Even the Finns have to journey with purpose to get to the Savonlinna Opera Festival, which has been going strong for well over 100 years. There are Londoners who think that the trip down to East Sussex to Glyndebourne is a major outing, but Savonlinna requires a four hour train journey north-east from Helsinki: an intercity train followed by one of those two-carriage local things that trundle for the final leg through forests of pine and birch, with the occasional glimpse of lakes.
On the way the rails run parallel to the Russian border, at one point coming within a few hundred metres. That border is closed now, of course, and the festival no longer has the old influx of visitors from St Petersburg. They have been replaced by the British, Danes and Americans.
