“Finland: Elk romps through central Helsinki rush hour” reported in BBC News
Also reported in the Daily Mail: “Two moose on the loose.” [“Elk” in Finland are what are called “moose” in England and America.]
“It just shows what a small rural town Helsinki is,” one local woman tells Helsingin Sanomat.
We dull men like to visit Helsinki. Normally it’s dull. We will need to reconsider, however, if excitement like this continuers to occur.
As we follow the #hirvikolari Twitter stream, accidents invoking elk — as well as reindeer — occur more often than we could ever have imagined.
They even have a special for for this — “hirvikolari,” which means “road accident involving an elk.” A tweet says there are 100 hirvikolari every year.
Even worse are accidents involving reindeer — 3,550 per year. These accidents are called “porokolari.”
An observer from the U.S. said Americans who may have been thinking of visiting Finland are probably thinking now that it’s safer to stay home, even with all their problems with their guns, instead of risking a hirvikolari or porokolari.
