Russian romance is a part of an endangered musical genre that is about to be brought back to life.

Carelian-born Cossack Viktor Klimenko has garnered fame in the Gospel music scene, but has now gathered together a varied group of talented artists to save a culture that is slowly withering away: the music of the Russian pre-communist era brought over by fleeing emigrants that is renowned for its gripping gypsy songs with a twist of romance.

Does your status as an EU citizen lessen the bureaucratic nightmare faced when moving to Finland?

CURRENTLY in Finland there are just over 60,000 non-Finnish citizens employed in the country. This works out at around 2.6 per cent of the working population. With the numbers of foreigners altogether in the country running at around 3.2 per cent, this shows a healthy representation of foreigners’ contribution to the nation.

Helsinki suburb Vuosaari is emerging as a dynamic and international centre in its own right.

“What makes Vuosaari interesting and special as an area is that it comes across as a fascinating, modern and urban city district that pulsates with life.” This is what Aku Louhimies, one of Finland’s front-line film directors, said in an interview about a year ago. His new film Vuosaari, a collection of contemporary love stories, is hitting cinemas on 3 February.

Community-centred living is becoming increasingly popular in today’s Finland, with people more aware of the prevalence of social reclusion.

Rather than being an exception relegated to a rare few, living alone in a studio flat in your early 20s is more accurately described as the norm when it comes to student accommodation in Finland. Given that such living standards are seen as a luxury in most other countries, many foreigners fresh to Finnish culture are found to be flabbergasted upon hearing about it.

Supporting entrepreneurs to realise their dreams.

THERE are few people in Finland with broader experience in start-up companies than American Will Cardwell. Since 1998, he has invested in them either independently or as a venture capitalist with Eqvitec Partners and Conor Venture Partners. He has advised them from the board of directors, and also led one, Valimo Wireless, as CEO. He has helped them begin their business life from his position as head of Technopolis Ventures, Finland’s largest technology incubator. He has researched and lectured about them in the Aalto School of Economics and Aalto University of Technology.

IN FINLAND, Valentine’s Day is a relatively discreet occasion. Unlike its Anglo-Saxon cousin, the Finnish ystävänpäivä is more generally about celebrating friendships, rather than being a day just for lovers. Nevertheless, the overabundance of pink hearts and factory-made confessions of love (in the form of Valentine’s Day cards) that go with the original V-Day are enough to turn off just about anyone.

INCREASING numbers of students from all over the world are now coming to Finland to complete degree level studies and, as has been more tradition, as exchange students. As is the case with most students who travel abroad to study, most of the foreign students in Finland flock to the capital area, with its bright lights and buzzing social scene.

“I’M an ordinary man, nothin’ special, nothin’ grand…” Ordinary Man is a mournful piece of cheesiness best performed by Christy Moore, Ireland’s favourite troubadour. In recent years there’s been a remarkable revival in the well-worn notion of the “average,” “ordinary,” or “common man,” the mythical figure who supposedly represents the majority and whose taxes, so the updated version of the legend goes, put food on the tables of all the uppity, ungrateful parasites – minorities, immigrants, in short anyone’s who’s not “normal” – who never stop biting the hand that feeds them.

Rosa Karo’s latest film offers a light alternative for cinemagoers.

FAIRYTALES have become rather rare in today’s world, where films that portray uttermost misery seem to be the most applauded. Cinema houses are packed with works that – although possibly cinematic masterpieces – will make you cry, shiver, or simply bring you down for hours, sometimes even for days.

Does going the distance make the heart grow fonder?

ARRIVING to a new country to live, as many of us know, is an often confusing cocktail containing one pinch of excitement mixed with a splash of uncertainty and a generous portion of conflicting emotions. Having packed up your old life back home and bid a tearful farewell to loved ones, it’s not long before life has turned itself on its ear, as you soon become acquainted with a multitude of cultural differences on offer here in Finland.

The Finland-Swedish community has its own special take on Christmas celebrations.

CHRISTMAS may come but once a year, but it comes in different ways for different peoples. There are many ways of celebrating this festival, and even within a single country there can be a lot of variation. In Finland, the Swedish-speaking community shares many of the national Christmas traditions, but it also has a few twists specific to itself.

The Bishop of Helsinki sees the Church in 2011 as a part of an ongoing evolution.

ARRIVING to the top floor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland Diocese of Helsinki building, after being warmly greeted by Bishop Irja Askola it comes as a mild surprise to discover that her office appears to have embraced a stark, Scandinavian style. Furnished with an abundance of bare wooden surfaces, a small collection of books rests on the bookshelf, with a plant, a desk and a long meeting table struggling to fill the available space. Cultural differences aside, I had anticipated perhaps a little more iconography and decoration for a person of her position.

Just who will be elected as Finland’s next president?

The race for the presidency is heating up. Although there’s been a lot of talk about it since the summer, now that all the main parties have named their candidates, election campaigning has stepped up a gear.

At the moment, the National Coalition’s candidate, Sauli Niinistö, is way out ahead of the rest, consistently chalking up opinion poll ratings in excess of 40 per cent, and that’s with around a fifth of Finns still undecided as to whom to vote for. Niinistö’s closest rivals are the Centre’s Paavo Väyrynen, the Social Democrats’ Paavo Lipponen and Timo Soini of Perussuomalaiset (a.k.a. the Finns Party).

Living here in Finland, it sometimes seems that the world’s protests pass us by. We don’t often see cars set on fire in Kuopio, or shop windows smashed in and looted in Joensuu. But the Occupy Wall Street protests have extended here, albeit to a modest extent, and have asked questions about Finnish society some might prefer were not asked.

But given this protest movement began in America and is largely concerned with American issues, let’s look at America first.

Creeping onto the Finnish music scene with her haunting melancholia, Mirel Wagner’s unique voice is beginning to make waves overseas.

With a growing fan base both here and abroad, 23-year-old Espoo resident Mirel Wagner continues to win plaudits for her intoxicatingly dark tales, which twist together elements not normally found in modern popular music. Released earlier this year, her remarkable debut album was preceded by the single No Death, a morbid tale of a physical embrace with a deceased partner.

With the literacy rate of the Finnish population among the highest in the world, it’s only fitting that residents here enjoy a comprehensive library system.

Reading is a global pleasure. Many keen readers enjoy buying books, new or second-hand, at bookshops and book fairs. Similar to many other countries, here in Finland you can also indulge your enthusiasm for the written word for free. Some people who move to Finland to live, study or work here are surprised by the country’s splendid public library system that is amazingly versatile, surprisingly modern and yet free of charge for users, being tax-funded. All you need is a library card, and then you are free to borrow items like books or CDs from lending libraries.

As blogging becomes more mainstream, is it also becoming something you could make a living from?

Blogging has left behind its late ‘90s stereotype of being something that geeky teenage boys do in their bedrooms, and is now a firm part of modern day culture enjoyed by people from all walks of life. Business bloggers, fashion bloggers, health and fitness bloggers, parent bloggers, expat bloggers, political bloggers, technology bloggers; millions of people around the globe use blogs to share ideas and information.

How the internet generation is changing the education landscape.

The race in technology advancement and our growing reliability on the internet has allowed pupils worldwide to expand their education base. Encouraging isolated learning and web exploration of this kind has become the norm in educational development, but websites such as khanacademy.org have taken this idea one gigantic step further.

Director Peter Lindholm’s latest film offers Finnish society pause for thought.

FinLAND-Swedish film director, producer and scriptwriter Peter Lindholm is known for such films as Kites over Helsinki, Three in Love and Kill City, while also producing several TV-series as well.

Not seeing himself as a typical Finland-Swede, the 51-year-old director feels more that he belongs to a minority within a minority. His true mother tongue is the language of film, a dialect that he has retained from his youth.

Add a pair of headphones to the list of items to bring with you when heading out clubbing.

The Finns (the people, not the political party) have invented some bizarre things in their time. Swamp football and wife carrying are two of the more well-known odd pastimes originating from this land of the midnight sun, but a slightly trendier, if ultimately ridiculous, habit that began here has recently spread around Europe. Silent discos are club nights where partygoers listen to music on headphones, together, in a large room. Supposedly the first example of such an event, at least visually, was in a 1969 Finnish science fiction film called Ruusujen AIka. In the seventies the idea failed to set the world on fire before it was resurrected by some British people during the early noughties.