Crazy Finnish Things: Penkkarit!!

During my trip to Helsinki, Finland, I woke up to a frantic email that I needed to check out this strange event called Penkkarit where high school students throw around candy and all kinds of crazy things while dressed in strange costume and riding in trucks. Truly chaos in the mean streets of Helsinki! I had to dodge some salmiakki during Penkkarit 2023, but I survived...barely...
#Penkkarit #helsinki #finland

[@ristovirtanen6396]

Students celebrating their final classes in school before the graduation exams happening in every town where there are schools. Each school has their own choice of theme, costumes and slogans on the truck sides. The candies just for the kids to join the celebration.✌️

[@finnishculturalchannel]

Oh, you found a good one! A lemon treat! A good traditional Penkkarit drive weather too. The tradition originates to the1860s, when those wanting to graduate traveled to Helsinki from allover the country to take their final exams. The whole town could send them away, because education and graduating from a high school level was a big thing then and often the students also moved to Helsinki for further studies as they left. The horse carriages changed into trucks in the 1920s and 1930s. The candy throwing became part of the tradition after the WW2. The candies where luxury then; a symbol for prosperity like the rise is in the weddings. Since the students represent the future of the higher education and thinking, they might comment also social and political subjects, but mostly it's a carnival in which anything goes.

[@billsaftermath5477]

Thanks for the extra information! It explains a few things that made no sense to me when I was there (just sort of unexpectedly stumbling upon this event).

[@tombroderick7206]

ending your school career is definitely something to celebrate. Younger kids love to collect the candy... and it is wrapped up so doesn't really get dirty.

[@annikarauma7628]

😍

[@companyjoe]

Lol this video is the closest I've ever been to Penkkarit and being a Finn I too graduated school in Finland and the trucks drive by my home every year. Oh and I'm 40+
As a kid we used to run at the long 30 minute lunch break out from the school yard to scrape any leftover candies but they were mostly all gone, collected by the higher graders from a school a bit closer to the route.
That Will Smith thing is a guy thinking he got the highest grade L (laudatur) and is being slapped back to reality with the lowest passing grade A (approbatur).