κυριακάκης / Wikimedia Commons

The number the travel pieces leave out

The Finnish Swimming Teaching and Lifesaving Federation counts drownings over the Midsummer weekend, Thursday to Sunday, and publishes the series.6

Over 2016 to 2025 the average was six people per Midsummer weekend. Seventy-eight per cent were men. By region, Eastern Finland has the most over that decade at 16 cases, then Southern Finland at 14, Western and Inland Finland at 13, Southwest Finland at 10 and Northern Finland at 5.

How it happened, 2016-2025Cases
While swimming26
Connected with boating18
Unclear12
Accidental fall into water2

The year-by-year figures move a great deal - 14 in 2021, one in 2025 - which is what a small count over a single weekend looks like. The decade average is the number to hold.

Why this belongs in a piece about a holiday

Because it is what Finns say to each other in the week before, and a foreigner who has only read the travel coverage arrives without that half of the conversation. Every Finnish news outlet runs the warning, the rescue services run the campaign, and it is not treated as morbid.

What Finns repeat to each other comes down to three things: not drunk, not alone, not at night. Water at sixteen degrees and a sauna at ninety are a worse combination than either one suggests.

A cottage on the shore of Tuusulanjärvi with the lake in front of it
The water is where most of the weekend happens, and where most of what goes wrong does tooPhoto: Arto J / Wikimedia Commons

The words

Most of these you will hear four days a year and never again.

FinnishEnglishwhere it turns up
FinnishHyvää juhannustaEnglishHappy Midsummerwhere it turns upto anyone, from the Thursday on
FinnishjuhannusaattoEnglishMidsummer Evewhere it turns upthe Friday, and the one that matters
FinnishjuhannuspäiväEnglishMidsummer Daywhere it turns upthe Saturday, and the flag day
FinnishkokkoEnglishbonfirewhere it turns upby a lake or the sea, lit in the evening
FinnishjuhannussalkoEnglishMidsummer polewhere it turns upÅland and the Swedish-speaking coast, not the Finnish-speaking west
FinnishmökkiEnglishcottagewhere it turns upwhere everyone is
Finnishyötön yöEnglishthe nightless nightwhere it turns upLapland, literally. Further south it is only a very light one
FinnishjuhannustaiatEnglishMidsummer magicwhere it turns upthe old divination customs, now mostly a joke
Kruunuvuorenkatu in Helsinki on a quiet August day
The city half of the weekend. Streets like this one are emptier still at MidsummerPhoto: JIP / Wikimedia Commons

If you are not going anywhere, the cities are worth the weekend on their own terms: everything is shut, nothing is moving, and the light goes on for about twenty hours.

One phrase covers the whole four days and you will use it a dozen times: hyvää juhannusta, to the neighbour, to the person at the till on Thursday, and to anybody still upright on Saturday morning.

Footnotes

  1. Asetus Suomen lipusta 383/1978 - Finlex. Section 2 names the Saturday between 20 and 26 June as juhannus and the Day of the Finnish Flag; section 4 sets flying from 08:00 to sunset and no later than 21:00, then overrides it for this date with 18:00 on Midsummer Eve to 21:00 on Midsummer Day. See also Laki Suomen lipusta 380/1978 ↩

  2. Vuosilomalaki 162/2005 - Finlex. Section 4 defines a working day as excluding Sundays, church holidays, Independence Day, Christmas Eve, Midsummer Eve, Easter Saturday and May Day ↩

  3. Juhannus - Kirsti Aapala, Institute for the Languages of Finland, on Ukko, Johannes, the dialect names, mittumaari, and the move to a floating date in 1955 ↩

  4. Sauna culture in Finland - UNESCO. Most of Finland’s roughly 3.3 million saunas are in private houses and summer cottages ↩

  5. Saunominen - the Finnish Heritage Agency’s living heritage inventory ↩

  6. Hukkumiset juhannuksena - Suomen Uimaopetus- ja Hengenpelastusliitto, preliminary figures collected from media reports, Thursday to Sunday of the Midsummer weekend ↩

mökki - a man standing on the steps of a small red Finnish summer cottage with a coffee cup, a lake glinting through the birches
mökki Half a million of them, and the rules are all unwritten
sauna - a man in a towel sitting with a beer outside a small wood-fired Finnish sauna, steam off his shoulders and deep snow all round
sauna More saunas than cars, and one rule everyone actually enforces
kippis - two women touching beer glasses across a table on a Finnish summer terrace, a lake and birches behind them in the late evening light
kippis The glass goes over your shoulder before the shot goes down
jokamiehenoikeus - a woman picking berries into a bucket in an open Finnish forest with no fence or house in sight
jokamiehenoikeus You may walk across someone's forest, and pick what grows there

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Questions people ask

When is Juhannus?

Midsummer Day is the Saturday following 19 June, so it falls between the 20th and the 26th. The party is on Midsummer Eve, the Friday before.

Is it a public holiday?

Midsummer Eve is not one of the church holidays, but the Annual Holidays Act names it among the days that do not count as working days, and most collective agreements give it as a paid day off. Midsummer Day is a full public holiday. In practice the country stops from Friday lunchtime.

What do people actually do?

Leave. Roughly, they go to a cottage or somebody's cottage, heat a sauna, eat, swim, and stay up because it does not get dark. The cities are noticeably empty.

What is a kokko?

A bonfire, built by a lake or the sea and lit on Midsummer Eve. It is the one communal event in a weekend that is otherwise private, and in eastern and central Finland it is the centre of the night.

Why is the flag up all night?

Because Midsummer Day is the Day of the Finnish Flag and the flag decree says so. The usual rule is sunrise to sunset; on this date the decree overrides it with fixed hours instead.

What do I say to people?

Hyvää juhannusta, happy Midsummer, any time from the Thursday. It works on a colleague, a neighbour or a stranger.

Is it safe to swim?

It is the drowning peak of the Finnish year, and alcohol and boats are in most of the cases. The advice Finns give each other is the advice worth taking: not drunk, not alone, not at night.

Can I stay somewhere if I do not know anybody with a cottage?

Yes, and it is worth planning early. Cottages let for the weekend go months in advance, and the alternative is a very quiet city, which has its own appeal.