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.

IN THE past few years there has been an extremely tight competition between the Finnish surnames Korhonen and Virtanen (the equivalent to Smith and Jones in English). Where Virtanen once led as the most common surname in Finland, recent statistics from the Finnish Population Register Centre announced that Korhonen has taken the lead by only two people. In Finland there are 23,571 Korhonens and 23,569 Virtanens. These are followed by Nieminen, Mäkinen, Mäkelä, Hämäläinen, Koskinen, Heikkinen and Järvinen. Yes, this is the “–nen” country of the “–nen” people.

FINNS are proud of their linguistic identity, especially when it differs from the standard Finnish. Savo, in Eastern Finland, is a good example. People there are talkative, but in a confusing manner that gives no straight answers – and you might be confronted with speech and sounds similar to Finnish that leave you clueless.

My first attempts to understand a conversation were often commented on as such: “Don’t try to listen – we speak Savo now, not Finnish.” They take pride in disguising the words and changing the sounds so that perfectly simple sentences need detective work to be understood.

Learning the Finnish they don’t teach in school
David Brown and Mimmu Takalo

Kukkahattutäti

English translation:

(literal) Flower Hat Ladies

English equivalent:

do-gooder, busybody

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.

OFFERING a spirited alternative to an afternoon spent quaffing beer and swatting mosquitoes at a summer cottage in the Finnish countryside, the annual Wife Carrying World Championship is again taking place 2-3 July in Sonkajärvi.

Not simply content with such bizarre competitions as the ant hill sitting competition, the mobile phone throwing competition or the annual swamp football match, Finland outdoes itself with a sport whose roots can be traced back deep in the region’s history.

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.

TAKING the idea of culinary convenience to a new level is SPAM, a popular and compact lump of canned processed meat from the USA. Aside from its modestly priced meaty goodness, SPAM’s name has also become synonymous with Monty Python and, more recently, also unsolicited and unwanted emails that generally flaunt miracle cures for impotence.

Originating in Austin, Minnesota, SPAM has fed millions since its introduction back in 1937. Popularised during World War II, it became the predominant food on the menu for American troops stationed in the Pacific, which in turn has now led to Hawaii being the largest SPAM-consuming state in the USA.

Former minister and MP for the Swedish People’s Party Eva Biaudet was appointed Finland’s new Ombudsman for Minorities on Thursday 6 May. Biaudet’s designation has caused public debate because she was granted a special exemption from the requirement of containing a postgraduate university degree.

One of the most vocal protestors is Husein Muhammed, lawyer, translator and a politician of the Green party. He made the complaint about the selection procedure to the Attorney General. Muhammed stresses that although he applied for the position himself, his criticism is based on the selection procedure and is not aimed at Biaudet personally.