Going out to Ugly.

A mere month ago, Tampere’s finest made its debut in Helsinki. Bigger, louder and lairier, Ruma-klubi took up residence in Helsinki nightlife’s central spot on Mannerheimintie. For a club known for its ambitious attempts at retaining the non-mainstream vibe that made it a favourite with anyone slightly left of centre, holding court at a venue that previously housed such meat markets as Den Kungliga Klubben and Opera is a bold move. Especially if your goal is to change more than the sign above the door.

Always on the lookout for some welcome disruption to Helsinki nightlife, I was curious to see what this newcomer had to offer. I first visited the place with some friends on a quiet weeknight after the club’s opening weekend. In terms of location and venue, the place isn’t far from ideal. The dance floor (yes, there is one. Bonus.) is centrally located and big enough to accommodate a fair-sized group of shameless drunkards thrashing about, and there’s enough seating space for you to usually find somewhere to rest your dance-wearied feet.

In addition to nice space, I like what they’ve done with the interior of the place; a row of porcelain toilets on display greet you at the coat check; you pass the framed, black and white cavalcade of Finnish presidents on your way to the bathrooms; and you sit on upholstered plastic beer crates. Wunderbaum air-fresheners grace the walls and the glass bar counters sport cracks made on purpose.

Another tongue-in-cheek feature is the smoking room, which is wallpapered with blown-up warnings from cigarette packs and images of filthy lungs. Despite that, it's always packed. Counterintuitive, but true. A special mention goes out to the ladies’ toilets as well; the insides of cubicle doors are plastered with gay porn magazine cut outs. Man-on-man gay porn. Being visually harassed by dozens of dreamily smiling dudes with gigantic hard-ons is harrowing when you’re trying to pee. I wasn’t surprised to find “what about porn for us lesbians?’ scribbled on the door on my next visit.

My first visit to Ruma was good for getting a sense of the place, and I was rather impressed with everything apart from perhaps the clientele, which seemed to consist largely of kids on the brink of their twenties. This notion was on the whole confirmed on visits number two and three, which took place during following weekends. It seems Ruma has found its psychographic pretty fast, judging from the way the club has been packed for the past couple of weekends. Strangely, it seems as if said demographic is made up of pretty much the same kids that frequented the meat markets previously occupying the venue. Maybe instead of anti-mainstream the club-goers at Ruma are representative of all-stream? Or perhaps this is once again an example of how anti-mainstream became the new mainstream. But hell, when a beer costs less than three euros, who can complain, even if it is watered down. 

Ruma Helsinki, Mannerheimintie 6 00100 Helsinki