Helsinki is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 656,250. The city's urban area has a population of 1,268,296, making it by far the most populous urban area in Finland as well as the country's most important center for politics, education, finance, culture, and research; while Tampere in the Pirkanmaa region, located 179 kilometres (111 mi) to the north from Helsinki, is the second largest urban area in Finland. Helsinki is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 km (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties with these three cities.
Finnish Neopaganism, or the Finnish native faith is the contemporary revival of Finnish paganism, the pre-Christian polytheistic ethnic religion of the Finns. A precursor movement was the Ukonusko of the early 20th century. The main problem in the revival of Finnish paganism is the nature of pre-Christian Finnish culture, which relied on oral tradition which may be subject to change over time. The primary sources concerning Finnish native culture are written by latter-era Christians.
The Sm3 Pendolino is a class of high-speed body-tilting trains operated by VR Group. It is a member of the Pendolino train family; its design is based on the ETR 460. The first two trainsets were assembled in Finland by Rautaruukki-Transtech in the mid-1990s. The rest of the series of eighteen EMUs were built by Fiat Ferroviaria between 2000 and 2006. The trains serve most of Finland's major cities such as Helsinki, Turku, Oulu and Joensuu with a maximum speed of 220 km/h (140 mph), although this speed is only attained between Kerava and Lahti. The train has a power output of 4,000 kW (5,400 hp) and weighs 328 tonnes.
Finland is a predominantly Christian nation where 67.8% of the 5.5 million overall population are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Protestant), 29.4% are unaffiliated, 1.1% are Orthodox Christians, 0.9% are other christians and 0.8% follow other religions like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, folk religion etc.
Oskar Wilhelm Wetzell was a Finnish diver, who competed at the 1908 and the 1912 Summer Olympics.
Fingerpori is a Finnish comic strip written and drawn by Pertti Jarla. It started in Helsingin Sanomat in February 2007, and is comprehensively distributed in major provincial newspapers. Literally, fingerpori is a thimble, but fingerporillinen is a proverbial small amount of alcohol, and Pori is a Finnish town.
Jussi Kristian Halla-aho is a Finnish politician who has served as a member of the Parliament of Finland from 2011 to 2014 and again since 2019, and as the leader of the Finns Party from 10 June 2017 to 14 August 2021. Previously, between 2014 and 2019, he was a member of the European Parliament, where he was part of the Identity and Democracy group.
The Sibelius was a train run daily by VR between Helsinki, Finland, and St. Petersburg, Russia. The service began on 31 May 1992 to ease congestion on the night service Repin after the fall of the Soviet Union increased traffic on the border. The maximum speed of the train was originally 140 km/h (87 mph), and it was later raised to 160 km/h (99 mph). Travel times between the two cities were originally over 6 hours, but they reached 5 hours and 12 minutes in 2002 and dropped further to 5 hours and 6 minutes in 2006.
Maria Lähteenmäki is a researcher of history, Jutikkala Professor at the University of Eastern Finland and Docent of Finnish and Scandinavian history at the University of Helsinki. She has produced many scientific monographs and textbooks and written a great number of articles.
Kaartin soittokunta is the oldest operational concert band in Finland, founded in Parola on April 1, 1819 during the Grand Duchy period. It is the Representative Band of the President of the Republic of Finland. The orchestra plays mostly classical, military and march music in various official and public events. The band's most important annual concerts are the Töölö concerts, entertainment concerts in spring at Finlandia Hall and a classical concert in Helsinki Music Centre.
Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland ry, or Musiikkituottajat for short,, IFPI Finland in English, is the umbrella organization of recording producers active in Finland, with 23 record labels as its members.
Irreligion in Finland: according to Statistics Finland in 2020, 29.4% of the population in Finland were non-religious, or about 1,628,000 people. The Union of Freethinkers of Finland and other organisations have acted as interest organisations, legal protection organisations and cultural organisations for non-religious people. In a 2018 international ISSP survey, 40% of the Finnish population said they did not believe in God, 34% said they believed in God and 26% did not know. Nearly one out of every five people in the country is not a member of a religious organisation, and the number of people with no religious affiliation has doubled in two decades.
Ihme Contemporary Art Festival is a yearly festival for contemporary art produced by Pro Arte Foundation Finland. The festival includes a public work of art, a varied programme of events around the artwork, and educational art projects. Ihme Project, commissioned by the Festival, is to be realised in the public realm. A varied Festival programme ranging from artist talks to film screenings opens up the Ihme Project for discussion and debate and is free to attend. Ihme also offers an art education programme, Ihme School, with various activities. The word "ihme" means a wonder or a miracle in Finnish.
Ismo Mikael Leikola, sometimes known professionally as ISMO, is a Finnish stand-up comedian, musician, author, screenwriter, and YouTuber. Leikola made his United States debut in 2014, when he was awarded the title of "The Funniest Person in the World" in a contest organized by the comedy club Laugh Factory. In 2015, he made comedy series ISMO for Finnish television and moved to the United States. He became an internationally known stand-up comedian after his performance on the Conan talk show in 2018 and has since toured internationally.
Anna Liisa Kontula is a Finnish sociologist and an MP since 2011. Until 2017, she was also a member of the city council of Tampere.
The Finnish Comics Society was founded in 1971. It is the umbrella organization for the cartoon industry in Finland. Its purpose is to increase the appreciation for comics, to promote the knowledge of good comics and increase comics critical reading. The Finnish Comics Society supports comic artists and collaborates with the Finnish cartoonists association.
Hitchball 4000 is the biggest hitchhiking race in the Nordic countries, organized during the first weekend of June. It is a weekend-long race where teams of two people hitchhike away from Helsinki and back. Each team is equipped with a GPS tracker, which enables their progress to be followed in real-time on the competition's website. The winner of the main competition is the team that hitchhikes the longest distance and gets the furthest possible during the weekend, but also gets back to the starting point before the following Monday morning. The Spirit of Hitchball award is given to the team that has done the best promotion of hitchhiking through their attitude and their storytelling in social media.
Mika Mäkeläinen is a Finnish foreign news journalist and non-fiction writer, who has served as both the United States and Asia correspondent for the Finnish public broadcasting company Yle. Mäkeläinen was stationed in Washington, D.C., between 2006 and 2009 and in Beijing between 2015 and 2017.
Finnish Buddhist Union, commonly abbreviated SBU, is an umbrella organisation for different Buddhist associations in Finland and is thus not affiliated to any particular school of Buddhism. In total there're around 40 different Buddhist organisations in the country although some of them are not officially registered. The aims of SBU are among other things to represent Buddhist associations in Finland on both national and international level, to make practicing Buddhism easier in Finland, to increase awareness of the religion and participate the public discussion about different world views.
Helsinki City Library is the largest public library in Finland. Owned by the City of Helsinki, the library has 37 branches and a collection of about 1.56 million books. The City Library is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Libraries network.
