Finnish IRL

Vappu is three holidays at once

A medieval saint's day, a workers' holiday written into Finnish law in 1944, and a student carnival, all on one date. Nobody has ever sorted it out.

Finland, explained Published Updated 7 min read

Quick answer

  • Vappu is 1 May, and the celebration starts the evening before. It is three separate holidays that ended up on one date - a medieval saint's day, International Workers' Day and the student spring carnival - plus a market tradition that supplied the balloons.
  • The workers' half is not a custom, it is a statute. A three-section act passed in 1944, in the middle of the war, made 1 May a paid day off and fined employers who refused.
  • The student half peaks at six in the evening on 30 April, when the Havis Amanda statue in Helsinki is given a white student cap and everyone watching puts theirs on. Yle counts 60,000 to 80,000 people for it.
  • Sima, the drink of the day, is alcohol-free because the temperance movement made it the respectable option around 1900. It is now on the table at the country's largest drinking occasion.

What you'll learn

  • What actually happens on the evening of 30 April, hour by hour
  • Where the food comes from, including the one that used to be served at funerals
  • The phrases people say on the day, and the one greeting that covers everything
  • Why vappu is written lowercase and Vappu is written with a capital

The drink at the centre of Finland’s largest drinking occasion is alcohol-free, and it is there for exactly that reason.

Sima became the Vappu drink around 1900 because the temperance movement was strong in every social class at the time and wanted a festive option with nothing in it. It worked. It is still on the table.1

That is the whole day in one object. Vappu is not one holiday with one origin; it is three of them that landed on the same date and never sorted it out.

Senate Square in Helsinki packed with people on the evening of 30 April
Senaatintori on Vappu eve. The crowd around the statue a few streets away is usually put at 60,000 to 80,000Photo: Kesäperuna / Wikimedia Commons

Three holidays, one date

Katriina Siivonen, professor of ethnology, describes the traditions as arriving from different directions and winding round each other on the day.2 They are still separable.

what it iswhen it arrivedwhat it looks like now
what it isA saint’s daywhen it arrivedthe Middle Ageswhat it looks like nowthe name, and the date
what it isInternational Workers’ Daywhen it arrived1890 in Finlandwhat it looks like nowmarches and speeches on 1 May
what it isThe student spring carnivalwhen it arrived1800swhat it looks like nowthe caps, the crowd, 30 April evening
what it isMarket traditionwhen it arrived1920s onwardwhat it looks like nowballoons, streamers, whistles

The saint came first. Vappu is the Finnish form of the Germanic name Walburg, from elements meaning rule and stronghold, and the name day on 1 May has been kept in Finland since the Middle Ages as the day the abbess Walburga was canonised. The name entered the Finnish almanac in 1908, and had already appeared there from 1871 to 1880 spelled Wappu.3

What has fallen away is the farming layer. The customs tied to letting the cattle out for the first time, which sat on the same date, are gone.2

The workers’ half is a law, not a custom

This is the part nobody mentions to visitors, and it is a matter of public record.

Laki vapunpäivän järjestämisestä työntekijäin vapaapäiväksi eräissä tapauksissa, statute 272 of 1944, applied from 1 May 1944. It is three sections long.4

  1. 1
    Section 1: the day off
    A worker whose job gives them Sundays free must also be given 1 May off, including when it falls on a weekday.
  2. 2
    Section 2: the pay
    Where Sunday work is paid at a raised rate by law, 1 May work is paid on the same basis, weekday or not.
  3. 3
    Section 3: the fine
    An employer who refuses to give the day is punished by a fine. Plainly written, and still in force.

Finland passed that in 1944, during the war. Hold onto that while watching the fountain on 30 April: the reason anybody has the following day free is a wartime statute about Sunday pay.

The evening of 30 April

The carnival runs to a clock, and the clock is the same across the country even though the statue is only in Helsinki.

18:00. The student union of the University of Helsinki puts a white cap on the head of Havis Amanda, Ville Vallgren’s bronze on the Market Square. Everyone in the crowd puts theirs on at the same moment. Yle’s standing figure for the crowd is 60,000 to 80,000, and the cap usually disappears from the statue’s head overnight.5

The cap is not a student cap. The ylioppilaslakki comes with passing the matriculation exam, the national school-leaving exam run by its own statutory board at the end of upper secondary school, and people keep it for the rest of their lives.6 Which is why the crowd includes sixty-year-olds in a hat they got at eighteen, and why a white cap tells you nothing about whether somebody is at university.

Then the city. Streamers, balloons, boiler suits in student-society colours, and a great deal of noise from a population that spends the rest of the year not making any.

The Havis Amanda statue in Helsinki being given a white student cap above a dense crowd
The capping itself, at six in the evening. Everybody below puts theirs on at the same momentPhoto: JIP / Wikimedia Commons

What is on the table

Three things, all of them older than the holiday they are attached to.

sima
A light lemon mead, home-brewed, usually alcohol-free. The word once meant something else entirely: a strong honey wine, drunk year round before 1300, fermented for up to a year, at the strength of a heavy wine. In the 1500s it outsold beer in Finland.
munkki
A doughnut, and also the word for a monk. Known in Finland since the Middle Ages as a celebration bake.
tippaleipä
A funnel cake, batter piped into hot fat in a nest. Also medieval, and it used to be served at funerals, because a fine pastry was a fine pastry whatever the occasion.

Sima and tippaleipä became a pair in the 1800s, served together in middle-class homes, and by the end of that century both had attached themselves to Vappu.12

What is actually said

The greeting covers both days and everybody, which makes this one of the easiest Finnish occasions to get right.

FinnishEnglishwhen
FinnishHauskaa vappuaEnglishHappy Vappuwhenthe whole period, to anyone
FinnishHyvää vappuaEnglishHappy Vappuwhenidentical in use
FinnishKippisEnglishCheerswhenraising anything, including sima
FinnishVappuaattoEnglishVappu evewhen30 April, the evening that matters
FinnishLakitusEnglishThe cappingwhenthe 18:00 ceremony
FinnishYlioppilaslakkiEnglishThe white capwhenwhat everyone is wearing
FinnishVappupiknikEnglishThe 1 May picnicwhenKaivopuisto in Helsinki, a park near you elsewhere
People picnicking on the paving at Lasipalatsinaukio in Helsinki on 1 May
1 May itself is the quieter half, and the one families turn up toPhoto: JIP / Wikimedia Commons

The capital letter

One detail that is genuinely useful and that no phrasebook carries.

The holiday is written vappu, lowercase. The name day is written Vappu, with a capital. So Hauskaa vappua for the festival, and, in the Institute’s own example, Tervetuloa Vapun päivän kahveille when the point is that somebody called Vappu has a name day.3

This is the standard Finnish rule for festival names and it catches out nearly every learner, because English capitalises Christmas and Easter without hesitation. Finnish does not: joulu, pääsiäinen, juhannus, vappu, all lowercase.

A student band playing in the street in Helsinki on the morning of 1 May
The student half again on 1 May morning, in daylight and with instrumentsPhoto: Lorenot / Wikimedia Commons

One practical note to end on, because it catches people out every year. 1 May is a public holiday and 30 April evening empties the shops. Buy the sima, the doughnuts and anything you plan to sit in a park with on 29 April, put Hauskaa vappua in your mouth ready, and do not expect the supermarket to still have strawberries in it on the day.

Footnotes

  1. Miksi juuri sima, tippaleipä ja munkki kuuluvat vappuun? - Yle, quoting Anni Pelkonen of the Hotel and Restaurant Museum on the temperance movement and on sima before 1300 ↩

  2. Tippaleipiä, simaa, ilmapalloja - vappu on eri perinteiden sekamelskaa - Yle, quoting Professor Katriina Siivonen on the layered origins and the lost cattle customs ↩

  3. Vappu - Institute for the Languages of Finland, on the name, the almanac dates and the capitalisation rule ↩

  4. Laki vapunpäivän järjestämisestä työntekijäin vapaapäiväksi eräissä tapauksissa 272/1944 - Finlex. Three sections, applied from 1 May 1944 ↩

  5. Manta sai lakkinsa ja bileet alkoivat Helsingin Kauppatorilla - Yle Uusimaa, on the 18:00 capping by HYY and the 60,000 to 80,000 crowd ↩

  6. Tutkinnon suorittaminen: tietoa kokelaalle - the Matriculation Examination Board, which runs the exam the white cap marks ↩

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
torilla tavataan - a cheering crowd in blue and white filling Helsinki's Kauppatori market square after a Finland win, flags up around the Havis Amanda fountain
torilla tavataan What Finland posts when Finland wins something
Alko - a woman walking out of an Alko doorway with a plain paper bag under one arm on a wet autumn afternoon in Finland
Alko One shop chain, one owner, and it closes earlier than you think
talkoot - neighbours of three different ages raking leaves together in a Finnish housing-company courtyard on an autumn afternoon
talkoot Two hours with a rake buys more than a year of stairwell hellos

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Questions people ask

When is Vappu?

1 May, every year, with the main event on the evening of 30 April. Only 1 May is the statutory holiday; 30 April is a normal working day that a lot of workplaces finish early.

What do you say on Vappu?

Hauskaa vappua, meaning happy Vappu. It covers the greeting on both days and to anyone. Hyvää vappua works identically.

What is sima?

A light home-brewed lemon mead, usually alcohol-free or nearly so. The name is much older than the modern drink: sima once meant a strong honey wine that fermented for a year.

What is the white cap everyone is wearing?

The ylioppilaslakki, awarded on passing the matriculation exam at the end of upper secondary school. People keep them for life and wear them on Vappu, so the crowd is not only students.

Is Vappu a student thing or a workers' thing?

Both, in the same square, at slightly different hours. The trade union marches and speeches are on 1 May itself; the carnival is on the evening before.

Do you have to drink?

No, and the non-drinking version of the day is well established. The 1 May picnic is a family event in most cities, and sima and doughnuts exist precisely because somebody wanted a version without alcohol.

What do people eat?

Sima to drink, munkki and tippaleipä to eat. A doughnut and a funnel cake, both of them medieval pastries that arrived at Vappu by the end of the 1800s.

Is anything open?

1 May is a public holiday, so most shops close or run short hours. Plan for it, because the 30 April evening crowd empties the supermarkets.