Rauma Local Customs

If you learn some tourist phrases in Finnish and come to Rauma, you might be in trouble. You see, there's an own language in Rauma - someone says it's a dialect but as it has so many differences from normal Finnish, it's really a language. When you go and ask some older people something (with your tourist phrase book) and think that you might understand their answer... probably you won't even if you had studied Finnish more. Many people who live in Rauma don't understand the language - or they understand but don't speak it. It's really a pity that only some people really know it; then there's the Rauma dialect which really is Finnish but has some Rauma language words in it. Oh well... pretty compliced to explain!

By the way, every summer the local newspaper Uusi Rauma prints one paper in the Rauma language and their internet site at www.ur.fi also has a part of "Raumangiälise" where they have some news in the Rauma language - in case you know Finnish, you might be interested to check it out!

When you visit the market place early in the morning - and in summer time that can really happen any time - you can see a group of men (of any age but mostly older ones) standing around the market place where there are a couple of coffee kiosks. Some of these men go there daily to meet friends and gossip about the Rauma news and drink morning coffee at the same time. You hardly ever see any women in that group! One of the top topics in the discussions is said to be the local ice hockey team and its success, new players & coaches etc. Nowadays also different street works etc. are said to be interesting topics.

Lönnström Art Museum organizes exhibitions in the field of pictorial art and culture. This includes is cross-artistic happenings, concerts, workshops, and lectures. The museum is locared in the centre of the town, in the former Town Hall built in 1912.

I went to this exhibit from various Finnish artist which were given a square wood plaque to paint. You could see many different views on the same canvas.

There are some Season religious chants in church. You can actually go inside and sit and enjoy local people singing this songs along with piano.

I was getting out of the church of the holy cross when this people in some little kind of precession came and because i stoped, they invited me in and join them.

Another original thing at Rauma is the *language*. Due to the influence of seamen, the Rauma language has plenty of words from Swedish and English, but also Estonian, Russian, and French languages!

H.J. Nortamo was a famous writer to preserve the language and today even the news are in Rauma Language at: News in rauma dialect

A joke in Rauma Language (about Pori citizen, of course) by Hannu Heino:
*Poris ol yks is?nd ruven haravoima lehdei ko n?i syksysim bruukata, mutt aika vahing siit vaa h?nellt tul. ?ij?n gontt n??tt?k luiskatt ja h?m butos puust ja katkas k?tes.*

*There was one man in Pori, who started to rake the leaves as it is very usual during autumn, but it turned out to be quite a big damage. The old man slipped and he fell down from the tree and broke his hand*.

When the fashionable Europe wore lace-decorated bonnets at the end of the 18th century, the well-known Rauma lace employed most part of the towns people.

The counted number of bobbin pillows was 600. Today Rauma has an annual Lace Week at the end of July.