Buying technology students’ spoof publication Äpy is practically a civic duty on May Day in Helsinki

Student Eero Rantala’s goals include selling one humour publication to a foreigner, one on the fly to a passing car, and one for an exorbitant mark-up

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“Seize the May Day, seize the Äpy!” “Start your day with a laugh!” “Humour to the workplace!”
      It is eight o’clock in the morning. The patent leather shoe folks are just scurrying into their downtown offices, but on the corner of Mikonkatu and Aleksanterinkatu the morning sun witnesses a one-man show that is already in full swing.
      “Unique Äpys for unique people!”
     
University student Eero Rantala, 24, is one of those people who would sell a deck-chair to an Eskimo.
      The physics undergraduate, a resident of the Otaniemi student village, is in his sixth year of selling on the streets the technology students’ May Day publication Äpy.
      Rantala is undoubtedly one of the most efficacious vendors of the light-hearted and somewhat raunchy joke magazine.
      On the evening the paper came from the presses, Rantala already sold 11 magazines. “I went through all of my regular clients.”
      To his baby sister, Rantala sold the ten-euro publication for 12 euros. Nice.
      While doing so, he met one of the challenges he had set himself: each spring at least one magazine has to be sold at a fancy inflated price.
      “You cannot swindle the client, but asking for a tip is OK”, the vociferous vendor explains.
      The other challenges include selling the Finnish-language May Day publication to a foreigner who doesn't understand a word of the contents, and selling one to a passing car through the window.
     
Rantala’s previous highest sales figure is 300 Äpys in the course of one May Day celebration (this festival involves several days, though for some they are a bit of a blur, if you get my drift...)
      Even during his military service year, Rantala appeared at Mikonkatu with a pile of magazines.
      “I requested a day off from the army to come and sell the publication - and I was granted one!”
      For this year, Rantala has set a goal of over a hundred sold Äpys. From each sold magazine he keeps three euros.
      Rantala pays the profits from the first 75 magazines sold to the account of the Kokoomusteekkarit ry ("National Coalition Technical Students") organisation that he chairs.
      The rest of the money goes to Rantala’s own May Day purse.
     
A middle-aged man tries to escape from salesman Rantala’s claws by pleading that he does not have any cash.
      “But there’s a cash machine right there. Get some dosh from the hole in the wall”, Rantala replies.
      Rantala always chooses his selling location strategically: next to a cash point on a street corner where he sees in all four directions.
      A man in a suit rushes by without purchasing an Äpy. He already has two at home, he claims.
      “Buy a third one. Better safe than sorry”, Rantala shouts, quite undaunted.
      Rantala sells around ten magazines per hour. The closer May Day gets, the more Äpys Rantala will sell.


Links:
  Äpy is akin to a British university Rag-Week publication. The Wikipedia entry links to the magazine´s own page in Finnish.

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