Workings of Workers' Tiny Feet

Since I'm back at work I thinks it's finally appropriate to post these pics. The first one was taken in the summer 2006 and the second one this June. I think the buildings testify that the place is the same.

The Kumpula Campus is build on a cliff in Kumpula. Previously there used to be just wilderness on the spot and the university had to fight for quite a long time to be able to build anything because of the heavy opposition of the local people.

Now the problem with the campus is that, yes, they've built quite fancy glass and iron buildings but apparently nobody thought of building roads to the hill. So the roads to the campus are still the same ones that led to the hill of wilderness.

I'm slightly exaggerating, of course. There are actually two real asphalted roads on the east side of the hill. One of them is so steep and narrow that there are regularly big trucks stuck in the middle. Unfortunately most of the people are coming from the bus stops in the south. I'm coming from the west.

In the summer of 2005 there was only a meadow and a small grove west of the campus. But people have been assiduously tramping up and down the hill to work and school and now the hill is filled with tiny criss-crossing paths that tell the morning routes of hundreds of people.

I have taken many different routes during the time the departmenet has been in Kumpula but lately this meadow has been the last stretch of my commute.






















The path in summer 2006.






















The path in summer 2007.

So you see, the workers tiny feet are indeed working and making a difference. And if you check the google map, you'll find that there is actually supposed to be a real road here, Pietari Kalmin katu, streching horizontally across the map. In the satellite image you can discern the path in my pictures.

Of course the road is in the city plans and will be build when the last screaming local activists have been shut down.