Helsinki

Helsinki, or Stadi, as we locals call the cap­i­tal city of Fin­land, is home to almost 600 000 peo­ple. That’s not much if you think of other cap­i­tals of the World, but it’s still the biggest city in Fin­land. The cap­i­tal area con­sists of four cities (Helsinki, Espoo, Van­taa and Kau­ni­ainen), and some 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple live there. That’s quite a lot, since Fin­land only has about 5.3 mil­lion people.

Helsinki was founded in 1550 by the King of Swe­den, but no build­ings from that time have sur­vived. Old­est build­ings in Helsinki date to the 18^th cen­tury and can be found near the Sen­ate Square right down­town. Around the same square you’ll find nice exam­ples of neo-classical architecture.

The Helsinki Cathedral is one of the landmarks of the Finnish capital.
Photo by Niko Soveri. © Helsinki City Tourist & Convention Bureau

Today Helsinki is a mod­ern Euro­pean city that evolves con­stantly. New build­ings are being built, and old ones con­served, so that the his­tory of Helsinki always stays present. Here and there, you can find marks of the Russ­ian Empire and the Swedish King­dom, because Fin­land used to be part of first Swe­den and then Rus­sia before gain­ing inde­pen­dence in 1917. New build­ings aren’t that bad either: check out the wild lines of the Museum of Con­tem­po­rary Art Kiasma, or the upcom­ing new library in Kaisaniemi (still under construction).

Lazy sum­mer days

A shredder down by the Töölö Bay at 3 am. Photo by Justin Sexton.

Helsinki is a super nice city in the sum­mer. The city wakes up, the grass is green, flow­ers bloom and peo­ple smile - that’s not the case in the win­ter­time! You can just stroll around the city, maybe have a cup of cof­fee some­where, a scoop of ice cream at a park, and maybe a pint of beer on the bar ter­race. Or gather your friends for a shred ses­sion at the Töölö Bay, or put up your net in the Kaivopuisto park. In the sum­mer­time the sun doesn’t really set at all. It’s light when you wake up, it’s light when you go to bed, and it’s light even in the wee hours when you go home from a club!

A great place to spend a nice sum­mer day is Suomen­linna, a mar­itime fortress built in the 18^th cen­tury on the islands off Helsinki. There you’ll find lots of his­tory, soft grass for nap­ping or a pic­nic, and a really nice atmos­phere. Take the HSL ferry from the Mar­ket Square, and enjoy the sea breeze on the way. If you like swim­ming or sun­bathing, head to the Hietaranta beach or the Olympic Swim­ming Pool, which is close to the tour­na­ment site. One way to see Helsinki is get­ting on a sight­see­ing boat from the Mar­ket Square. The boat takes you on a tour around the arch­i­pel­ago, giv­ing you a dif­fer­ent view of Helsinki. Highly rec­om­mended, espe­cially on a sunny day!

There is also an amuse­ment park in Helsinki called Lin­nan­mäki. Entrance is free, but tick­ets to rides are quite expen­sive. How­ever, the old wooden roller­coaster is really some­thing. Not the wildest ride, but it def­i­nitely has character!

The laid back atmos­phere of Kallio

The liveli­est dis­trict of Helsinki is Kallio. His­tor­i­cally it has been home of the work­ing class, booz­ers, hus­tlers and junkies, but today it’s taken over by artists and hip­sters. Kallio still has high unem­ploy­ment and alco­holism rates, but its rep­u­ta­tion has become a lot bet­ter in recent years. Apart­ments have become ridicu­lously expen­sive, but the orig­i­nal atmos­phere is still present. There are lots of cheap shabby bars, piz­za­ke­babs and other small restau­rants, arts and bou­tiques, so take a tram and explore the streets of Kallio!

Pub­lic transportation

One of the great­est things in Helsinki is the easy, ver­sa­tile and safe pub­lic trans­porta­tion. It takes you to where ever you want by buses, trams, metro, trains and even fer­ries. Check out the prices at HSL. And Jour­ney Plan­ner is really handy when fig­ur­ing out which bus or tram to take.

Save legs, take tram. Photo by Pöllö. Some rights reserved.

Another great thing are the dis­tances. The city cen­ter isn’t really big, so you can basi­cally walk any­where. Or take a tram if you want to save your legs for the after­noon shred! Our tour­na­ment site, Töölö Sports Hall, is located quite close to city cen­tre. It’s only about 15 minute walk or a cou­ple stops by tram.

Shop­ping

If you feel like shop­ping, check out Kamppi and Forum shop­ping cen­ters and Stock­mann depart­ment store in down­town Helsinki. By metro you can get your­self to east Helsinki to Itäkeskus shop­ping cen­tre. But don’t count on any find­ing bar­gains in here; things are usu­ally more expen­sive in Fin­land than, ummm, prac­ti­cally any­where else! For local stuff and brands check out We Are Helsinki and Design dis­trict.

Yes, Fin­land is expen­sive, so you prob­a­bly need to break into your pig­gy­bank before tak­ing off!

Lan­guage and mentality

Most Finns speak at least some Eng­lish, so it’s easy for vis­i­tors to get by in Fin­land. How­ever, some­times Finns might seem impo­lite or even rude. Don’t worry, they are not mad at you or hos­tile, it’s just some­thing genet­i­cally coded in us. We don’t really show our emo­tions, we are silent and hum­ble peo­ple, and small talk is def­i­nitely not pop­u­lar in Fin­land. It might take some time, but you’ll find out that Finns are really hearty and hon­est peo­ple, and most prob­a­bly they won’t try to steal your money! (But keep your wal­let safe any­way, there’s always the rot­ten apple…)

How about the Finnish lan­guage? It’s said to be one of the most dif­fi­cult lan­guages in the world. If you really want to learn Finnish, check this. And I’m 99% sure that the first time you’ll have a beer with a Finn, he’ll teach you all the bad words in Finnish! In Helsinki there is also a vivid slang liv­ing under­ground. Stadin slangi has been evolv­ing for more than a cen­tury get­ting influ­ences from Swedish, Russ­ian and nowa­days also Eng­lish lan­guages. Some old school geezers speak so weird slang it’s dif­fi­cult to under­stand if you only know mod­ern slang! The slang is an essen­tial part of Helsinki, and you can even use the Jour­ney Plan­ner in Slangi.

Eat­ing

Finnish cui­sine isn’t very famous inter­na­tion­ally, but you’ll find good Finnish food in the Mar­ket Square. Try some smoked salmon on a rye bread, or have a dozen or two fried ven­daces (muikku) and potato mash for lunch. Another great place for local del­i­ca­cies is the Hakaniemi Mar­ket Hall, or just ask a Finn what’s good and truly Finnish. For a snack you can grab a tra­di­tional care­lian pie from any gro­cery store. Made of rye and rice por­ridge, it gives you energy for those long net ses­sions and trip­less runs. Of course ham­burg­ers, piz­zas, kebabs and other stuff is widely avail­able, but be sure to try out Finnish dishes as well. Eat.fi is a great ser­vice for find­ing restau­rants. Oh yeah, and rein­deer meat is really tasty.

Shopping at the Market Square. Photo by Ewan Bell.
© Helsinki City Tourist & Convention Bureau

Fin­land is really safe coun­try for tourists. Don’t act stu­pid and you’ll be just fine. So, keep your valu­ables safe, check that nobody sees your pin-code at ATM or stores, don’t take ille­gal ”dark taxis”, don’t walk alone in down­town, Kaisaniemi park or Kallio dis­trict at night, don’t break the law, don’t give the fin­ger to guys twice as big as you, you know how it goes. If some­thing should hap­pen, the emer­gency num­ber is 112.

More info

You’ll find lots of infor­ma­tion about Helsinki in the inter­net, here are some good links:

• Visit Helsinki
• Wik­i­travel Helsinki travel guide
• Vir­tu­al­Tourist Helsinki Travel Guide
• Hel Looks
• Helsinki restau­rants on Eat.fi
• Google…

Wel­come to Helsinki! Feel free to ask if you need more infor­ma­tion about Fin­land or Helsinki!