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2,5 kg lingonberries
2 l water
25 g lemon or wine acid (can be found from your local pharmacy)
500 g sugar for each liter of juice

Clean and crush the berries. Melt the acid into water, then add the crushed berries. Mix well and keep still for 1-2 days. Run the mixture through a strainer, and add sugar. Pour the juice into bottles and store in a cool place. For an adult version, add a tad of vodka before serving.

SixDegrees speaks to award-winning film director and spokesperson for the Sami minority Pauliina Feodoroff about immigration, Sami culture and independent filmmaking.

OVER THE last three years, Pauliina Feodoroff’s name has become a familiar one in Finnish society. In 2007, the Finnish Critics’ Association gave her the annually distributed Kritiikin Kannukset award for her film Non Profit. The same year she began a two-year stint as President of the Sami Council, and then became one of Teatteri Takomo’s two managing directors in 2009. On top of all this, she heads the eastern Sami organisation Saa’mi Nue’tt and chairs a Ministry of Education working group on the accessibility of culture and art. So, to say that she is a multi-talented, multifaceted person is to understate a tad.

Aiming to turn a monologue into a dialogue, the ipf can revolutionise how immigrants participate in their new homelands.

Discussions about immigration are running hot in Finland, and it will be a major topic in the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2011. Finnish political parties have had some immigrant candidates, but none has been elected to parliament so far. Now a new initiative aims to build immigrants their own parliament. A long period of planning has turned into action and a group of influential immigrants have joined forces to make it happen. Alexis Kouros, Umayya Abu-Hanna, Ahmed Akar, Jeremy Gould, Mustafa Gürler, Eilina Gusatinsky and Mulki Mölsä ...

Finland talks about immigrants as if we were not in the room. We have become bystanders in a discussion concerning us.

WE are a nation of more than 200 million people. We are young and old, children and adults. We are held by no borders. We go to the furthest places on earth, taking risks and leaving loved ones behind, to reach for our dreams. We are strong, but amongst the weakest. We are discriminated against and some of us have no rights. Most of us feel unwelcomed, maltreated, abused. When things go wrong, we are among the first to be blamed for it.

PICTURE yourself at the centre of cosmos, spiritual cultivation and money; cultural enjoyment and reasoning; hedonism, fame and mystery. According to a curious piece of graphic on the website, you have reached the essence of Turku Modern, a music festival organised for the second consecutive time in July in Turku.

“The festival presents an array of artists from house and techno, on one hand, to hip hop and Jamaican music on the other,” says Sampo Axelsson, one of the individuals behind Turku Modern.

IT’S HARD to come across something that rouses the feelings of nostalgia for the Finnish countryside more than lavatanssit – traditional dance hall dances. Of course Helsinki has its share of dance halls also, but to acquire a true experience you have to head out of the city. Once you find yourself amidst grain fields, lakes and tractors you’re starting to get to the heart of it all.

Just about every town in the countryside, no matter how big or small, has its own lava where locals from children to grandmothers head to in the summer weekends. This is where traditional Finnish music is still alive and kicking as the music at a lavatanssit is always performed live.

HEARING the name Mariska still makes many of us think of a tough young rapper who became known in the early 2000s for her long dreadlocks and tough attitude. In reality, she is much more than that. Mariska is an established singer-songwriter who, on top of creating her own songs, writes lyrics to such big names in Finnish pop music as Jenni Vartiainen and Anna Puu. Recently she underwent a transformation from a rap artist into an iskelmä (Finnish popular music) singer. This is not the first time the gifted musician has changed her skin, but while everything else may be amendable, her attitude is one thing that sticks.

People travel for different reasons. For those who do so in order to make friends and experience more local culture than you’ll find on organised holidays, couch surfing is a cheap and potentially fulfilling way of travelling.

FOR TRAVELLERS on a budget, perhaps especially in places with fairly high costs of living like Finland, the biggest headache can often be finding accommodation which is possessed of a decent standard, while remaining affordable. If you want to spend a week exploring a Finnish city, for example, you could easily be looking at spending anywhere from 300-700 euros on accommodation alone, and potentially much more. This might mean you can thereafter for the duration of your stay...

Tough girls on retro roller skates in wild outfits – roller derby has landed in Finland, but what’s it all about exactly?

FISHNET STOCKINGS, fast speed, bruises and tattooed girls – these are some of the first images that come to mind when somebody mentions roller derby. But despite the image created on the sport most recently by Drew Barrymore’s film Roller Girl, it’s not all about tough looks and the will to hurt your opponent.

THE SAME food can be experienced in a completely different manner at different latitudes. Some Italian specialties like cappuccino, coffee and pasta are consumed daily by many Finns, both in restaurants and in their homes. However, their preparation and consumption assumes peculiar cultural traits.

Check your attitude toward Italian food by answering the following test!

A BEER is a beer is a beer…or is it? Finland has been a bit late entering the micro-brewery game, but some of the beers crafted in the country today rival the best found anywhere. Panimo restaurant and brewery, located on the island of Suomenlinna, merits recognition here. Not only does it serve up first-rate suds, but goes the distance in creating excellent dishes as well.

Housed in the old Jetty Barracks close to the main pier, Panimo’s rustic atmosphere provides a good venue for sampling some excellent in-house brewed beers. Their Piper Wit won me over right from the start with its hint of coriander and subtle orange flavours.

THE SLOGAN of this year’s Faces festival, “We shall overcome,” refers to the current negative attitude in the media and society against immigrants and multiculturalism. Elina Yamano from the festival organisation points out that it is a positive message which takes a stand against this atmosphere.

The idea is directly connected to the original roots of the festival that was organised in 1998 for the first time by Börje Matson and Holger Wickström. The goal was to give different ethnic groups a chance to present themselves and create a meeting place for different cultures and Finns.

DURING THE endless, and at times deeply passionate, recent debate about Romanian beggars on the streets of Helsinki, little has been heard from the Romanians themselves. Other than a single fascinating story in Helsingin Sanomat, the debate has largely involved Finns talking with each other about a silent and exterior Other. Many people have asked what might be best for the Romanians themselves; few have gone as far as asking a Romanian.

IN SHORT, the Romanian beggars have become an object, and I realised the other day with no small sense of shock that they have become objects for me too. I do not see a human being sitting on a street corner, and barely register even their gender or age, but see only an object in human form.

Seed bombs and secret vegetable patches - guerilla gardening aims to make the urban world a better place.

THE RAPID urbanisation of the world’s population has resulted in a lack of space, yet an increasing demand for gardens has sparked an enthusiasm for reclaiming neglected land. Urbanisation is lending itself to help create resourceful cities that respect ecological systems as well as encouraging socially and aesthetically pleasing environments. On the frontline of this phenomenon is “guerilla gardening,” the “guerrilla” term reflecting its adventurous, albeit illicit facet – the garden-less’ horticultural incursions and surreptitious cultivations on private land.

Take in the pageant along Esplanade • Stargaze at Kaivopuisto observatory • Go caving on Suomenlinna • Spend a sunset on Torni terrace • Stand in the Cupola Hall of the National Library • Stage dive at Tavastia • Borrow a boat and island hop • Drift over the city in a hot air balloon • Wait for a bus in Kallio • Admire Eira’s art nouveau architecture • Say hello to Emu at Digelius music shop • Skinny-dip at Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall • Stroll around Seurasaari • Haggle for deals at Valtteri flea market • Stop in for a pastry and java at Cafe Crustum • Go car spotting on summer Fridays • Revel in the Gallen-Kallela works at Ateneum

HELSINKI’S Flow Festival will take place this year for the seventh year running. Originally held at the classic (and now barbarously demolished) venue of VR-Makasiinit in 2004, the event moved to the historic Suvilahti power plant area in 2007, where it has remained ever since. Taking full advantage of the location’s centrality – being just a short walk from Hakaniemi and Sörnäinen and a mere five minute metro ride from the central railway station – Flow has gone from strength to strength, attracting not only ever-growing crowds but an impressively eclectic array of musicians. The festival has grown each year. In 2004 the capacity was a mere 4,500. Last year 41,000 attended over four days, and this year the organisers are expecting up to 45,000 guests over the festival period.

TURKU-based indie pop band Cats on Fire has enjoyed a growing following in Finland and overseas alike. The band was established in 2001 and has since released a bunch of EP’s and two records, The Province Complains and Our Temprance Movement. A few months back Cats on Fire released a compilation Dealing in Antiques with a mix of songs from way back and a few pleasantly surprising new tracks. This summer the four strong band spreads its wings and tours across the seas with, unfortunately for us, no gigs to their name in Finland. SixDegrees caught up with Mattias Björkas, the band’s lead singer, on the eve of the big tour.

I USED to hate mobile phones and always swore I’d never get one. Then I came to Finland.

Finland is mobile phone crazy, not to put too fine a point on it, and this is why there are practically no phone boxes/booths left in the capital region. In the 1990s there were 900 phone boxes in fully working order, but now the only ones left on the streets of Helsinki are antique pieces on Sofiankatu and the island of Seurasaari, according to Jukka Laine from Telephone Museum Elisa. In the rest of Finland, phone boxes have fared no better. “There may be a phone box or two bought from us still in use but we don’t have any ourselves,” states Carita Autio of telecommunications company Elisa’s Public Relations department.

GETTING people together to speak in many different languages may not be a revolutionary idea. Yet with the eagerness of one determined person in Helsinki a language café was born, which has served as the birth place of many lasting friendships.

Café Lingua was organised in 2005 as a site where anyone is welcome to come and join in conversations in a number of different languages. The event gathers together Finns wanting to keep up or improve their language skills and foreigners who wish to learn more Finnish, or simply talk to somebody in their own language.