Finnish language. Official languages ​​of Finland

The Åland Islands are an autonomous territory belonging to Finland, home to the country's largest group of Swedish-speaking Finns (90% of the region's population, or 25 thousand people) who speak the Åland dialect of Swedish. Swedish ... Wikipedia

Official languages ​​of the European Union languages ​​that are official in activities European Union(EU). The following languages ​​are officially used in European institutions with equal rights: English Bulgarian Hungarian Greek Danish Irish... ... Wikipedia

The query "Sami language" is redirected here; see also other meanings. Sami Taxon: subgroup Area: Norway, Russia, Finland, Sweden Number of speakers ... Wikipedia

In the territory modern Finland There are three common Sami languages: Inari Sami, Kolta Sami and Northern Sami. In the Sami villages near Kuusamo, another Sami language, Kemi Sami, was widespread, but this language became ... ... Wikipedia

Sign with the name of a street from the time of the Grand Duchy of Finland Russian language in Finland (Finnish: Venäjän kieli Suomessa ... Wikipedia

Swedish speakers on the map of Finland Swedish language in Finland (Finnish ... Wikipedia

A Sami being carried by a reindeer. Illustration from the book Maamme kirja published in 1876 by the Finnish writer Sakarias Topelius The Sami, part of the Sami people living in Finland, one of the national minorities of Finland.... ... Wikipedia

At the end of May 2012, according to preliminary data from the Statistical Center, there were 5,408,917 people. Contents 1 Data from previous years 2 National composition... Wikipedia

Appendix to the article Sami languages ​​... Wikipedia

Contents 1 Chronicle of Finnish history ... Wikipedia

Books

• Interpenetration of Russian and Finnish literature in the first half of the 20th century, Elena Grigorievna Soini. The monograph is devoted to the study of the interpenetration of Russian and Finnish literature in the first half of the 20th century. Both typological parallels and direct contacts of writers were explored...

Finnish is mainly popular in Finland and is the official language. Finnish is also spoken in countries such as Sweden, Norway, Estonia, the USA and Russia. This is due to the settlement of ethnic groups, for example, in Sweden there is a large Finnish diaspora, so the language is well spoken in many regions.

The Finnish language in Sweden today has a low status. All the efforts of the authorities have remained fruitless for a long time. And in Norway there live a people who communicate in the ancient Finnish language with the addition of Norwegian. Also in Russia, the Finnish language is used by ethnic Finns, of whom there are now more than 40,000.

Is it worth studying? new language, depends only on the desires of a particular person and place of residence. In any case, knowledge of this language has many advantages.

Finnish is the predominant language in Finland, but a large percentage of people also speak Swedish and Russian.

Minority languages ​​that are officially recognized are Sami, Roma and Karelian. Most immigrants speak Russian and Estonian.

Official languages ​​of Finland

Official languages Finland: Finnish and Swedish.

Is it difficult to learn Finnish on your own?

You can learn Finnish on your own, but to do this you need to be a diligent student, not miss classes and be motivated.

Some tips for beginners:

1. Choose a textbook and tutorial

To begin with, it is best to use books from the latest editions, because the language is constantly evolving, and some rules may be outdated. There are many books and tutorials in bookstores and on the Internet.

We recommend that you pay attention to the textbook by M. Chertok “Finnish language. Basic course". In this manual, the material is clearly divided into lessons that have both theoretical information and practical task. The correctness of completed tasks can be checked against the keys. The textbook also contains dialogues from Everyday life, which will help you better understand the material and will help you during practice with a native speaker.

Special attention should be paid to " Short course Finnish language" by Koivisto D. The textbook offers the study of grammar using already acquired knowledge. There are also exercises and keys that will help you better understand all the rules. The grammar in the textbook is presented as simply as possible, so it is suitable for gaining basic knowledge.

1. Reading literature, newspapers in Finnish

After basic knowledge has been obtained, you can begin reading literature in the original. This will help not only determine the level of knowledge, but also develop thinking and enrich lexicon. But at the same time, you should not forget about grammar and pay attention to more serious textbooks.

One of the best textbooks in Finnish for improving your vocabulary is Hyvin Menee. Here literary and colloquial. In order to achieve the required level, you need to gradually increase the complexity and level of textbooks, as well as vocabulary

1. Communication with native speakers

A very important point during self-study language is communication with a native speaker, because it is excellent practice and an opportunity to hear a living language. You can communicate not only with native Finns, but you can also find a friend with similar interests on special sites. For example, Italki has a separate section where you can find a conversation partner who wants to learn Russian.

You can find like-minded people on VKontakte and Facebook, as well as on other less popular resources. For personal communication, you can use Skype, because it will help you better understand your interlocutor by gestures and facial expressions. In any case, you can ask a native speaker for all your questions.

Any immersion in the environment foreign language will help you get great results minimum time. During live communication, the language is learned much faster. Also, don’t forget about Finnish radio, music and films with subtitles. All this increases vocabulary and helps beginners achieve a high speaking level.

Everyone should remember that learning a language is not difficult, but you need to constantly practice and have a great desire. Do not neglect writing, reading, listening or speaking, because only all this together will give a great result.

Features of the Finnish alphabet

The Finnish alphabet is used to write the Finnish language and has 31 letters. The alphabet has several features, for example, the letter Å was borrowed from the Swedish language and is used only to write Swedish names. Also, in transcription, double vowels and consonants cannot be replaced with single ones, because a different understanding of the word is possible. All letters in the alphabet are independent, and this is taken into account in the placement in the Finnish alphabet.

- a state in northern Europe, a member of the European Union and the Schengen Agreement.

Official name of Finland:
Republic of Finland.

Territory of Finland:
The area of ​​the state of the Republic of Finland is 338,145 km².

Population of Finland:
The population of Finland is more than 5 million inhabitants (5,219,732 people).

Ethnic groups of Finland:
Finns, Swedes, Russians, Estonians, etc.

Average life expectancy in Finland:
The average life expectancy in Finland is 77.92 years (see Ranking of countries in the world by average life expectancy).

Capital of Finland:
Helsinki.

Major cities in Finland:
Helsinki, Turku.

Official language of Finland:
In Finland, according to a special law adopted in 1922, there are two official languages ​​- Finnish and Swedish. The majority of the population of Finland speaks Finnish. Swedish is spoken by 5.5% of the population, Russian by 0.8%, and Estonian by 0.3%. Other languages ​​are spoken by 1.71% of the Finnish population.

Religion in Finland:
Finnish Evangelical Lutheran and orthodox church have the status of state religions. Almost 84.2% of Finnish residents belong to the first, 1.1% belong to the second, 1.2% belong to other churches, and 13.5% have no religious affiliation.

Geographical location of Finland:
Finland is located in northern Europe, with a significant part of its territory located beyond the Arctic Circle. On land it borders with Sweden, Norway and Russia; the sea border with Estonia runs along the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea.

Rivers of Finland:
Vuoksa, Kajaani, Kemijoki, Oulujoki.

Administrative divisions of Finland:
Finland is divided into 6 provinces, governed by governments headed by governors appointed by the president of the country. The lowest administrative-territorial unit of the country is the commune. The communes are organized into 20 provinces, governed by provincial councils and serving for the development and interaction of their constituent communes.

Government structure of Finland:
Finland is a republic. The highest executive power in the country belongs to the president. The president is elected for a six-year term by direct popular vote.

Executive power in Finland is exercised by the government (the Council of State), which consists of the Prime Minister and the required number of ministers, no more than 18. The Prime Minister is elected by the Finnish Parliament and then formally approved by the President. The President of Finland appoints other ministers according to the recommendations of the Prime Minister. The government, together with the prime minister, resigns after each parliamentary election, as well as by decision of the president of the country if the parliament loses confidence, by personal statement and in some other cases. The Finnish Parliament is unicameral and consists of 200 deputies. Deputies are elected by popular vote for a term of 4 years.

Judicial system Finland is divided into a court, which deals with ordinary civil and criminal cases, and an administrative court, which is responsible for cases between people and the administrative authorities of the state. Finnish laws are based on Swedish law and, more broadly, on civil law and Roman law. The judicial system consists of local courts, regional courts of appeal and high court. The administrative branch consists of administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court. Elected for a six-year term by direct popular vote.

Finnish language - Finnish language. Distributed mainly in Finland (the official language of the country; the number of Finnish speakers is over 4.3 million people, 1974 estimate), in the USA, Canada, Sweden, Norway (about 500 thousand people), in the USSR ( about 85 thousand people, 1970, census). Belongs to the Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric (Ugric-Finnish) languages.

At the heart of the formation of F. I. 3 ethnically related tribal groups: central - em (hyame); southwestern - Sumi (Suomi) - ancient settlers from northern Estonia - and eastern - Savo ( Western group Korela, or Karjala, tribe, who settled from the area of ​​Lake Ladoga and the Karelian Isthmus).

The pre-literate period of development of the Finnish language (in the form of dialect varieties of Baltic-Finnish speech) lasted until the 40s. 16th century Written literary Finnish language appears with the creation of Finnish writing (1540). There are 2 main periods in the development of the literary language: Old Finnish and New Finnish. Old Finnish (1540–1820) is divided into 2 stages: the initial (1540–1640) is associated with the activities of the founder of the Old Finnish literary language , which is the basis written language laid the southwestern Finnish dialect of the region of the then capital of Turku, which was influenced by the Emsky dialect. Full translation The New Testament (1548) and the Psalter (1551) laid the foundations of the Old Finnish literary language, which existed in church use until the 20th century. The second stage (until 1820) is characterized by the imposition of Swedish as the official language. After the liberation of Finland from Swedish rule (1809), a period of national awakening began and favorable conditions developed for the development of the Finnish language. The New Finnish period (from 1820) is divided into 2 stages: early New Finnish (1820–70) and modern Finnish (from 1870). The first is characterized by the expansion of the dialect base of the literary language at the expense of eastern dialects. A significant influence on the development of the Finnish language and the solution to the question of its dialect basis was exerted by , who combined in his work a normalized literary language based on Western dialects with figurative means of expressing Eastern dialects. The literary language is moving closer to the colloquial language. Old Finnish language becomes specific church language. The Finnish language is becoming the official language of education and literature. By special decree (1863) he receives equal rights with Swedish. tongue. For the development of literary Finnish it was important meaning creativity, and to stabilize phonetic and morphological norms - the activities of A. Ahlquist. By the 70s. 19th century the foundations are being laid modern literature in Finnish.

On the territory of Finland, the Finnish language has 7 dialects, forming 2 dialects - Western and Eastern. There is a leveling of dialects, in literary language a balance between the Western and Eastern dialect base has been achieved. It is typical for the Finnish language frequent use vowel sounds (for 100 vowels there are 96 consonants in the flow of speech); alternation of consonant grades and vowel harmony. Modern Finnish is an agglutinative language of a nominative structure with a relatively free word order. Grammatical indicators are built up based on the word base. There are 15 cases in the declension system. The definition and the defined agree in number and case. There is no gender category. In verbal inflection there are 2 voices (active and passive), 4 moods (indicative, conditional, imperative, possibilistic), 4 tenses (present, imperfect, perfect, plusquaperfect). Infinitive forms of the verb combine some features of nouns (case and possessive suffixes). In the vocabulary there are borrowings from Baltic, Germanic. and glory languages. Writing is based on the Latin alphabet.

Lit.: Hakulinen L., Development and structure of the Finnish language, trans. from Finnish, parts 1–2, M., 1953–55; Fundamentals of Finno-Ugric linguistics, c. 2, M., 1975; Suomen kielen käsikirja, Hels., 1968.

A little personal

First of all, it must be said that it is impossible to learn Finnish without being born in Finland. Basically. This is, so to speak, the starting point. The author can be accused of excessive pessimism, capitulation, and alarmism, but this will be wrong. Ei pidä paikkaansa, as a Finn would say, that is, literally “does not keep his place.” As evidence, one can cite the visit of Russian President V.V. Putin and his press conference, which Finnish television broadcast in live. That is, it was possible to observe the work of translators. Russian-speaking residents of Finland who know Finnish were unpleasantly surprised: if the President of Russia has such a crappy translator!!!

Nevertheless. Nevertheless, we need to live here, we need to do business with our northwestern neighbor, we need to get acquainted with the culture of Finland. And that’s why Russians and Russian-speaking people have learned, are teaching, and will continue to learn Finnish. Despite all the hopelessness of this enterprise. But this is generally typical for people who think in Russian - to get involved in hopeless enterprises.

On these pages you can find some information about the Finnish language. Still, the author studied it quite persistently and for quite a long time. This is more of a somewhat chaotic reference book than a textbook, so the materials posted on this site can be used as a supplement to existing textbooks - very bad and insufficient, by the way. Actually, this forced the author to begin bringing into a more or less strict form what he had extracted from various books over the course of several years. Therefore, I apologize for some lack of rigor - the author is not a professional and studied the language largely in practice.

The author also tried first of all to highlight grammatical forms, which are given insufficient space in Russian-language textbooks, especially for beginners, although it should be noted that many of these forms are very rare, especially in spoken language.

The author used examples and explanations from many textbooks, without providing links, therefore the materials posted in the Finnish language section are in no way subject to copyright, but, on the contrary, are what is called public domain, or an object of free access and distribution . Still, it would be polite to refer to the author if it is intended to use his materials in a more or less close to the original form, and even more so in their entirety.

And finally. I tried to avoid too abstruse terminology, but if it is still present, then it is inevitable. The grammar of the Finnish language is sophisticated and confusing, but if you study it long enough, it begins to feel like there is a certain structure to it. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people who speak fluent Finnish without knowing any grammar at all. Such people have what the Finns call kielipää - literally “language head”, that is, a sense of language, language intuition, language guess. So see for yourself whether you should start to understand all this, after all, only 5 million people speak Finnish, while Chinese is spoken by one and a half billion.

Features of the Finnish language and its place among other languages

Finnish language belongs to the Finno-Ugric language language family, unlike many others European languages, forming the Indo-European family.

Finno-Ugric languages ​​are spoken in only a few places outside Russia: Finnish in Finland and Sami dialects in Lapland, Estonian in Estonia, and Hungarian in Hungary. At the same time, the Sami dialects are so different from the rest that they can be separated into a separate group.

Almost all other languages ​​of the Finno-Ugric family are distributed mainly in the territory modern Russia– from Karelia to the Urals. The closest relatives to the Finnish language are Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian, Ludik, Votic, Livonian, which are spoken in Eastern and south coast Baltic Sea. In terms of the number of people speaking languages ​​of the Baltic-Finnish subgroup, Finnish and Estonian languages ​​predominate on the shores of the Baltic. Finnish and Estonian have not only a similar linguistic structure, but also a related lexical basis. Thus, it is not particularly difficult for Finns and Estonians to generally understand each other when communicating in their native languages.

Thus, the Finnish language is very different from Hungarian, and their relationship can only be reliably determined as a result of linguistic-historical analysis. By and large, the Finnish language is related to Hungarian, much like the Germanic language is to Iranian.

The Finno-Ugric languages ​​and the Samoyed languages ​​widespread in Siberia form the Ugric language family.

Nowadays, Finnish is spoken by the majority of the population of Finland - about 92%. In addition, there are about 300 thousand ethnic Finns in the world living outside Finland in the border countries of Sweden and Norway, as well as among the Finnish diaspora in North America, Estonia, Russia (mainly in Leningrad region and in Karelia).

Finnish is one of the two official languages ​​of Finland along with Swedish, and is also an officially recognized minority language in Sweden. In the Kingdom of Sweden, both the standard Finnish language and Meänkieli, the Finnish dialect in the Turnedalen region, are recognized. In Russia, the Finns consider themselves primarily the Ingrians, who settled in the 17th century. the territory of the modern Leningrad region after the conclusion of the Stolbovo Peace Treaty (1617), according to which the Ladoga region and Ingermanland went to Sweden. In addition, ethnic Finns live in Karelia, where Finnish is recognized as one of the national languages ​​of the republic, along with Karelian and Vepsian.

The ethnogenesis of the Finns took place on the basis of three ancient tribes: Häme (em), the Finns proper Suomi (sum) and Western Karelians. Thus, the classification of Finnish dialects according to morphological and phonetic characteristics is based on their genetic correlation with the ancient tribal languages ​​of these three ethnic groups.

The original title was " Suomi» (« Finland") applied only to the territory inhabited by the Finns themselves (Suomi), and then spread to the surrounding lands. In Russian chronicles of the 13th century. The ethnonym Su clearly points to the Finns themselves, i.e. population of southwestern Finland.

The first written monument of the Finnish language is the first printed book - ABC-Kirja Archbishop of Turku Mikael Agricola (1543). Subsequently, Agricola published a large number of translations of various fragments from the Bible and other spiritual literature. An important milestone in the formation of the modern literary Finnish language was the publication in 1835 of the national Karelian-Finnish epic “Kalevala” by Elias Lönnrot. However, Swedish continued to prevail as the official language in Finland until the second half of the 19th century V. Only in 1863 did the Finnish language receive formally equal rights on a par with Swedish.

The phonological system of the Finnish language is characterized by the contrast in length and shortness of all vowels and some consonant phonemes, and a large number of diphthongs; the opposition of consonants in terms of hardness/softness and deafness/voice is completely absent - except t/d. Some consonants ( b, f etc.) are found only in later borrowings from other languages. The all-Ural harmony of vowels along the row is preserved.

Stress in Finnish is dynamic, with the main stress being always falls on the first syllable, and the minor may fall on the third syllable or, if it is short, on the fourth, and then on every second syllable, except the last.

While retaining ancient agglutinative features, the Finnish language also contains elements of inflection, mainly manifested in the alternation of vowels and consonants in individual microparadigms and word formation models.

As in all Uralic languages, not available in Finnish grammatical category sort of. The category of number is represented by a binary opposition – singular/plural. Paired body parts are most often designated by a singular name. The declination paradigm consists of 16 cases(of which 14 are actively used), adjectives agree in number and case with nouns, which is typical for the Baltic-Finnish languages. In addition, case relations are expressed by postpositions. Compared to, for example, Germanic languages, Finnish there is also no article category(a, the – in English; en, et – in Swedish).

Compared to other Baltic-Finnish languages, Finnish is archaic. First of all, this is expressed by the consistent preservation of personal-possessive suffixes to express the meaning of possessiveness (possession) and - as in Karelian - synthetic forms of the superlative degree of comparison of adjectives and adverbs.

There are no grammatical categories of aspect and voice in the Finnish language, as in most Uralic languages. Finnish verbs have the categories of person, number, mood (indicative, imperative, conditional, potential) and tense (present and perfect in all moods, imperfect and plusquaperfect in the indicative). Special forms The future tense has not developed in the Finnish language, as a result of which the present tense form is used to express it in conjunction with lexical and some grammatical means.

Traditionally, the Finnish language has 4 forms of the infinitive. Moreover, in a number of cases, their function is similar to gerunds and verbal nouns. As in other Baltic-Finnish languages, such infinitive forms can change according to cases, however, without having a complete declension paradigm.

Negation is expressed by a special negative verb ei(halua-n “want”, halua-t “want”, en halua “don’t want”, et halua “don’t want”, etc.), as well as a special affix. As in most Uralic languages, in Finnish the meaning of possession is expressed by a construction with the verb “to be” ( Minulla on koira. – I have a dog.).

The basic word order in Finnish speech is: subject - predicate - object. Definitions expressed by nominal parts of speech in genitive case, always precede the one being defined.

Many people consider Finnish a difficult language to learn, but in many ways its difficulty is exaggerated. Partly due to its lexical composition and grammatical features, partly due to its unusual phonetics, Finnish stands out from the crowd. Indo-European languages. But if you can understand its logic, then learning the Finnish language will be interesting and easy.

So, as the ancients said - Vaikeuksien kautta tähtiin!

For many foreigners, Finland, which, by the way, the Finns themselves call “Suomi,” is the birthplace of Santa Claus, who lives on Mount Korvatunturi in Lapland. However, most tourists do not come to Finland to meet Santa Claus - they are primarily interested in Finnish nature, fishing, and first-class Finnish ski resorts.

Finland is located in Scandinavia in northern Europe. Finland borders Sweden in the west, Norway in the north, and Russia in the east. The Gulf of Finland separates Finland from Estonia. In the west and south, Finland is washed by the Baltic Sea.

86% of Finland's territory is occupied by forest, which is dominated by pine, spruce and birch trees. The Finnish landscape is mostly plains and hills with some mountains. The largest peaks in Finland are Mount Halti (1,328 m) and Mount Ridnitsohkka (1,316 m).

Finland is a country of “a thousand islands and lakes”. Indeed it is true statement, because Finland has 179,584 islands and 187,888 lakes. The largest Finnish lake is Saimaa.

Most of the Finnish islands are located in the southwest of the Turku archipelago, and further from the coast are the Åland Islands.

The capital of Finland is Helsinki, which is now home to about 600 thousand people. Helsinki was founded by the Swedes in 1550.

In Finland there are two official languages– Finnish and Swedish. The Sami language has a special status in the country.

More than 78% of Finns are Lutherans (Protestants), belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. More than 1% of the Finnish population consider themselves Orthodox Christians.

According to the Constitution of 2000, Finland is a parliamentary republic, the head of which is the President, elected by direct universal suffrage for a 6-year term.

Legislative power belongs to the unicameral Parliament (Eduskunta), consisting of 200 deputies. Members of the Finnish Parliament are elected for 4 years.

The main political parties in Finland are the Social Democratic Party, the Real Finns Party, the Center Party, the Union of the Left, and the Green Party.

Finland is located at the same latitudes as Siberia and Greenland, but in this Scandinavian country The climate is much milder thanks to air currents from the Atlantic. The climate in Finland is continental and maritime in coastal areas. Winter in Finland is cold with big amount precipitation (snow), and summers are warm.

The warmest month in Finland is July (average air temperature +22C), and the coldest months are January and February (average air temperature -9C).

average temperature air temperature in Finland: - January - -8C
- February - -7C
- March - -5C
- April - +3C
- May - +11C
- June - +9C
- July - +14C
- August - +17C
- September - +15C
- October - +11C
- November – 0C
- December - -4C

In the west and south, Finland is washed by the Baltic Sea. The Gulf of Finland separates Finland from Estonia, and the Gulf of Bothnia separates Finland from Sweden. The temperature of the Baltic Sea largely depends on warm current Gulf Stream. The average water temperature of the Baltic Sea off the coast of Finland in winter is about 0C, and in summer - +15-17C.

Finland is a country of “a thousand islands and lakes”. There are 179,584 islands and 187,888 lakes in Finland. The largest Finnish lake is Saimaa.

Many tourists come to Finland to go fishing. IN Finnish rivers and lakes in large quantities There are grayling, rainbow trout, pike, perch, and whitefish. There are a lot of salmon in the rivers of Lapland. To fish in Finland, you need to obtain a special permit (you need to pay a certain amount of money for this).

But, of course, fish in Finland are also caught in the Baltic Sea (perch, sea ​​trout, salmon, whitefish).

People appeared on the territory of modern Finland in the Stone Age. Around 5000 BC. people on the territory of modern Finland already knew how to make pottery. In 2500 BC. appeared in the coastal regions of Finland Agriculture. In the Bronze Age, the inhabitants of Finland had contacts with various tribes of Scandinavia, which is confirmed by archaeological finds.

Although Finland is located in Scandinavia, the ancestors of modern Finns can hardly be called Vikings. Historians consider the Vikings to be the military squads of the ancestors of modern Danes, Swedes and Norwegians.

In 1155, the first missionaries from Sweden arrived in Finland, and the country became part of the Kingdom of Sweden.

In the 16th century, Swedish was the main language among the Finnish nobility, and Finnish was spoken by local peasants. During the Protestant Reformation, Finns gradually became Lutherans. In 1640, the first Finnish university was founded in Turku.

In the 18th century, as a result of two wars between Sweden and Russia, the territory of modern Finland was occupied by Russian troops.

In 1809, as a result of another war between Sweden and Russia, the lands of Finland became part of the Russian Empire.

December 4, 1917, after October revolution In Russia in 1917, the Finnish Senate signed the Declaration of Finnish Independence, which was approved by Parliament on December 6. Thus the Republic of Finland was formed.

From November 1939 to March 1940, the Finnish-Soviet war continued, as a result of which Finland had to return part of its territory to the USSR. Wanting to return lost lands and acquire new territories, Finland entered the war against the USSR on the side of Germany in 1941. However, in 1944 Finland emerged from the war and made peace with the USSR.

In 1955, Finland became a member of the UN, and in 1991 it was admitted to the EU.

Finland is the birthplace of Santa Claus (aka Joulupukki, in Russia and Ukraine he is known as Father Frost). Every Finnish child is sure that Santa Claus lives on Mount Korvatunturi in the city of Savukoski in Lapland. There are a lot of reindeer in Lapland. In fact, why shouldn't Santa Claus live where his reindeer come from?

Finns celebrate Christmas from December 24th to 26th. A traditional Christmas dish is rice pudding.

Now Finnish Christmas traditions have already been borrowed from more than 140 different countries, and every year they become more and more popular.

The main products of Finnish cuisine are fish, meat, mushrooms, potatoes, Rye bread, vegetables, dairy products. Swedish, German and Russian culinary traditions have had a noticeable influence on Finnish cuisine.

Mammi – oven-baked porridge with milk and sugar;
- Kalakukko – fish baked in bread;
- Mustamakkara – blood sausage with lingonberry jam;
- Mykyrokka – soup with dumplings;
- Lihapullat – fish soup from salmon;
- Perunamuusi – mashed potatoes;
- Leipäjuusto – cow cheese;
- Hernekeitto – dried pea soup;
- Kaalikääryleet – cabbage rolls with beef or pork.

Traditional alcoholic drinks in Finland are Lakka (berry liqueur), Kilju ("homemade" Finnish vodka), and Sahti beer.

The Finns have always been very careful about their history. Therefore, we advise tourists in Finland to definitely see:

1. Suomenlinna Fortress in Helsinki
2. Port of Rauma on the Gulf of Bothnia
3. St. Olaf's Castle
4. Ancient church in Petäjävesi
5. Finnish Architecture Museum on Seurasaari Island
6. Helsinki Cathedral
7. National natural Park If
8. Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki
9. Knights' Castle in Turku
10. National Museum of Finland in Helsinki

The largest Finnish cities are Helsinki, Tampere, Vantaa, Espoo, and Turku.

Finland is known for its magnificent ski resorts. Every winter, hundreds of thousands of tourists come to Finland to ski in this Scandinavian country. In our opinion, the top ten best Finnish ski resorts include the following:

1. Levi
2. Ruka (Hand)
3. Pyha (Pyukha)
4. Yllas
5. Talma (Talma)
6. Himos (Himos)
7. Tahko (Tahko)
8. Pallas (Pallas)
9. Ounasvaara
10. Luosto (Luosto)

Tourists from Finland usually bring products made of wood, glass, antlers and deer skins, scissors, clothes, dishes, glassware, Sami hats with national patterns, children's slippers from Lapland, Lapland folk dolls, Lapland sweaters and pullovers, plaid made of wool reindeer, Santa Claus figurines, Sami beads and bracelet, Finnish knives, Finnish fishing set, Finnish berry liqueur.