Dear friends of Arkadia,

Next week is a special week: It’s the tenth anniversary of Arkadia International Bookshop!

This modest journey began at Hesperiankatu 9 and, aside from a great deal of passion and a bold idea, we had little inkling of what we wished to achieve, and how. And hey! We are still here!

How can we briefly sum up these wonderful ten years so filled with adventure, laughter, warmth, surprise and life?

• We have held fast to our unofficial motto, a quote from Les Eaux mêlées (1959) by Roger Ikor: “Fais bon accueil aux étrangers, car toi aussi, tu seras un étranger”. (Bid good welcome to strangers, because you too will be a stranger) and have indeed welcomed numerous cherished friends, delightful strangers and many curious others!
• We have sold books (a great variety of them and at extremely reasonable prices too!), which is primordial to us.
• We have held more than 1700 events (concerts, talks, plays, screenings, dance performances, close-up magic, etc.) and welcomed hundreds of private parties, meetings and so on!
• We have published a magazine (Arkadia Gazette), a book (Viaje de la ilusión primaria by Julio Srur and launched it in Buenos Aires), held one large-scale art exhibition, opened a pop-up bookshop in Tokyo, etc.
• We have also had our fair share of challenges, limited resources being the main one. There hasn’t been a month we haven’t thought of throwing the towel! But here we are. Still muddling on!
• And proudly, we believe we made a small contribution to the fame of Töölö and Helsinki across the world!
• That’s about it!

We would like to end this statement by expressing our profound gratitude towards all who have helped us so selflessly over the years: we have benefited from a truly proud army of Arkadia trainees and volunteers, without whom we would not have managed half of all that we have done! Naturally, we are equally indebted to and all our visitors and customers, who are the life and blood of our bookshop.

We started softly and quietly and shall further this tradition by not having a wild bash for this anniversary, but you are all welcome on March 14^th to wish us well and eat the cakes and delicatessen that we shall serve for all to share!

At 6pm we will take a group photograph with whoever is there to celebrate this momentous event!

Thank you very much for your kind attention and support!

Most warmly,

Ian&Liisa