Story of Krapi
Krapi’s Story
I remember, there was a large dinner bell atop Mankeliaitta Granary. When the bell rang, it was time for food. I sat on the kitchen stairs and watched as people of the farm arrived to the main building from different directions like ants, each along their own path; from Mankeliaitta, from the barn, from the pigpen, from the smokehouse, and in the summertime, all the way from the hayfields.
All the people gathered around the shared dinner table and discussed the day’s most important and the most relevant events as well as personal matters. In that moment, when people gathered around the grand table of Krapi, everyone was part of one large family. From there, every person returned to their own tasks.
Created more than one hundred years ago, Krapi provided the surroundings for recently urbanized Finnish persons to have breathing moments and all inclusive awe-filled experiences. Krapi maintained the lands and raised livestock, made food from their own farm’s ingredients and took good care of the guests arriving to the estate.
Years and decades have passed, but nothing has changed. Krapi’s essence is still the same. It lives on in the encounters shared by people, entwined between the Finnish banquet table and the stories told around it. Picture in your mind the Krapi homestead’s rye-bread crafted with the original leaven from 1911. Breathe in the scent of this exclusive rye-bread made with ingredients from neighbouring fields and feel the warmth of it in your mouth. Gaze upon the melting butter and let your mind ponder upon a story you would like to tell or hear next time you gather about that grand dining table. This is all still possible today, as the farm’s facilities are filling up with guests who gather in the main building around that banquet table and the stories shared there.
Krapi’s everyday life is genuine, Finnish, caring and communal. Just the kind that I remember Krapi to be as long as it has existed.
– Pekka Holma, CEO & Talonpoika (Ancient title for Finnish farmer)
From the banquet table rises the genuine renaissance of eating
Modern banquet tables are like all of Finland’s fields, forests and aqua terrains in one – or several! – charming meals. The table’s legs stand firm upon tradition’s foundational stone – high quality food assortment strives toward the future. The banquet table is a piece of Finland at its best.
Krapihovi’s dining table serves seasonal tastes in an authentic farmhouse environment right next to the capital. Celebrating at a generous banquet table is really today’s thing: freedom to choose and permission to fill a plate of Finland’s best. Hors d’oeuvre selected and prepared with thought are displayed for the guests; and through these delicacies, made from the raw ingredients provided by small local farms, your mind and palate meet.
For those of us who have grown up here, the tastes of this modern banquet table renews our memories, blending together innovative and irresistible culinary features. When our international dining guests grab their forks, they are taken upon a fantastic journey immersing themselves into Finnish artic nature and the responsible ways of creating these delicacies today.
Let our food hone your senses to enjoy the moment. In Krapi, the aesthetics, the textures and sensations align with these different tastes. Altogether, they create a genuine experience of both farmstead and nature’s best ingredients in this authentic and hospitable milieu.
The Feast for Half a Century
The story of the Krapi’s Banquet Table is over 50 years old. It began providing summer lunches in 1968 and the Krapihovi Restaurant was founded with that same knowledge in 1973. Pekka Holma, Talonpoika (Finnish farmer/CEO), believes it self evident that what is good may always be improved.
“It was a time to start the renaissance of the dining table. The banquet table is something entirely different from a buffet or smorgasbord. Upon a banquet table, there is always a touch of festivity. It brings in the magic of Finnish food culture in modern times while dining together,” Pekka comments. Every food ingredient we use comes from Finland, often from small farms. The tradition at our banquet table is that the origin of our food is always known and our staff is honoured to tell about it.
The Core of Each Season
In Finland, feasts have been mainly arranged in the summer and autumn following plentiful harvests. With great planning, we take advantage of our food cellars and smokeries to invite you to the Krapi’s Banquet Table which expands to a five season journey. Here you can taste Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Christmas, each at their own turn.
Traditionally, Krapihovi’s Winter starts off with blinis. The fluffy blinis are baked in butter in ten cast iron skillets. You can enjoy them with exquisite vegetables or fish roe toppings. With an extra payment, you can adorn them with some caviar. By the end of March, we start to marvel at the coming of Spring, in June, we embrace the light of the Summer and in August we praise the harvest of Autumn. The variety of Christmas flavours then are set out in November.
The Banquet Table in Finland
Throughout the history of Finnish dining, the banquet tables have presented the greatest delicacies and the most prestigious dishes of its time, just as it is today! The guests may tailor their own meal as vegetarian-like as they choose. They may take fish or varied seeds because of their healthy fats or just because of the fantastic taste. One can accompany their meal with selected side dishes including different sausages or meats that we always carefully hand select from smallholdings with high ethical standards, or wild game directly from the forest.
Traditionally, the feast ended with ‘Roll-out tea.’ When this tea set up was served, guests were expected to understand that it was time to leave. We still serve full-flavoured tea and delectable coffee, but you may enjoy it as long as you wish at your own pace, exactly when you choose to have it.
Drinks that Uplift the Meal
Krapi’s restaurant manager, Heli Lindroth, considers the drinks to accentuate the tastes of the banquet table. Heli expertly chooses the white wine to accompany the winter blinis. She also researched authentic Finnish ciders and must serve them alongside our meals. Light or non-alcoholic cider or beer are also great options for a lunch drink. There is a great selection of other non-alcoholic beverages as well, from Kvass to various kinds of water. Each season has its own specialised banquet table and we meticulously compose a list of recommended drinks to compliment those tastes. Your party may choose several bottles to share, then try and pair to find your own favourites. The modern banquet table experience challenges the diner to search for new favorite pairings or to go with the customised selection provided.
Open Your Mind for a Small Party
A small party radiates through everyday chores and duties when you arrive to the banquet table. You whirl into a different world that is serene, spice-filled; a delicately created experience, just like Alice in Wonderland. Whether lunch or dinner, the banquet table nourishes not simply your body, but also your culture hungered mind. You may freely combine tastes from the horn of plenty by selecting starters from the banquet table and then partake of the main course from our exquisite à la carte menu. The menu adds plentiful options for main courses with a great variety of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes, all of which are paired carefully with drink recommendations.
When it is finally time to leave, you may take part of the festivities with you by collecting some of your favorite items from the restaurant’s corner shop, should it be that pear-walnut jam or some strong homemade mustard.
We put our heart into every taste
Krapihovi Ltd is a family run business established in the early 20th century. Klas Holma bought the homestead for the Holma Family in 1911. From there, the Krapi Homestead started a dairy farm, and from 1973 on, the farm transformed into a hotel and restaurant company.
Through all the decades, the very core of our job has been the passion for Finnish food from primary production to the dining table experience. The perseverance of work has paid off and has allowed the tradition to be carried with us through the times.
The story is kept safe in our recipe book
When I was a young boy, I read an interview of my mom in the newspaper. The response of Krapi’s matron, Salme, remains imprinted on my mind. “My favorite food is all the food that is made well.” I thought her answer was interesting, intriguing, and excellent. Later, I found it easy to relate to that philosophy. The thought addresses the appreciation of food, the understanding of the challenges faced in cooking, and the passion for great food in such a wonderful way. Good food not only fills your tummy, but every bite holds an endearing story. At the banquet table, we don’t serve only delicacies, but caring and meticulous sincerity. We put our heart into every taste. That has always been the way at Krapi. We sit together about the dining table for more reasons than simply the food.
The history of Krapi is based upon a farm house, entrepreneurship, the homestead’s people, and the stories containing many chapters and phases. We’ve done so much and have been part of a great many happenings. We have been bold to be excited in taking extra steps. We look to the future and see all the possibilities in the days to come. The hands-on process has been more important than the goals. We have jumped in to take on new chores and tasks, always together with our people, working as one. In all 105 years of Krapi, there are six generations, countless numbers of house folk, livestock and guests. We have carried the tradition with us through the years. Every generation left their strong footprint in the history of our estate.
Our unifying dining table has always been set up with passion and we have sat around it to enjoy, to share stories, and to show that we care, already from one century to another.
– Pekka Holma, Talonpoika (Finnish Farmer/CEO)
The Story of a Scoundrel
Matti, the master of Krapi Estate, was very clever, coming up with ideas and building up all sorts of things while working with equipment and gadgets. He invented and developed many solutions when pre-existing ones did not inspire or meet his standards. In the 1960’s, Krapi was the largest sugar beet plantation in the area. Matti thought that the machinery then designed to pick the sugar beets were too slow for the task. During one winter, he started to develop his own machine that would actually pick up beets from two rows simultaneously, making it twice as fast as the machines that were sold in the shops. To construct this thingamajig, he found a local Gyro Gearloose-Guy, a gadget-maker of a sort from a small local machine shop. Throughout winter, spring and summer, he spent his time in the workshop tweaking the doohickey.
The chores of the farm were neglected at times as the inventor-side of Matti took over. This happened more than often that the hours stretched and his homecoming was delayed until the wee hours.
Salme, the lady of the estate, was not always overtly enthusiastic of his extraordinary passions. In some of her lecturing, she labeled him a ‘scoundrel’ but Matti was not offended by this. A witty man, he returned the favour and baptised the gadget. When the machine arrived to Krapi from the workshop, big red letters written on the side said, “Scoundrel.” The name was an omen. The autumn was very rainy, which made the fields boggy. The new machine was so big and heavy that it occasionally sank and got stuck in the clayey fields every so often. The story of the ‘Scoundrel’ ended behind the piggery that same Fall. There it rusted through the years, serving evermore as a joyful playground for small children and a constant wonderment: what scoundrel?
In Autumn of 2011, 100 years passed since Matti’s father bought the Krapi Estate for the Holma Family. To celebrate the even number, a book collecting these stories was written, providing another great reason to have a party. A special Krapi – inspired drink was designed for the celebration. The Scoundrel Story seemed worthy of its own drink and destined to be a hard shot. Matti liked to have a long drink, “lonkero” after working in the hayfield or inside the barn on a hot day. He cleverly stopped at the restaurant’s kitchen stairs for one long drink. The idea for a drink was there, a house long drink named “Scoundrel.” Apple juice pressed from our own orchard apples and that was it, Krapi’s 100 Year Anniversary Drink. It is safe in our recipe book.
In the beginning of 2020 Krapi and Guesthouse Onnela merged, forming a new ensemble upon the shore of Lake Tuusula.
In the Onnela region there are spacious event venue “Toukola” and its “Onnela halls”, three saunas right at the shore of Lake Tuusula: Jannes’s sauna, “Elvilä” and Lake sauna “Järvisauna”. Hotel rooms in the buildings of “Tammisto”- and “Viertola”, Log cabins “Männistö” and “Taabor”- and “Tammi”-cabinets. In the the same region there is also the original guesthouse Onnela-building “Impivaara”, where Johanna Sofia Björklund held the guesthouse during the golden era of Finnish artists. The most well-known inhabitant was poet, Eino Leino.
The young lady of Onnela
Johanna Sofia Björklund (born 1880), received the Onnela estate as a birthday present from her parents when she turned 25 on the 11th of November 1905. Her father was a former log wood salesman, who later on became the mogul G. Björklund. Johanna Sofia studied ballet at a ballet school in St. Petersburg. Later on she performed as a lady-in-waiting in the imperial court in St. Petersburg, and at quite an early age became the lover of a Russian officer Paul Nikolayevich Shabelsky. Johanna Sofia met Shabelsky at a ball in 1897. He was a man of immense wealth; he owned fine premises in St. Petersburg and Moscow, several farms all over Russia and large areas of forests. At the time, Shabelsky was teaching French to noble officers in the St Petersburg war academy. Nevertheless, he didn’t bother to take any salary as he had no need for the money. He was very young when he married the daughter of a Russian nobleman; they had at least two sons together.
Johanna Sofia and Shabelsky spent their summers in Onnela from 1906 onwards. At the time, Shabelsky was commanded to the gendarmerie troops in Helsinki and Onnela was conveniently close. Gardeners brought from St. Petersburg exotic plants, built an artificial brook, waterfall and fountain. Life during the summers was luxurious with extravagant parties. In the winters, Johanna Sofia home-schooled Shabelsky´s children in St. Petersburg while Onnela fell into a deep winter slumber.
Before the revolution, Shabelsky divided his money and wealth between Russian and German banks. His skilful plan nevertheless failed him when both empires fell; the revolution even ripped off him of his land and forests.
After the revolution
At the onset of the revolution in 1917, Johanna Sofia and Shabelsky fled St Petersburg to Onnela. Shabelsky’s wife, Anastasia Shabelskaya, also arrived at Onnela. The proud lady had long been aware of the affair between Shabelsky and Johanna Sofia but was forced to tolerate it. In Onnela, she also had to tolerate Shabelsky’s treatment of Johanna Sofia as a spouse in public. In the end, the Shabelskaya travelled to Paris, where her and Shabelsky’s son was already living.
The years after the revolution were times of misery in Onnela. The little money they had salvaged quickly ran out and they found themselves living hand-to-mouth. All jewelry and valuables were sold and time was spent playing cards.
In the throes of poverty, Johanna Sofia founded the Onnela Boarding House for students, statesmen and artists in the 1920s. At the turn of the century, Rantatie in Tuusula was the meeting place of an interesting group of people, with artists such as master composer Jean Sibelius, artists Pekka Halonen, Venny Soldan-Brofeldt and Eero Järnefelt , as well as authors Juhani Aho and Eino Leino, who lived in Onnela between 1923 and 1924. They were all inspired by the beautiful and peaceful sceneries of Tuusula. Johanna Sofia founded a kiosk which operated out of yhe villa on Rantatie. There she sold coffee, buns, cigarettes as well as spirits despite prohibition.
Later on in the 1930s, Johanna Sofia fell in love with an author 18 years younger than she named Unto Karri. Higly superstitious, Johanna had love spells placed on Karri and offered him her love potion. Before christmas 1935, Onnela hosted an exuberant party during which Johanna Sofia enertained her guests with alcohol with little regard for the jealous Shabelsky. The morning after the party Shabelsky was found dead, thought to have died from a heart attack caused by jealousy.
Later on Karri revealed that this changed Johanna Sofia entirely. She never again entered Shabelskiy’s room, nor did seh attend or organise his funeral. She dressed in black and spent her nights reading The Bible in Russian. Soon afterwards, she was admitted to the Kellokoski psychiatric hospital, where she died on the 10th of September 1936.
In her will, Johanna Sofia had left the Onnela estate to Shabelsky. Shabelsky’s inheritors sold Onnela on the 5th of January 1937 to the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired. Since 1937, Onnela has been owned by the visually impaired, except for the short period during which it was used for military purposes.
Sokeain Ystävät ry (Friends of the Blind) bought Onnela on 1st of April 2009. After extensive renovation and refurbishment, Onnela’s services fullfill the needof demanding corporate customers. Today Onnela provides quality conference facilities and services, accommodation, restaurant and catering services to both corporate and private customers under the name of Krapi.
The original Onnela, Impivaara villa currently houses two meeting venues and a commemoration room dedicated to Eino Leino.
