For these 30-odd years I have vaguely known the place's name without really knowing the genesis of that name. Wikipedia to the rescue! As the story goes, a ship master from Nauvo in the Turku archipelago died from cholera while in Helsinki for the Baltic Herring Market of 1893. Rather unadvisedly, his bodily fluids (use your imagination) were dumped overboard into the basin. Obviously, this was quickly recognized as not a good thing to do. As a precaution, all the herring boats were towed out of the harbor and guards were posted on the quayside to prevent anyone from helping themselves to the basin's disease-ridden water.
As far as I'm aware, it worked and no one contracted cholera from the cholera basin. At least, I hope so. Yet the basin was forever tainted with the name, which might say something about the dark humor of the Finnish people and their willingness to embrace an unpleasant episode from the past. Or, at least not gloss over it.
It's impossible to think about the Cholera Basin incident now without being reminded of current events, the spread of the new coronavirus (seven confirmed case in Finland at the moment) and the actions different nations are taking to control it. From police on the quayside to self-quarantines and entire cities locked down in China, people's lives will always be disrupted now and then by tiny life forms (or in the case of viruses, barely life forms), even if only mercifully few people suffer from the horrible illness those pathogens cause.
Let's hope the final impact of the COVID-19 disease on life in Finland -- and the world -- is minimal and not long-lasting. Somehow I don't see anyone commemorating it by naming some place in Helsinki "COVID-19 Square" or "Coronavirus Corner". But there is this bar...
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| The Cholera Basin in a serene mood. Photo by Matti Paavonen |
