I’ve been living in the town of Jyväskylä for the past five years. As my departure quickly approaches, I decided to say goodbye to my home by taking a last walk around the city.

The main pedestrian street of Jyväskylä, Kauppakatu in the spring.
The pedestrian street in the middle of the city center has a wide variety of shops and night clubs. These days it’s quite difficult to avoid street fundraisers on the street.
Jyväskylän lyseon vanha rakennus. Jyväskylän Lyseo Upper Secondary School from the outside.
The Jyväskylän Lyseo Upper Secondary School used this building from 1902 to 2013. The Lyseo building has suffered from water damage and poor indoor air quality and hasn’t been used for a few years.
The Nero's stairs leading up to the Jyväskylä Ridge. / Neron portaat ylös Jyväskylän harjulle.
The Nero’s stairs lead to the top of the Jyväskylä Ridge that overlooks the city. No, they are not named after the Roman emperor, but a city architect who just happened to share his surname with the ancient dictator.
The center of Jyväskylä from above. Picture taken in the Vesilinna tower.
A view to the city center from the Vesilinna tower at the top of the ridge. If you’re a tourist in Jyväskylä, climbing the tower is a most. The lake Jyväsjärvi looks nice, but some biologists suggest that you to think twice before you eat any fish from the lake.
TNH tag on a waste bin in Jyväskylä. / TNH-tägi roskakorissa Jyväskylässä.
My favorite hobby in Jyväskylä: spotting TNH tags. There are hundreds of them all around the town. Finding them feels like an extra quest from an open world video game.
The walking trail of the river Tourujoki in Jyväskylä. / Tourujoen kävelyreitti Jyväskylässä.
A cool thing about Jyväskylä is that you can take a 10 minute walk from the train station and end up in a place like this. You can still faintly hear the traffic, but otherwise it’s easy to forget the closeness of the city on the nature trail of river Tourujoki.
Street preacher David Abreu wearing a cap in Jyväskylä. / Jyväskylän kävelykadun katusaarnaaja David Abreu lippis päässään.
Besides the TNH tags, this American man with the cap is also impossible to miss if you walk around Jyväskylä. After a youth of drugs and alcohol, David found Jesus in Hawaii. Now he’s preaching in the streets of Jyväskylä until God tells him to do something else. He’s been doing this for over 20 years now.
The L building of University of Jyväskylä by architect Alvar Aalto and the statue of runner Paavo Nurmi. / Jyväskylän yliopiston L-rakennus ja Paavo Nurmen patsas. The campus is a popular destination for a tourist in Jyväskylä.
Finland’s most famous architect, Alvar Aalto, has designed a lot of buildings in the university campus. Foreign tourists often take tours to admire the structures. Meanwhile, local students just prefer to complain about the water damage and poor indoor air quality. The butt cheeks on the left belong to Paavo Nurmi, a Finnish runner who won 9 Olympic gold medals during his career.

Not everything in Jyväskylä is bright and green. To demonstrate, here’s a picture of the building in Kortepohja student village where I’ve been living:

Building B of Kortepohja student Village and restaurant Rentukka. / Kortepohjan ylioppilaskylän B-talo ja ravintola Rentukka.
Welcome to the Soviet Union! I actually enjoy living here. The only things I don’t like are the water damage and the poor indoor air quality of the building.