Today we have launched our new blog called
We hope you enjoy this new blog and you find things that really suit you. We should have a new entry every day, so come back and look what we have to offer.
Annikki and Jacob Matthan live in Oulu, Finland. Annikki is a Finn, Jacob an Indian. They are the founders of the Findians Movement way back in 1967. Both are now retired. They have been married for 57 years. This blog is an account of their lives and thoughts as reminiscenced through Annikki's and Jacob's eyes.
Today we have launched our new blog called
We hope you enjoy this new blog and you find things that really suit you. We should have a new entry every day, so come back and look what we have to offer.
Annikki’s best hobby as an artist was to visit the flea markets (Kirpputori) in Oulu.
In the 1980s this was frowned upon by Finns who thought it below their dignity to buy second hand stuff.
Only when the severe long recession hit Finland in the late 1980s and early 1990s did the flea market culture become accepted as the Finns suffered greatly and had less money in their pockets. A popukar TV discussion program was featured at one time in a flea market
There are six different types of flea markets.
The first are the “antique” shops which sold high priced secondhand stuff which they called as antiques. Annikki did get some really non-Finnish good items from them.
The second flea market type are the public auctions which were held regularly at a couple of places in Oulu. We used to bid for foreign items as Tiffany lamps and fabulous Italian glassware. We had nobody bidding against us as the Finns were busy buying Finnish “antiques”.
Recently I sold a beautiful large Italian green glass ”goblet” we bought for €10 for €300 on Annikki’s Etsy page "Collectbles by Annikki" (not a misspelling!).
The third type of flea markets are those run by charitable organisations as the Red Cross (Kontti), the Pentecostal church and the Salvation Army. I remember the excitement of Kannan Balaram, an Indian student in Oulu, when he picked up a perfectly good jacket from the Pentecostal flea market for a couple of Euro,
Recently, when Indian Ambassador His Excellency Raveesh Kumar visited Oulu, I had packed all my clothes and they were not accessible from the container in Ruusko. We were shifting residence at that time. I visited Kontti and bought a pair of trousers, a jacket, a shirt, tie, a belt and even a pair of socks for €30 to wear for the occasion!
Annikki has an eye for art and quality and was very thrifty. She soon discovered many valuable things in the second hand markets that were in Oulu.
The flea market run by the Pentecostal church was especially good as she found good buys there, especially semi-disposable stuff as skis snd skates for the children, good plates, cutlery, blankets, and little curios. Skates and skis have a lifetime of just a year, so why waste good money buying new stuff?
Annikki was always proud of the stuff she found after spending just a few Finnish marks at a time. As they say in India “it was a good time pass”.
But when she bought something, she knew exactly how they would fit in our home! Some people who visited our earlier homes would recognise they were in Annikki's personal museum!
She had Finnish “sisu” as when she saw a good buy she would buy it straight away. She knew good things would not last long in the flea market.
Once when we were living in a penthouse on Torikatu, one evening when I looked out of the window I saw her carting a huge living room real oak centre table on her bicycle! There was her small frame pushing the cycle home behind a table mounted over the handlebars. Even now she laughs heartily when I remind her of this incident!
She knew that this table was just the thing she wanted. We have it today in our living room after almost 23 years later.
In an earlier post on this blog, many many years ago, you will find another report on Oulu flea markets.
To find the ones functioning today just Google “Oulu kirpputori” and the results of at least 11 of the popular ones active now should pop up.
Don't be a snob and live like the regular Finns do! :-)
Hope you enjoy flea marketing!
Findians