Suomi
Finland is a fun, fascinating, sadly overlooked corner of Europe. Its small population fills a sprawling, rocky, forested land that shares a long border with Russia. The Finns have often been overshadowed by their powerful neighbors, the Swedes and the Russians. And yet, they’ve persevered magnificently, with good humor, a zest for architecture and design, a deep love of saunas, and an understandable pride in things that are uniquely Finnish.
For much of their history, the Finns embraced a simple agrarian and fishing lifestyle. They built not cities, but villages—easy pickings for their more ambitious neighbors. From medieval times to 1809, Finland was part of Sweden. Destructive city fires left little standing from this period, but Finland still has a sizeable Swedish-speaking minority, bilingual street signs, and close cultural ties to Sweden.
In 1809, Sweden lost Finland to Russia. Under the next century of relatively benign Russian rule, the “Grand Duchy of Finland” began to industrialize, and Helsinki grew into a fine and elegant city. Still, at the beginning of the 1900s, the rest of Finland was mostly dirt-poor and agricultural, and its people were eagerly emigrating to northern Minnesota. (Read Toivo Pekkanen’s My Childhood to learn about the life of a Finnish peasant in the early 1900s.)
In 1917, Finland and the Baltic States won their independence from Russia, fought brief but vicious civil wars against their pro-Russian domestic factions, and then enjoyed two decades of prosperity...until the secret Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 assigned them to the Soviet sphere of influence. When Russia invaded, only Finland resisted successfully. White-camouflaged Finnish ski troops won the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 and held off the Russians in what’s called the Continuation War from 1941 to 1944.
After World War II, Finland was made to suffer for having allied itself for a time with Nazi Germany and for having fought against one of the Allied Powers. The Finns were forced to cede Karelia (eastern Finland) and part of Lapland to the USSR, to accept a Soviet naval base on Finnish territory, and to pay huge reparations to the Soviet government. Still, Finland’s bold, trendsetting modern design and architecture blossomed, and it built up successful timber, paper, and electronics industries. All through the Cold War, Finland teetered between the West and the Soviet Union, trying to be part of Western Europe’s strong economy while treading lightly and making nice with her giant neighbor to the east.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has done to Finland what a good long sauna might do to you. When Moscow’s menace vanished, so did about 20 percent of Finland’s trade. After a few years of adjustment, Finland bounced back quickly, joining the European Union and adopting the euro currency. In the past, Finns would move to Sweden (where they are still the biggest immigrant group), looking for better jobs in Stockholm. Some still nurse an inferiority complex, thinking of themselves as poor cousins to the Swedes. But now Finland is the most technologically advanced country in Europe, and its talented young people are more likely to seek their fortunes here. Home to the giant mobile-phone company Nokia, Finland has more mobile-phone numbers than fixed ones, and ranks fourth among European nations (15th globally) in the number of Internet users per capita.
We think of Finland as Scandinavian, but it’s better to call it “Nordic.” Technically, the Scandinavian countries are Denmark, Sweden, and Norway—all constitutional monarchies with closely related languages. Add Iceland, Finland, and maybe Estonia—former Danish or Swedish colonies that speak separate languages—and you have the “Nordic countries.” Iceland, Finland, and Estonia are also republics, not monarchies. In 1906, Finnish women were the first in Europe to vote. The country’s president from 2000 to 2012 was a woman, and today, 40 percent of the Finnish parliament is female.
Official Name: Republic of Finland.
Population: Finland is home to 5.3 million people (40 per square mile). The majority are Finnish in descent (93.4 percent). Other ethnicities include Swedish (5.6 percent), Russian, Estonian, Roma, and Sami (less than 1 percent each). The official languages are Finnish, spoken by 91 percent, and Swedish, spoken by 5.5 percent. Small minorities speak Sami and Russian. Finland is about 79 percent Lutheran, 1 percent Orthodox, 1 percent other Christian, and 19 percent unaffiliated.
Latitude and Longitude: 64°N and 26°E, similar latitude to Nome, Alaska.
Area: 130,500 square miles (about the size of Washington state and Oregon combined).
Geography: Finland is bordered by Russia to the east, Sweden and Norway to the north, the Baltic Sea to the west, and Estonia (across the Gulf of Finland) to the south. Much of Finland is flat and covered with forests, with the Lapland region extending north of the Arctic Circle. Finland is home to thousands of lakes and encompasses nearly as many islands: It has 187,800 lakes and 179,500 islands (the last time I counted).
Biggest City: Helsinki is the capital of Finland and has a population of 604,000; 1.3 million people—about one in four Finns—live in the Helsinki urban area.
Economy: Finland’s Gross Domestic Product is $195 billion and its per-capita GDP is $35,900. Manufacturing, timber, engineering, electronics, and telecommunications are its chief industries, with mobile phones among its top exports.
Currency: €1 (euro) = about $1.40.
Government: Finland has both a president, responsible for foreign policy, and a prime minister, who—along with the 200-member Parliament (Eduskunta)—is responsible for domestic legislation. President Sauli Niinistö began his six-year term in March of 2012. Alexander Stubb was appointed prime minister in June of 2014.
Flag: The Finnish flag is white with a blue Scandinavian cross. The blue represents the lakes of Finland, and the white its winter snow.
The Average Finn: He or she is 43 years old, has 1.73 children, will live to be 80, and is tech savvy; the United Nations’ Technology Achievement Index ranks Finland first in the world (the US ranks second).
Finnish is a difficult-to-learn Uralic language whose only relatives in Europe are Estonian (closely) and Hungarian (distantly). Finland is officially bilingual, and about 1 in 20 residents speaks Swedish as a first language. You’ll notice that Helsinki is called Helsingfors in Swedish. Helsinki’s street signs list places in both Finnish and Swedish. Nearly every educated young person speaks effortless English—the language barrier is just a speed bump. But to get you started, I’ve included a selection of Finnish survival phrases on the following page.
The only essential word needed for a quick visit is kiitos (KEE-tohs)—that’s “thank you,” and locals love to hear it. Hei (hey) means “hi” and hei hei (hey hey) means “goodbye.” Kippis (KIHP-pihs) is what you say before you down a shot of Finnish vodka or cloudberry liqueur (lakka).
In Finnish, the emphasis always goes on the first syllable. Double vowels (e.g., ää or ii) sound similar to single vowels, but are held a bit longer. The letter y sounds like the German ü (purse your lips and say “oh”). In the phonetics, ī sounds like the long i in “light,” and bolded syllables are stressed.
| English | Finnish | Pronunciation |
| Good morning. (formal) | Hyvää huomenta. | hew-vaah hwoh-mehn-tah |
| Good day. (formal) | Hyvää päivää. | hew-vaah pī-vaah |
| Good evening. (formal) | Hyvää iltaa. | hew-vaah eel-taah |
| Hi. / Bye. (informal) | Hei. / Hei-hei. | hey / hey-hey |
| Do you speak English? | Puhutko englantia? | poo-hoot-koh ehn-glahn-tee-yah |
| Yes. / No. | Kyllä. / Ei. | kewl-lah / ay |
| Please. | Ole hyvä. | oh-leh hew-vah |
| Thank you (very much). | Kiitos (paljon). | kee-tohs (pahl-yohn) |
| You’re welcome. | Kiitos. / Ei kestä. | kee-tohs / ay kehs-tah |
| Can I help you? | Voinko auttaa? | voin-koh owt-taah |
| Excuse me. | Anteeksi. | ahn-teek-see |
| (Very) good. | (Oikein) hyvä. | (oy-kayn) hew-vah |
| Goodbye. | Näkemiin. | nah-keh-meen |
| one / two | yksi / kaksi | ewk-see / kahk-see |
| three / four | kolme / neljä | kohl-meh / nehl-yah |
| five / six | viisi / kuusi | vee-see / koo-see |
| seven / eight | seitsemän / kahdeksan | sayt-seh-mahn / kah-dehk-sahn |
| nine / ten | yhdeksän / kymmenen | ew-dehk-sahn / kewm-meh-nehn |
| hundred | sata | sah-tah |
| thousand | tuhat | too-haht |
| How much? | Paljonko? | pahl-yohn-koh |
| local currency: euro | euro | ay-oo-roh |
| Where is...? | Missä on...? | mee-sah ohn |
| ...the toilet | ...WC | vay-say |
| men | miehet | mee-ay-heht |
| women | naiset | nī-seht |
| water / coffee | vesi / kahvi | veh-see / kah-vee |
| beer / wine | olut / viini | oh-luht / vee-nee |
| Cheers! | Kippis! | kip-pis |
| The bill, please. | Saisinko laskun, kiitos. | sī-seen-koh lahs-kuhn kee-tohs |