Finland

About Finland

• Language: Finnish (Suomi), Swedish
• Currency: Euro (€)
• Exchange Rate: €1- $1.10USD
• Time Zone: Eastern European Time (GMT+2)
• High Season: June-August
• Visa Requirements: None for up to 90 days (most countries)
• Electricity: 230v with 2-prong plug like most of Europe
• Emergency: 112 for fire, ambulance and fire
• Transportation: Trains and buses are the easiest way to get around Finland. Ferries to coastal cities as well as neighboring countries like Estonia, Sweden, and Denmark are frequent.
• Accommodations: International hotels, hostels, and B&Bs are popular. As well as camping and farm accommodations in some locations.
• For families: Finnish people and businesses are inviting and kid-friendly. However, few places actually cater to kids. It’s infrequent that you find kids menus or activities tailored to kids.

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Suggested Reading

The Adventurer- Mika Waltari

The Adventurer is a Fictional tale of a young Finnish man, Mikael Karvajalka, set in 16th century medieval Europe. Mikael is portrayed as an intellectual but rather naive person. Beginning life as an orphan bastard, he pursues a better social position with help of friendly people and by means of theological studies, but ends up drifting along through historical events across Europe rather than being able to steer his life himself.

Kalevala– Elias Lönnrot

The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic, which like the Iliad and the Odyssey, grew out of a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. During the first millennium of our era, speakers of Uralic languages (those outside the Indo-European group) who had settled in the Baltic region of Karelia, that straddles the border of eastern Finland and north-west Russia, developed an oral poetry that was to last into the nineteenth century. This poetry provided the basis of the Kalevala. It was assembled in the 1840s by the Finnish scholar Elias Lönnrot, who took `dictation’ from the performance of a folk singer, in much the same way as our great collections from the past, from Homeric poems to medieval songs and epics, have probably been set down. Published in 1849, it played a central role in the march towards Finnish independence and inspired some of Sibelius’s greatest works.

The Unknown Soldier- Väinö Linna

Unknown Soldiers follows the fates of a ramshackle troupe of machine-gunners in the Second World War, as they argue, joke, swear, cadge a loaf of bread or a cigarette, combat both boredom and horror in the swamps and pine forests – and discover that war will make or break them. One of Finland’s best-loved books, this gritty and unromantic depiction of battle honors the dogged determination of a country and the bonds of brotherhood forged between men at war, as they fight for their lives.

Lonely Planet Finland

Lonely Planet’s Finland is our most comprehensive guide that extensively covers all the country has to offer, with recommendations for both popular and lesser-known experiences. Relax in a traditional Finnish sauna, meet reindeers in Lapland and admire creative design in Helsinki; all with your trusted travel companion.

Seven Brothers– Aleksis Kivi

Seitsemän veljestä (The Brothers Seven), the 1870 Finnish novel by Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872), is one of the most (in)famously unknown classics of world literature—unknown not only because so few people in the world can read Finnish, but also because the novel is so incredibly difficult to translate, the Mount Everest of translating from Finnish. It is difficult to translate not only because it blends a saturation in Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, and the Bible with a brilliantly stylized form of local dialect, but because it is wild, grotesque, carnivalistic, and laugh-out-loud funny on every page. It has been translated 58 times into 34 languages—but somehow the translations always seem to fall short of their flamboyant original.