Context

Vaasankatu is a well known and somewat infamous street in the Helsinki neighborhood of Kallio. At least one of the members of Maustetytöt lived in a small flat on the street early in their days in Helsinki when part of a prior band, Kaneli. Later, as Maustetytöt, they performed gigs, and drank, at the street's Straw Hat Pub (“Heinähattu”), said to have helped insipre the song Talvi Talvikin kanssa.

One fan told how the band described the song at a gig (translated):

It tells the story of the winter when they moved to Vaasankatu and had no money for anything and were collecting bottles to buy beer and it wasn't terribly smart.

The historically ”wildest street in Helsinki” is still known for its bars and alcoholics, and to a lesser extent its drug users and a sex trade, including seedy massage parlors. Though Vaasankatu has been slower to gentrify than the rest of once solidly working class Kallio, probably gone for good are the days when it was known as Knife Boulevard (”Puukkobulevardi”) or as the epicenter of a quarrel borough (“Kinapori”) with open and even rambunctious prostitution, drug use, and frequent knife crime and vandalism.

Still, Vaasankatu retains some edge. Just last year, Helsingin Sanomat reported that “the police and ambulance visit often” and “the further you go down Vaasankatu, the rougher it gets. Drink prices also get cheaper.”

Really, though, the street has a lot to recommend it. The Straw Hat is completely charming, whether at a table outside or anywhere inside the little dive aside from the seat next to the chemically pungent bathroom. In August of last year, the city had put nice wooden benches and furniture on Vaasankatu and closed it off to cars. Around 10 am one morning, some middle-aged local residents were chatting over cans of beer, and a foreigner in a Peltsi t-shirt found himself surprised and happy to be approached for conversation by a stranger (the culturally enlightened Jake) -- a most unlikely scenario in Finland.

The next day around 4 in the afternoon, a stout woman came in to Straw Hat for a coffee and shot, which she took in the sun with a friend. A foreigner drinking his first Kukko inside watched as she paid. He noticed that, while her hold on the mug wasn't small or frail, she seemed, like so many others on the street, a fragile being, albeit one getting off well.

“the R”

R-kioski, a ubiquitous convenience-store chain.

“a mineral water”

Literally, vissy, colloquial for Vichy Water (vichyvesi).

“the S”

S-Market or other outlet of the massive S Group retail cooperative in Finland.

“sober up”

Or “recover,” another meaning of the original word, selviämään, along with “survive” and “get through.”.

Transcription/translation credits

Thanks lilli m for important corrections to the last line in both transcription and translation, on space in "Dallapénpuiston," as well as advice on primary translation of "selviämään" and on linebreaks in first lines!