The home of Santa Claus
Witness History
BBC
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rovaniemi, a small town in Lapland, is home to dozens of Christmas tourist attractions and is widely considered the unofficial home of Santa Claus. The town had to re-invent itself after being flattened during the Arctic campaign in World War Two, and was inspired to become a Christmas destination by a visit from the American first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. Rovaniemi now gets more than half a million visitors a year. Petra Zivic talks to two local residents.
PHOTO: Father Christmas in his "office" near Rovaniemi (Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the witness history podcast with me Pet Rajevich. |
| 0:40.8 | Tis the season to be jolly. |
| 0:44.0 | Today, as millions of people around the world celebrate Christmas, |
| 0:50.0 | I'm bringing you the story of a small town in the Lepland region of Finland which |
| 0:56.2 | considers itself the official home of Santa Claus or as he's also known |
| 1:01.6 | Father Christmas. |
| 1:03.2 | Rovani Emmy was destroyed in World War II, |
| 1:09.7 | but it spent the last few decades reinventing itself as a tourist destination for Christmas |
| 1:16.0 | lovers from around the world. |
| 1:18.7 | I sometimes introduce myself especially abroad that I am the man who's in charge of paying |
| 1:27.4 | Santa salary. |
| 1:28.7 | This is Yilkelankininin, the owner of one of the many Santa themed businesses in Rovani Amy. |
| 1:35.0 | He has lived there all his life and seen how the town has slowly embraced the modern somewhat commercial version of Father Christmas. |
| 1:45.0 | In my childhood, the Santa could be a bit scary with the horns and the fur goat, |
| 1:52.0 | but then I think it's 79 or 78 |
... |
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