the MOOMINS

The Moomins are a family of hippo-looking characters, created by Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson, who created Moomins during the Second World War, as ‘an escape from reality in a fairytale world’. Moomins are still incredibly popular in Nordic countries, and are often used as a Finnish cultural symbol.

Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated several books and strips between 1945 and 1980, which got translated into 38 languages.
The first animated series is from 1969, but the most popular is from the 90s, and the most recent is from the 2020s.
Other series were made with puppets and cutouts. and there’s even a Moomin opera! Here’s the Moomin timeline.

Moomin Characters

The core family of the moomins is Moomin himself muumipeikko in Finnish, and his parents, Moominmamma and Moominpappa, live in their iconic cylindric blue house (for a while they lived in a lighthouse and a theatre too). But the ‘family’ is not limited to them, and has incorporated other members:

• the fearful Sniff
• the naughty Little My, who teaches that being angry is okay too, sometimes.
• Moomintroll’s girlfriend Snork Maiden,
• the vagabond and freedom lover Snufkin, an artist soul,connected to a typical Finnish feeling of melancholy and solitude

Other characters who often appear are:

• the bossy and stubborn Hemulens and the anxious Fillyjonk, representing the petty bourgeoisie of the time when Tove invented the Moomin world
• the wise and pragmatic Too-Ticky,
• Mymla, Little My’s big sister.
• To the east borders of Moomin Valley there are lonely mountains (Ensliga Bergen), a mysteryous place where the monster Groke lives, who freezes everything she walks on and is hard to communicate with.

Many characters are actually invented after people from Tove Jansson’s life, as her parents , Too Ticky – her partner Tuulikki Pietilä.

Life in the peaceful Moomin world is often about enjoying small pleasures, as Moomin says:

I only want to live in peace and plant potatoes and dream!‘

‘One can’t be too dangerous, if they like to eat pancakes. Especially with jam on it’.

Moomin in Finland

Moomins are still incredibly popular and easy to find in Finland: on Fazer candy and cookies, on finnish postage stamps (since 1988)… but the most classic item to own is probably moomin mugs: produced by Arabia since the 1950s.
You can even fly on a Moomin FINNAIR plane, which of course fly to Japan.

Most Finns (and maybe Swedes or other Nordic peoples as well) have some kind of Moomin object. Even the former Finnish President Tarja Halonen has been known to wear a Moomin watch!

If you travel to Finland, you can also visit some Moomin-themed attractions:

• Moomin World theme park (in Finnish Muumimaailma) in Naantali, near Turku, in 1993.
• Tampere Art Museum has a Moomin section: Muumimuseo, which contains around 2000 original works of Tove Jansson, including a model of the Moominhouse, which Tove Jansson contributed to build.
• Moomin ice cave is a 30 meters below of a Spa Hotel near Kuopio, it includes Moomin-themed ice sculptures, and offers activities for families with children.

Moomin shops, cafes and attractions in the world

The real Moomin Boom started in the 1990s, with the Japanese animated series Tales From Moominvalley. Moomin books were already bestsellers in Nordic and Baltic countries, but the animation made Moomin extremely popular in Japan among others.

Japan has a Moomin-themed park since 2015: MoominValley Park, in the prefecture of Saitama, near Tokyo.

Besides Moomin shops in Nordic countries (I have been in the Gothenburg one, Sweden), there are quite a few in Asia (most in Japan, but also Korea, Thailand, China and Hong Kong), and there is one in the USA, but not NYC or LA – in Hawaii! Not surprisingly due to the Japanese tourists…

Moomin themed-cafes are very popular in East Asian countries: other than in Finland various pop-up cafes have appeared now and then in Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan.
You could eat a moomin shaped meal in front of a giant moomin character plush there! Moomin Cafes.

You can check out all currently open Moomin shops, attractions and cafes on Moomin official website.

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