For most of the year, Finland is a quiet country. Then the first of May arrives, and for forty-eight hours the whole place looks different. Streamers, white caps, sima poured into picnic glasses, and a crowd in every park that wasn’t there the week before. The day is called Vappu, and it is the loudest holiday in the Finnish calendar.
It also sits on a threshold. At our workshop in Masku, in southwest Finland, the snow is often only just gone by the end of April. The lakes are still cold. The birch trees are barely in leaf. Vappu is the moment Finns step outside and decide, collectively, that summer has arrived, whatever the weather actually shows. The sauna sits inside that turn, the way it sits inside every important day in Finnish life.
This is a short piece on what Vappu is, where the name comes from, and why a sauna evening fits naturally into the celebration.
The saint behind the name
The Finnish word Vappu is the local form of Walpurga, the name of an English missionary nun who lived in the eighth century. Born around 710 in the kingdom of Wessex, she travelled with her brothers to what is now Germany and became abbess at the double monastery of Heidenheim. After her death she was canonised, and her remains were transferred to a church in Eichstätt around 870. The first of May was, in the medieval Christian calendar, her feast day.
That feast day fell on top of an older spring observance. Across northern and central Europe, the night of 30 April was already marked with bonfires and rituals welcoming the start of summer. The church absorbed the older festival into the saint’s day, and the combined occasion took her name. In German it became Walpurgisnacht. In Swedish, Valborg. In Finnish, Vappu.
How Vappu became Finnish
Walpurgis Night arrived in Finland through Swedish-speaking and German-speaking circles. In the nineteenth century it was an upper-class affair. Then, in the late 1800s, university students (especially engineering students) adopted it as their own, attaching the celebration to the academic year. By the early twentieth century it had a third overlay: as Labour Day across much of Europe, the first of May became a workers’ holiday, with marches and political speeches added to the spring carnival.
Modern Vappu carries all three histories at once. A medieval saint’s day, a student festival, and a workers’ holiday, layered into one occasion. Most Finns simply call it Vappu and don’t worry too much about which strand they are participating in.
Vappu is one of the four largest holidays in the Finnish year, alongside Christmas, Midsummer, and New Year.
What Vappu looks like
The shape of the celebration is fairly consistent across the country. The eve of Vappu, called Vappuaatto, falls on 30 April. In Helsinki, the unofficial start of the holiday is at six o’clock in the evening at the Havis Amanda fountain, where students traditionally wash the bronze statue and place a white student cap on her head. Similar capping ceremonies happen in Tampere, Turku, Oulu, and other university cities.
The white cap, the ylioppilaslakki awarded on graduation from upper secondary school, is the visual signature of the day. Finns who matriculated decades ago dig theirs out once a year and wear them. Caps are kept in cupboards and pulled out only for Vappu, midsummer weddings, and similar moments.
Vappu day, the first of May, is a public holiday. The traditional gesture is a picnic. In Helsinki, families and friends gather at Kaivopuisto and Ullanlinnanmäki; in Tampere it is Pyynikki and Hämeenpuisto; almost every Finnish town has its own park. The traditional food and drink is small but specific:
- Sima, a lightly fermented lemon and honey drink, sweet and gently fizzy.
- Munkki, a sugared doughnut.
- Tippaleipä, a deep-fried funnel cake of crisp golden batter.
These three appear in shops in the days before Vappu and disappear again a week later. They are not eaten the rest of the year.
Where the sauna comes in
Sauna is a constant in Finnish life. It is not tied to a particular season or holiday; Finns sauna once or twice a week as a matter of course. Vappu does not have a single dedicated sauna ritual the way Christmas does. The joulusauna, taken on Christmas Eve, is its own observed tradition with its own quiet rules. The relationship between Vappu and the sauna is less ceremonial than that, but it is real.
Vappu marks the start of mökki season. The mökki, the Finnish summer cottage, is the place where most of Finland’s sauna evenings happen between May and September. For families who close their cottages in late autumn, Vappu is often the weekend they reopen them: airing out the cabin, checking the boat, cutting back the brush, and lighting the wood-fired sauna for the first time since the previous year. The first sauna of the season is its own small ceremony, even if it has no formal name.
For Finns who stay in town, an evening sauna on Vappuaatto or Vappu day is not unusual either. After a long afternoon outdoors in Finnish weather, which can be anything from sun and 18°C to sleet and 4°C, a sauna is the obvious way to warm up before continuing the evening.
The oldest public sauna still operating in Finland, Rajaportti in Tampere, runs special Vappu sessions on May Day Eve. It is the kind of detail that captures the relationship: the sauna is not the centre of Vappu, but it is part of how Finns spend the evening when the parks empty out and the rain starts.
The first löyly of the season
There is a particular pleasure in the first wood-fired sauna of the year. The cabin has been closed for months. The benches are slightly cold to the touch. You light the stove, wait an hour while the stones come up to temperature, and finally pour the first ladle of water onto them. The wave of löyly that comes back is, in some sense, the first proper steam since the previous September.
For the bathers, that first löyly is the beginning of summer in a more honest sense than the calendar provides. The lakes will not be warm enough for a swim until June. The leaves will not be fully out for another fortnight. But the sauna is back in service, and that is enough.
Why we mention this in Belgium
We build saunas in Masku and ship them across Europe, including to gardens in Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, and the towns in between. Most of our customers will never spend a Vappu in Helsinki. They are not, as far as we can tell, missing the carnival side of the day.
What they have access to is the quieter half: the seasonal sauna evening that marks the turn of the year. A Belgian garden in early May has its own rhythm. The grass is up, the mornings are mild, and there is a window where it is finally warm enough to sit outside afterwards but still cool enough to enjoy the contrast. That is the moment we would suggest having your own first sauna of the season, with a bottle of something cold within reach. It is the most translatable part of Vappu.
You don’t need to wear a white cap to do this. Though if you have one in a cupboard somewhere, this is the one weekend of the year to bring it out.
Frequently asked questions
What is Vappu?
Vappu is the Finnish name for May Day, celebrated on the first of May with its eve, Vappuaatto, on 30 April. It is one of the four largest holidays in the Finnish calendar, alongside Christmas, Midsummer, and New Year. The day combines a medieval saint’s feast, a student carnival, and Labour Day into a single celebration of spring.
Where does the name Vappu come from?
It is the Finnish form of Walpurga, an eighth-century English missionary nun who became abbess at Heidenheim in present-day Germany. The first of May was her feast day in the medieval Christian calendar. The same name produces Walpurgisnacht in German and Valborg in Swedish.
Is Vappu a public holiday in Finland?
Yes. The first of May is an official public holiday across Finland. Most workplaces and many shops are closed; restaurants and cafes vary.
Do Finns sauna on Vappu?
Many do, though there is no single sauna ritual specifically attached to Vappu in the way the joulusauna is attached to Christmas Eve. For families with summer cottages, Vappu often coincides with the first sauna of the season at the mökki. For those who stay in town, an evening sauna is a common way to round off the day.
What food and drink is associated with Vappu?
Three things appear in Finnish shops only around Vappu: sima (a lightly fermented lemon and honey drink), munkki (sugared doughnuts), and tippaleipä (a deep-fried funnel cake). Picnics in city parks are the central social ritual.
