ACT II: Grounds for an Oath

I ought to walk somewhere from this bus central, "I'm sure I'll find something interesting" is balancing with "what's the point of being here?" within my head as I stand stranded by the bus stop. There is only one way forward, to walk aimlessly. I walk upwards, I see some familiar army buildings, which one recognizes due to the red bricks, one floor and certain architecture that repeats itself on multiple garrisons. 
They are few and far between, which makes me sorry to realize that a lot has been destructed and is in my first reaction in the phase of waiting for the future, vast plains with big rocks and gravel, waiting to be built and filled with something serving something or given a "purpose", a thought which I question and think through more perspectives now reflecting. 
I start walking towards buildings I see in the distance. I pull out satellite images, the roads and houses do not match with where I'm positioned on the map at all. 

                                                       Soon enough a path appears, watched over by a tired sphinx.

                                                   Enveloped by snow covered trees, surges of comfortability calm me down.

                                                                                                                                             The path is a dead end.

I turn back to give a second look to an object which deserves a second look: a streetlight in the costume of a flower. 

   I wish there was more street scenography, environmental architecture giving a feeling of playfulness, breaking the normal.

I walk on amidst the housing projects and half-finished streets which steel appear as forests or undecipherable fields with buildings on satellite images. I find a road leading into a forest. I aim towards an old orthodox cemetery, feeling that it might be a peculiar area. The forest surrounding the road is not giving me the same feeling of comfortability, there are almost only tall pine trees of equal height with their  branches appearing high above. I don't feel surrounded nor protected among the bare trunks, it reminds of the forest equal to Bangkok central or similar metropolitan cities surrounded by high rises and concrete. That is, until a path downwards invites me in. 

              Traces of other people appear, but why? Is it a desire path, a shortcut or is it for sceneries?

I am guided by two feelings, people have walked through the snow, maybe there is something worth experiencing on the way and the geographical qualities of it, reminiscing a sheltering valley. 

                                              The choice rewards me. Dopamine kicks in. Where will this go?

There is, from the getgo a feeling of a human touch on the geography, which I can't pinpoint more exact than the symmetrical geometry of this path, the valley somehow feeling "out of place" and vast plains appearing, with no vegetation among the forest. It's impossible to decipher what the cause is, apart from probably being some sort of military activity combined with the current use as a frisbee gold course (it has probably been a gravel pit, ridges cross the area, from which gravel entrepreneurs transported it to the centrum, capital region roadworks). I also question how I can make the most of my time here regarding my practice, so I settle with doing some selected acting exercises outlined and interpreted from the first chapters of Mihail Chekhov's To the Actor, which has become an occasional part of my thesis, practice and exploration, trying to find my own interpretation and getting accustomed to it.

Outcasts from Chekhov's book. 

Exercise 1: Open up completely, stretch out and keep your legs wide apart. Imagine that you become bigger. Hold it for a few seconds. Return to beginning position. Repeat it a few times. Keep the intention of the exercise in mind by telling yourself "I will wake the sleeping muscles in my body and breathe new life and use them." Now, cross your arms over your chest, hands on opposite shoulders and close yourself. Bend your legs and head and imagine that you get smaller, rolling into yourself and pull inwards, as if to escape within yourself while the room outside shrinks...

Exercise 3: Do the same moves, except tell yourself "I'm forming the room around me, like a sculptor. In the air around me I leave forms that I chisel with my body movements."

Exercise 12: Decide in which moment your improvisation starts and ends... For example to begin you can rise quickly off a chair and with decisiveness in the voice or gesture say "yes" while in the ending moment you perhaps lay down, open a book and start to read silent and relaxed... The more contrast between beginning and end, the better...

    I stretch my limbs and imagine myself stretching beyond the horizons and in turn contract, with my arms crossed, crouching into a fetal position, imagining the space around me close in. My imagination solves the problem by imagining the horizon becoming 2-dimensional walls, closing upon my skin. I then move on the actions of stretches and pulling, pushing and throwing. Grabbing an imaginary missile, inspired by the past of the place. For the third exercise of the book, I sculpt an imaginary snow sculpture with my body. As a finale I end up doing an improvisation setting geographical "landmarks" for beginning and end, traveling a short path to the edge of the forest. 

A constant self-awareness is present when doing these without human audiences or participants. It makes one question sanity a bit and also why you're still swaying towards creating antrophocentric narratives with logical verbal language in it, and for who you're performing. How would I perform for a tree? I end up speaking gibberish and making sounds, almost relieved to have given up all expectations I have of being understood or pleasing someone. I do feel slightly attuned and sensitized similar to how I would after warm-ups for an acting performance but cannot shake the anxiety of pointlessness or failure. I'm also starting to feel a slight dread even before jumping into the Chekhov's exercises alone in forest locations and questioning if it's a worthwhile way of approaching these spaces/places/points of interests and answer the personal and academic requirement of synthesis. 

I admire grey scale of the sky, which then brings my awareness to the juxtaposition of contrasts between the dark treeline, snow-white ground pondering on how weather and skies are part of the atmosphere, their effect on the sensorial and emotional experience that outdoor journeys offer and how to call attention to them. 

After all my acting technicalities, my gloves and shoes are wet, my artistic ambitiousness is satisfied to be able to proclaim "I've done something today". Feeling that I've gotten something mandatory out of the way and now open for exploration and whatever happens, I head back towards the abandoned cemetery. 

The gate and it's symbol tells me I've found the right place, although otherwise the cemetery is almost completely overgrown or covered in snow.

In the cemetery I'm confronted by the atmosphere all cemeteries seem to inhabit to me. A serenity, where time has equally stopped and at the same time heavily reminds the living about its constant passing. An overgrown cemetery is a double reminder, the graves of the individuals forgotten. Finding my path around the cemetery, I was hoping to not accidentally step on a grave while the imagination elevated adrenaline levels and thrilled itself with the idea of falling through a grave dugout. A possible source of atmosphere slipping in is Pet Sematary, a b-horror flick of a Stephen King story I watched as a child.

 By the cemetery gates information signs that open up the past are fittingly placed, an image of the orthodox church before its destruction in 1958 and an image of the garrison area as it was. 

The church was built in 1900 by the Russians, and the cemetery for the military hospital. The general-governor Nikolai Bobrikov, whom I vaguely remember was of national-historic significance, was there to see the church bells lifted. The only rocks I visible at the snow-covered cemetery, bordering its limits have been taken from the church after its destruction. Now it's hard to imagine where it was located or where I'm at in relation to it.

The sign telling about the garrison history affirms my vibes, the forest has been the practice area. Memories of setting up tents and lining up for lunch under the cover of similar pine tree's superimpose themselves on the surroundings. I vary between imagining vehicles driving in and people setting up camp and reminiscing upon the core memories of setting up tents or spending a slice of the night guarding (in the absence of real enemies, for posing enemies, but usually just spending the wee hours exceptionally aware of the surrounding forest).

The complex question of military service and taking up arms evokes moral contradictions regarding the my relation to the service and thus still belonging to the army reserve.

Where do should I draw the line between pacifist dreams and current human reality? Is it defending your ideals for a potential tomorrow or just falling into line with ideologies that fundamentally oppose that dream, if the method of defense itself is an oxymoron to the very utopia it hopes to be? Is it a matter of protecting what is in your opinion the less of the evils? Where do I geographically draw the borderline in case of a war involving my home country, if I hope to help my utopia survive when neither side of conflict are exactly it, the currently perceived potential enemy even less so than my home, but my home country slipping further away from my ideals with each year? Heroes, cowards... Judgement by family, friends, victims... seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth... well not so much that last paragraph.

Regarding being geographically situated, I have been specifically aware of the safety and privileges the nation-state borders of Finland and other nordic countries contain: we are not at the risk of ocean tsunamis, being in the epicenter of a volcanic disruption nor will we directly suffer among the first the life-threatening consequences of climate change.

There's also a lot of forest still around me, despite efforts to maintain and grow our tree's as fodder for industry as one of the main exports to the global market economy. I go on. I see sporting facilities which I avoid, they seem recent enough to not have had anything to do with the past functions of the place. A sign on a fence pulls me towards it. Maybe it's a remnant of the military training grounds?

                          Shooting range - Entrance prohibited, have I found a relic? Am I dangerously close?

It turns out that the shooting range is still in use, now as part of a biathlon ski-course. The shooting sounds I heard while invested in my Chekhov practice make sense. It wasn't hunters nor the military still h(a)unting the surroundings. Shooting as a task, aiming the gun towards metal board goals. Watching the alienation from the true origins and purpose of the weapons and the 10-point system for honing your technical skills, no one is hurt, no life is taken and the action is memorized, mechanized. 

From the biathlon sports grounds I take a safe distance into the forest, searching for a building I saw from a far earlier. I walk by what I assume to be old barracks turned into private elderly homes. There is something which might offer interesting thoughts in that transition, from housing 18-year old buzzcuts to balding or greying hair, a fast paced resident turnover or something deeper along those lines. 

                                                        Then a soldier, full of strange oaths... 

I step on to another plain. An internet search tells me that it was the parading grounds. I envision the masses repeating the same words across the nation, on fields like this, saluting the one highest up in the order on the grounds, cutting through the air with clear, rehearsed gestures (weapon - from the ground - rise! Hat - off the head, Hat! - on the head, put! Asento! Lepo.). The oath ceremony is preceded by the first six weeks of military training and learning about the responsibilities and rights. The oath itself is not juridically binding but the point of the oath is to tie the person mentally to the national defense. 

"I, (name), promise and affirm before the almighty and all-knowing God (in affirmation: by my honor and by my conscience), that I am a trustworthy and faithful citizen of the realm of Finland. I want to serve my country honestly and, to my best ability, seek and pursue her edification and advantage. I want everywhere and in every situation, during the peace and during the war, defend the inviolability of my fatherland, her legal system of government and the legal authority of the realm. If I perceive or gain knowledge of activity to overthrow the legal authority or to subvert the system of government of the country, I want to report it to the authorities without delay. The troop to which I belong and my place in it I will not desert in any situation, but so long as I have strength in me, I will completely fulfill the task I have received. I promise to act properly and uprightly, obey my superiors, comply with the laws and decrees and keep the service secrets trusted in me. I want to be forthright and helpful to my fellow servicemen. Never will I due to kinship, friendship, envy, hatred or fear nor because of gifts or any other reason act contrary to my duty in service. If I be given a position of superiority, I want to be rightful to my subordinates, to take care of their well-being, acquire information on their wishes, to be their councilor and guide and, for my own self, set them a good and encouraging example. All this I want to fulfill according to my honor and my conscience."

A little below, past another recenty leveled plain, amidst roads crossing the small forest, their streetlights disconnected from the grid seemingly, lies what instantly shows itself to have been a canteen through its form. Two entrance doors, a movie theatre and a large wing for dining. It catapults me into memories of waiting in front of the doors and then queueing to the buffet with warm food. That brings me to the obligatory vegetarian food day, which I was positively surprised and supportive of, even for larger societal implementation, and also to the multiple emotionally fueled opinions and debates that were had regarding it at the barracks.

                                                                   Composition of windows

Garrisons are unique places socially, in that they bring together a class of people born around the same years, albeit very gendered, slowly changing but mostly those identifying as male. Also from within the nation state borders, but from different geographical and cultural backgrounds to spend a relatively long and intimate time together. A width of opinions and beliefs clash, just as those who have a strong stance on vegetarian food. Yet one usually works around it to keep the system rolling, just as research proposes that people tend to be kinder, more co-operative and develop stronger bonds when outdoors. It makes sense to me, to reach for peace in a vulnerable place.

                                                    The recognizable Russian-era brick barracks appear

A garrison originally built by and for the protection of Russia during the European political turmoil of the 19th century and Crimean war, some of the buildings have been preserved from that architectural era. The "brick-style" was chosen due to the currents of the time. Bricks were seen to be a economic building material representative of rationality, simplicity and functionality. The red-brick style was a "no-style", as in it didn't try to hide the qualities of the brick behind ornaments or imitation of shapes of other stones, but rather built around it's own, says the building history inventory. The style it imitated closest was Gothic. 

The human borders and what we consider extended families or land worth fighting for change through time. 

The Russian brick style developed on the brink of functionalist architecture around Europe, foreshadowing the New Objectivity, Soviet brutalism and functionalism that were to be built after. 

Some of the buildings were repurposed, from magazines to horse stalls to offices, one now acting as a warehouse based on a van parked outside, and the one I peeked in but deemed unworthy of the risk of trespassing, empty and gutted. 

                          The oldest of the building strata, a wooden barrack, served latest as a kindergarten

All places contain and open up to multitudes if you find the keys. Somewhere along these paths, an orphaned bear named Elias was kept on a leash by the soldiers in the 1920's until it grew too big and was sent off to the Korkeasaari zoo's claustrophobic "bear castle". 

Eino Leino, the poet who lived along with other artists at the time by the Tuusula lake nearby, would also come for visits. He'd keep company to a brigade doctor with the nickname "Myrkky" (Poison). A story tells how Eino "Ink" Leino came to the "Poison" doctors door early in the morning for "medicine". Finland had prohibition law. Leino put on a doctors jacket and proclaimed to be a professor, offering a shot and sick leave to everyone attending, even ordering the horses oats soaked in alcohol, before ordering them to a drowsy rest in the stalls. After that, when everything was empty except for one poor undersergeant doctor still left, the Jäger Lietuenant Colonel "Sword" ordered the poet Leino under arrest of Dr. Poison for treatment. 

The same site uses the word "Freedom war" when discussing events of the Civil War. Terms echo opinions. This word, frequently used by those sided on the "white" side of the civil war conveniently forgets that they fervently wished and planned for a German king emperor for Finland while condemning the "Red Guard". 

During the Civil War the garrison was given by the Russian soldiers to the Red Guard. It played a major role until their surrender and was taken over by the White Guard after the war was over. Some executions. Not much more information exists. 

Then the buildings again trained and sent people to war against Russia.

Beware of the label "enemy" or "axis of evil", it changes and can lead to being sudden and quick in quarrel. 

Instead of the church, the first three story log house gymnasium, Monio, now bridges the past and current architecture and commands the view.