For me Vappu is a traditional picnic in the city fortress on 1st of May and visiting a cozy home-furnished cafe there. This year it has been also a new experience of performing in the Vappu concert in a choir.
I sang on the Vappu-concert in the Carpe Diem choir which I have attended since January. It has been a really nice, pleasant and a new experience for me. The stage is located in Pusupuisto (Kissing Park) of Lappeenranta, and there are many open air concerts.
Vappu is a Finnish holiday, the celebration of May Day. It is also a spring festival in Northern countries. The Vappu day is like a carnival for everyone – people dress brightly, go outside and celebrate the holiday. In Lappeenranta student Vappu celebration (in the old manner – Wappu) is the longest in Finland – it starts already from mid April with intensive two-week celebration activities.
Wappu program includes:
- thematic parties such as toga party (everyone dresses in a toga), Finnish 70s music party, sitsit party (also sittning – people gather in restaurants at long tables, eat and sing drinking songs),
- music concerts of choirs and metal bands,
- challenges for first-year students (fuksitehtävät) and painting student guilds’ logos on pavement in the student campus,
- sauna parties – wooden sauna is even placed near the university’s main entrance,
- concerts and picnicking in the city fortress for everyone on 1st of May.
It is also my first Vappu which I celebrate as an employee, not as a student anymore so it feels a bit like missing those fun student days.
This is my student Vappu in 2014
And this Vappu the student union magazine Aalef has published my first written in Finnish -article about Kazakh New Year that happened this March (blogpost). This is so nice! =) =) =) 
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Cover photo is from LUT instagram.
