Shock revelation from Swedish consultancy firm: Santa Claus lives in Kyrgyzstan

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Santa Claus or Father Christmas lives in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, declares the Swedish engineering, environmental technology, and architecture consulting services firm Sweco. The claim was reported by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter in its Saturday issue under the headline: "Sorry, Finns".
      Well, this is one news item that calls for delving into in greater depth. Anders Larsson of Sweco tells Helsingin Sanomat over the phone that the company has calculated, based on the earth’s topography and distribution of population, the location from which Santa Claus would have the easiest access to all the nice and deserving children in the world.
      The end result did not surprise the Swedes. From the logistics point of view, the most beneficial location for Santa’s Grotto is in Kyrgyzstan, thousands of kilometres from Finnish Lapland.
     
Sweco presents an avalanche of facts to justify its shock discovery: Santa has to make it to 2.5 billion households in just one night.
      For the delivery of gifts, Father Christmas can spare a massive 34 microseconds (millionths of a second) per home. And on the round-the-world delivery route Santa’s reindeer sleigh will travel at the modest speed of 5,800 kilometres per second.
      Logistically speaking, all this would be easiest done from Kyrgyzstan. If Santa lived in Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland - a place traditionally branded as the location of Santa’s Grotto for Finnish children – the presented figures would be significantly higher.
      Unravelling the location of Santa’s home was not too difficult, Larsson boasts. "It took us half a day to produce the calculations."
     
However, Larsson does not believe the presented facts will have a noticeable impact on Lapland businesses centred on Christmas and Santa Claus. He also hopes that the children who have mailed their Christmas wish lists to Korvatunturi will not get too distressed by the revelation of the true location of Santa’s home.
      After a moment’s persuasion (including threats of serious bodily harm, etc.), even Larsson admits: "Regardless of what the calculations may indicate, I believe the real Santa Claus come from a place called Korvatunturi in the Finnish Lapland."
      So there.
      Besides, even a child knows that the variety of reindeer moss (Cladonia stellaris) that fuels Santa’s superfast reindeer sleigh, thus enabling its phenomenal warp-speed, only grows in Lapland.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Santa Claus is a strong brand (21.12.2004)

Links:
  Sweco
  More Heresy: a hoary old Internet chestnut on the Physics of Santa

Helsingin Sanomat