Life in Finland

by Jenni Liikanen
[She is a student in Keuruu, Finland]


FOOD

Karjalanpiirakka (Karelian pasty)

These are a traditional Easters specialty but nowadays they are served at many hotel breakfast buffets. They are made of rye dough n filled with rice porridge or potato. They are normally heated and served with chopped eggs and butter.

Mustamakkara

This food is related to a similar kind of pudding served in England and Ireland. It´s colour results from the blood that´s it´s main ingredient. It´s especially popular in Finland´s third biggest town, Tampere, where people buy it from kiosks at market places and eat it with their fingers!

Mämmi

This food looks perhaps the strangest and most off-putting to foreigners. It´s made from rye flour, malt and water, seasoned with orange peel n baked in the oven. It resembles porridge or pudding. It tastes sweet, but some people put sugar on it before eating it with cream.


CUSTOMS

Here v have the custom to put our utensils at four o´clock on our plate when we are done. If we put them on each side of plate that usually means we want more food.

When we go to visit some friend´s house we take our shoes off when we entering the house.


SANTA CLAUS

Lives in finnish Lapland near to Rovaniemi.


FORESTS

About 35% of all the EU´s forest areas are in Finland. The forests are a great natural resource and are used for commercial purposes like making paper, but protecting the environment is also an important question in the use of the forests. The finnish state owns large areas of forest and many of them are nature conservation areas.


SAUNA

Almost every Finn has a sauna about once a week and families go there together. First the sauna stones are heated and then water is thrown on them to create steam. The traditional Finnish sauna was in a small wooden building, close to a lake. The bathers first took a steam bath and then dived into the cool water of the lake or in winyer, rolled in the snow. Nowadays many homes have an electric sauna with a shower room for washing.


TIME FOR SOME "FUN STUFF"

There have also been world championships in mosquito killing in Pyhätunturi. The official world record from 1995 stands at 21 mosquitoes in 5 minutes. The very first games, if we can call that a game, were held in 1993. In the year 1996 it was impossible to hold the championships ´cos of the lack of mosquitoes!

Sonkajärvi has become well-known all over the world as the avenue of The Wife Carrying World Championships. The wacky idea is Sonkajärvi´s very own. The length of the course is 253.5 meters and it includes a number of dry and wet obstacles. The current record stands at 1 min 4.5 sec. The winning style was to carry the wife on one´s shoulders like a sack of rye. The winning couple won a stack of prizes including a mobile phone, a heap of rye bread and-most importantly-the wife´s weight in beer!!

comments

Finland is a country with good ecology and there is very clean water and air. About my trip there, it was very good both for my health and soul to live there a little. Finland is not far from Sent-Peterburg, it`s 300 km to the border between Russia and Finland. But when you just cross the border you may see the differences. On the Russian territory there are a lot ofgarbage along the road and in the forest close to the road. Finnish forest and road and everything are shine from cleanness. Finnish people care for nature and environment very eagerly. They buy wood in Russia for not cut Finnish one.

I was in the north of Finland. It`s about 500 km from Russian border.I feel the difference myself in air, in water, in food. I really want this way in Russia, but I know it`s impossible. And it`s so sadly.

When I return to my native country after visiting Europe I can`t live as I used to in Russia. In Finland I may forget my bag with money in a shop or cafe, come back there later and find it at the same place in the same condition... If I forget it in Russia for a while, I can`t find there neither bag nor money!

- Nata, Civil Lawyer, Russia