Build it and they will come

« The lucky horseshoe and outlet mall of Tuuri. »

I have previously lamented the lack of roadside attractions in Finland before but no longer. I saw an article in FinnAir's magazine about a giant horseshoe on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and knew I had to pay it a visit.

Tuuri is 145 kilometers north of Tampere. I wasn't expecting throngs of buses and old folks swarming around the whole 'outlet mall' sort of attraction. It's the same in the US since noone would bother going to Freeport, Maine, just for a few L.L.Bean shirts, but add a whole array of brand name outlet stores to the same street and people from miles around will come. I wouldn't have expected the Tuuri horseshoe and shopping outlet mall to be the most popular tourist attraction in Finland. I mean, it's not really on the way to or from anywhere except maybe Oulu. Do that many people really go on holiday to shop somewhere?

The shops apparently do enough business to be second only to Stockmann's in sales every year. For a place that's out in the middle of nowhere, that's pretty impressive. Vesa Keskinen, the owner, is planning a 5-star hotel and thinking big for the future. I'm starting to get the idea that Ostrobothnia is the Texas of Finland where everything is bigger. They also host the Miljoona Pilkki which is where 27,000 or so people go out onto the ice to fish and freeze their arse off in early March and is allegedly the world's largest such event.

One thing they need to work on is the postcards as they aren't anywhere near as cheesy as would befit a giant horseshoe out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe one postcard could feature the horseshoe with space aliens landing in the parking lot to fill up on salmiakki and vodka.