#3 MOTW - Helsinki, Finland

The Finns' love for saunas is generally associated with Finnish cultural tradition. Sauna is a type of dry steam bath practised widely in Finland, which is especially evident in the strong tradition around Midsummer and Christmas. The word sauna is of Proto-Finnish origin dating back 7,000 years. 

Steam baths have been part of European tradition elsewhere as well, but the sauna has survived best in Finland, in addition to Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Norway, and parts of the United States and Canada. Moreover, nearly all Finnish houses have either their own sauna or in multi-story apartment houses, a timeshare sauna. The Finnish sauna culture is inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

 

Panorama view of Helsinki - Helsinki, Finland

Together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen – and surrounding commuter towns, including the neighbouring municipality of Sipoo to the east – Helsinki forms the metropolitan area. This area is often considered Finland's only metropolis and is the world's northernmost metro area with over one million inhabitants. Additionally, it is the northernmost capital of an EU member state. 

 

Suomen paras olut - The Best Finnish Beer competition - Jämsä, Finland

The purpose of the competition is to improve the appreciation of Finnish beers and to make beers and their producers known. The competition brings an interesting addition to the Finnish beer culture and stimulates discussion about the taste, quality, raw materials and production of beers.

The Best Finnish Beer competition is the only Finnish beer competition that gathers domestic producers together to compete with their products. The products of large and small producers participate in the competition in parallel, in which case the beer itself and the related quality and taste factors are the main points under scrutiny.

 

Fizz strawberry cider - Turku, Finland

Fizz Cider Strawberry is a drink that contains only 4.7% alcohol. This cider has a refreshing strawberry flavour with a hint of apple in the background. It is made from natural flavours, which is why it is so perfect. Its advantage is also a low price and a nice, very original bottle.

 

Struve Geodetic Arc - Kuopio, Finland

The Struve Geodetic Arc is a chain of survey triangulation measurements stretching from the Arctic Sea to the Black Sea, through ten countries and over 2,820km. These are points of a survey, carried out between 1816 and 1855 by the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve, which represented the first accurate measuring of a long segment of a meridian. 

This helped establish the exact size and shape of our planet and marked an important step in the development of earth sciences and topographic mapping. It is an extraordinary example of scientific collaboration among scientists from different countries and of collaboration between monarchs for a scientific cause. The original arc consisted of 258 main triangles with 265 main station points. The listed Unesco World Heritage site includes 34 of the original station points, with different markings, i.e. a drilled hole in a rock, iron cross, cairns, or built obelisks.

 

Pug - Tampere, Finland

Tampere is known for its active cultural life. Some of the most popular writers in Finland, such as Väinö Linna, Kalle Päätalo, and Hannu Salama, hail from Tampere. These authors are known particularly as writers depicting the lives of working-class people, thanks to their respective backgrounds as members of the working class.

EUROPA stamp 2018 - "Bridges"

 

#49 GF - Himanka, Finland

Moomin's daddy grows tobacco, and Snufkin in the original, Finnish version, is literally called "Tobacco Freak"! Moomin's name comes from the term used by the writer's uncle when he threatened her with the little trolls living in the kitchen.

 

Hawk 66 in The Finnish Air Force - Vammala, Finland

The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engined two-seat advanced jet trainer. The Finnish Air Force's Hawks bear the military designation HW and are operated by Fighter Squadron 41 of the Air Force Academy, primarily in advanced and tactical training roles.

EUROPA stamp 2020 - "Ancient postal routes"

 

Boeing 747SP with NASA Space Shuttle - Kokkola, Finland

Boeing 747SP with NASA Space Shuttle at Fairford in Gloucestershire, England (photograph by David Smith).

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) are two extensively modified Boeing 747 airliners that NASA used to transport Space Shuttle orbiters. 

The SCAs were used to ferry Space Shuttles from landing sites back to the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. The orbiters were placed on top of the SCAs by Mate-Demate Devices, large gantry-like structures that hoisted the orbiters off the ground for post-flight servicing then mated them with the SCAs for ferry flights.

EUROPA stamp 2016 - "Ecology in Europe"

 

A poppy seed flower - Porvoo, Finland

Porvoo - a city in the southern part of Finland, one of the oldest cities in the country. Porvoo is mainly known for its historic old town (Gamla Stan) with a perfectly preserved medieval urban layout and characteristic eighteenth-century wooden architecture. Wooden buildings are considered a real treasure of Finnish architecture.

Nearly a third of Porvoo's inhabitants speak Swedish.

 

Champagne pops - Mikkeli, Finland

"SAUTE-BOUCHON" - at the beginning of its history, champagne was called the devil's wine or the devil's drink. 

Carbon dioxide is formed in champagne as a result of the natural aging process in the bottles. New wine is poured into the bottles and then stored slightly tilted towards the cork at a temperature of 3-5 ° C. The aging bottles exploded and the corks popped out under the influence of high pressure, which gave winemakers a lot of trouble.

 

#29 FOTW - Pori, Finland

In 2010, Finland established a National Failure Day to learn from mistakes and not repeat them.

The first inhabitants of Finland were the Sami people who were there when the first Finns immigrated in the first millennium BC. The Sami moved north to what is known today as Lapland.  

DC-3 Hotelli - Tampere, Finland

DC-3 (Douglas Commercial 3) - one of the most popular aircraft in the history of air transport. It contributed to the popularization of air travel in the 1930s and 1940s, is considered one of the most successful and significant aircraft in the history of aviation. 

The first flight took place on December 17, 1935, on the 32nd anniversary of the first flight of the Wright brothers.

During World War II, many civilian DC-3s were conscripted into the military air force.

#10 GF - Korsholm, Finland

Moomins (Swedish: Mumintrollen) - fictitious creatures living in a valley somewhere in Finland. Tampere, Finland's third-largest city, houses the Moomin Museum. 

Replot Bridge - a bridge in Finland connecting the island of Replot to the mainland in Korsholm. It is the longest bridge in Finland.

Hot air balloons - Helsinki, Finland

The first hot air balloons were built by the Montgolfier brothers in 1782. The renaissance of hot air balloons occurred in the 1960s when propane burners began to be used to heat the air.