Santa lives in Rovaniemi, Finland. Some of his neighbors are not thrilled.

Boston Globe

15-04-2025

Tähtivaara scanned the label — in Finnish — and told her no.
She saw more tourists in snowmobile suits lingering by the cashier. Before they could make eye contact, she got out of there.
'I was thinking: Here we go again,' she said.
These were small impositions, but enough was enough. If you're blond and therefore identifiable as a likely native of Rovaniemi, you can barely move around a supermarket during tourist season — and it's all Santa's fault.
A simple marketing idea, playing off a cherished childhood fantasy, has made a small city on the edge of the Arctic Circle almost unlivable, some people who live there say.
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And it all started when the Nazis came to town.
Early in World War II, Finland allied with the Nazis, who built a big base in Rovaniemi, a Lapland railway hub. But by October 1944, the Nazis were losing, and the Soviet Red Army was marching into Eastern Europe. As a little memento for the Finns and the Russians, the retreating German soldiers burned Rovaniemi to the ground.
After the war, Finland asked Alvar Aalto, the celebrated Finnish architect, to redesign the city. Aalto, known for his bold churches, concert halls, and kitchen stools, came up with an idea: Why not remake the ruined town in the shape of a reindeer head, with the peripheral roads shooting out like antlers, to honor the area's connection to reindeer herding?
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Aalto's timing was perfect. At that moment, the government was promoting Finland, over rival claims from Denmark, Norway, the United States, and Greenland, as the
real
home of Santa Claus. But it took some time for Santa to make his entrance.
In 1984, just after Christmas, a Soviet missile, launched from bordering Russia, misfired. It speared into a frozen Finnish lake a few hours' drive from Rovaniemi. International journalists and officials flocked in to search for missile pieces. The head of Rovaniemi's tourism board came up with a cunning plan: Let's send Santa to the crash site.
Photos from Finnish archives show a man in a red suit with a droopy hat standing on a frozen lake bed next to mangled missile wreckage.
A few months later, in June 1985, Santa Claus Village opened 5 miles north of downtown Rovaniemi.
Business began to grow slowly.
'It was very peaceful,' said Tähtivaara, who visited as a girl.
But Rovaniemi knew it was onto something. In 2009, the city trademarked itself as 'the Official Hometown of Santa Claus.' And the area had another big draw in the northern lights.
Tour operators imported all kinds of stuff that was not indigenous to Lapland but fun anyway: dog sledding, igloos, a hotel bar made out of ice. The Christmas season grew, too. It now stretches from October to the end of March. And the city began to change, very fast.
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At the Rovaniemi Airport, visitors are greeted with a sign: 'Welcome to Lapland. Your search for Santa starts here.'
Tourism officials in Rovaniemi are stunned by how many people are coming to see the jolly old elf. Sanna Kärkkäinen, the managing director of Visit Rovaniemi, the local tourism board, said that each year since the pandemic, the number of visitors had hit a new high. In 2024, the city had 1.5 million overnight stays, more than double the number 10 years ago.
This in a city of 60,000 permanent residents.
Tourism generates more than $430 million a year, Kärkkäinen added, and provides jobs for nearly 2,000 people.
Santa's character, eager to chat in his 'office' in the city, shared some of the things that had happened in his little red cabin.
'Once,' he said, 'I had some young women who wanted to make an adult film. But how could I do that?'
'Another time,' he said, 'an organization brought some children who had two weeks to live. Seeing Santa was their last wish.' The jolliness faded from his eyes.
Asked about the complaints from some residents that the town was overrun by tourists, he replied: 'The people who benefit are happy. Those who don't — they're jealous.'
Santa Claus Village has grown into a sprawling operation, encompassing seven hotels, more than 20 restaurants, and endless souvenir shops. Some stores are run by 'elves' in pointy red hats.
According to the village's operations chief, the Santas there are trained to carry on small talk in 20 languages. To meet them was free, but a photo cost 40 euros.
The place was mobbed.
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Where all these people stay is becoming an issue. Taina Torvela, a retired advertising executive, has been leading the charge against what she sees as Airbnb's abuses in the city.
Torvela said tourists renting apartments had spoiled the feeling of community and shaken the sense of safety in her building, which houses many families and retirees.
'It's out of control,' she said.
Torvela and others are pushing for tighter regulation that will cut down on commercial Airbnb use in residential buildings like hers.
The owners of the Airbnbs, not surprisingly, view the situation differently. Tuomas Alaoja, who grew up in Rovaniemi, manages several Airbnbs and rents out his own apartment. During the tourist season, he can get 500 euros a night for his one-bedroom unit. Three nights at that rate cover his mortgage and other expenses for the month.
'I already have bookings for next year,' he told me.
The numbers are so good that investors are scooping up Rovaniemi's limited housing stock to convert into Airbnbs. The city now has about as many beds through Airbnb and other rental sites as it does through its handful of big hotels. That means Airbnb keeps the local tourism machine chugging — whether the locals like it or not.
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