I am very late into the Suomi Finland 100 thing but better later than never! This year Finland has a very big celebration as 100 years ago it became independent. To be precise the independency was declared on the 6th December 1917. Before that Finland was ruled by Sweden and Russia for hundreds of years.
Finland has gone through some hardships ever since then with big troubles happening when the Soviet Union decided it would be a great thing to invade Finland in 1939. Didn’t really work out for the Soviet Union but Finland still suffered not only due to the territory loses but also due to the many dead and injured. Afterwards Finland tried its best not to attract too much attention and has to this day not joined the NATO.
Important things to know about Finland:
- there are some 187,888 lakes larger than 500 square meters (5,400 sqm)
- the famous brand Nokia started as a paper mill back in 1865 and developed into different branches – to this day the separate company Nokian exists which is producing for example tyres and rubber boots
- Angry Birds by Rovio is from Finland
- Clash of Clans and Clash Royal by Supercell is from Finland
- Finland has the most Olympic Medals won per capita!
- there are about two million saunas in Finland for only 5.6 million inhabitants!
- there are not Polar Bears in Finland
The 100 year event started last year with the New Year Celebration with a huge party in Helsinki. The countdown to the new year was synced with the song Sandstorm by Darude. Let’s just say it was an epic party no matter how cold it was outside! All over the year they had events and Politicians from all over the world congratulated Finland such as former Vice President of the USA Joe Biden. In summer they had the Lippujuhla or in English Flag day of the Defence Forces which falls each year on the 4th of June, the birthday of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland. The latest celebration was now on the 6th of December, the Day of Independency itself. This is celebrated each year and the highlight for most Finnish people is to watch on TV the President shaking hands with hundreds of “important” people.
So that is my very basic and very short summary of the Suomi Finland 100 Celebration. I wish you all a Merry Christmas (here we celebrate already on the 24th!!) and next time I shall annoy you all with a blog post about our Christmas Decoration.
Have you heard about the Finland 100 Celebration?
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I did hear about the epic celebration. And yeah, Finland has a lock on medals, thanks to the Winter Olympics and skis!
I did not know about the polar bears, though it looks like many other countries will also soon be without polar bears.
Back in the day Finland was even successful in the summer Olympics but that was more than just few decades ago…
I wonder whether they will have an last celebration or event for the new year 🙂
Sounds like a great time! I didn’t know all those things about Finland. 100 years of independence is definitely worth celebrating.
Finland is a pretty unknown county with only 5 million inhabitant so most people do not know it 🙂
First time reading about this but I’m always up for more information. Love the small nuggets of information because I now realise I don’t know much about Finland. 100 years is definitely something worthy to celebrate over! Singapore is just 50 years old in comparison but we celebrated it in a grand way too! 🙂
Finnish people do tend to stay in the background so the outside world never hears too much about the country:D
Happy birthday, Finland!! I knew several of those facts (the ones related to technology haha). I had never considered if there were polar bears or not… but for sure there are reindeers! 😀
Don’t remind me on those reindeers! In Lapland they block the roads and don’t move an inch when cars are coming they just look at you as you were some retard entering their domain.
I guess the technology facts are the most known about Finland anyways 🙂
Wow the fact about Olympic medals was a news to me! I am happy for people of Finland. Happy Independence day to you too! 🙂
Finland used to be a pretty strong county in the Olympics back in the day 🙂
Next year we will go to Finland again in summer for a few weeks
We went to the illumination of the fell Saana where the first picture is taken and it was beautiful! Best way to celebrate our independence 🙂
How lovely that you were there! This year we didn’t even had the chance to visit Finland but next year we shall be there again for a few weeks during summer time:)
I hope you will have fun trip here next summer! And hopefully summer will be warmer than last one, we had lot of rain.
There is always a lot of rain 🤣 there have been so few summers in the past decade with great weather and they are getting less
thats true! last summer Lapland had lot of sun and south had lot of rain, thats starting to be a every year thing. And unfortunaly the beginnig of the winter is the same here, rain and rain. Snow comes later and later. So thats why we are really greatful now because this christmas is white!
Wish we could have been there now for white Christmas. We used to travel to our cottage each winter when I was young and it was always so wonderful with snow (Kauhajoki). The past years however our neighbours told that they had zero snow!!
We live about 100 km from Kauhajoki in little city called Virrat ☺we have about 15 snow now and they promised more tomorrow. But last few christmas has been really dark without snow
Virrat near tampere? I was there for my conformation camp (German Finnish Camp) some 16 years ago and it was lovely:)
Yes,Virrat is near tampere! Its crazy you have been here!normally people have never heard from our town.
Well I have been long enough in Finland to see one or two places but right, Virrat is very unknown. My mom had friends with a cottage nearby as well where we used to stay few days each summer in my very early years (until I was 6 as then my parents bought their own cottage)
I enjoyed all the interesting information. It sounds like almost every family has a sauna. That’s great! Congratulations to Finland on 100 years of independence and wishing it many years to come. The country may be at the edge of things, but it still has one dangerous neighbor. Isn’t that Russia on the other side of its eastern border?
Indeed nearly every family has their own sauna/ saunas! Our tiny 40 square meter apartment in Finland even had a sauna. Apartment block usually have one sauna for all inhabitants and cottages sometimes do have several saunas (traditional sauna and then the savu sauna – smoke sauna).
Russia is right next to Finland so there is always some kind of “threat”. During my military service in Finland all training were about defending against a Russian invasion
I actually never heard much about your hometown Finland until I started following your blog. From the outset, I always thought it was a peaceful and quiet country. But reading your blog and this post, it sounds like a country that has achieved a lot, and congrats to Finland on 100 years of independence. Sounds like so many celebrations all year round this year, all building up to the real day not too long ago. Like Marta said, I heard there are reindeers in Finland 😀 Apart from the reindeer, I heard that Finland is quite famous for the alternative heavy metal scene – don’t know how bit it is, but it seems to be pretty big and one time Obama said he knew that kind of music.
Oh I totally forgot about the metal music part! Finland has really the highest concentration of metal bands in the world and per capita. Finland also has the highest coffee consumption in the world (over 10kg per year in average)
I thought Australia’s metal scene was weird. Then went I checked out heavy metal bands from Finland, a whole other level. Also thought Australia drank a lot of coffee – so many people here can’t function without a coffee first in the morning…and then I looked it up and Australia is ranked around 42 for coffee consumption lol.
Yeah Finnish people are really overdoing it with coffee….during my military service (when I was “guardian of the pool”) I drank 10-12 cups of coffee every day 😮
Thx for your great blog post. HOw coincidental that Canada celebrated its 150 birthday as an independent country…like Finland’s 100th in 2017. 🙂 Joy. 🙂
I had no idea about lack of polar bears, not part of NATO and past Swedish, Russian domination. History is best learned from learned nationals like yourself! Hope you learned something about Canada over the years…
Oh I had completly forgotten about Canada having the 150th birthday even though I read so many posts about it.
Indeed history or real facts about countries are best learned when native write about them /tell them.
It’s always good read about general interesting facts of other countries. You have the advantage of commenting on Finland, Germany and China where you’ve lived. Mine is confined to primarily Canada.
Happy 100 Finland! Thanks for the fun facts, had no idea! And Happy New Year to you and your crazy 😉 family!
Thank you so much, also happy new year to you (though I am kind of late now!).
Finland got some fun facts especially as it is pretty unknown country