TRAVEL TUESDAY #23 - HELSINKI

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” - Rabindranath Tagore

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel!

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us!

Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only. Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.

Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. Helsinki has a population of 626,305, an urban population of 1.2 million (31 December 2013), and a metropolitan population of 1.4 million, making it the most populous municipality and urban area in Finland. Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km northeast of Stockholm, Sweden, and 388 km west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities.

The Helsinki metropolitan area includes the urban core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, and surrounding commuter towns. It is the world’s northernmost metro area of over one million people, and the city is the northernmost capital of an EU member state. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Nordic countries and the City of Helsinki is the third largest Nordic city after Stockholm and Oslo. Helsinki is Finland’s major political, educational, financial, cultural, and research centre as well as one of northern Europe’s major cities.

Approximately 75% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region. The nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, narrowly beating Eindhoven for the title. The city was the venue for the XV Olympic Games 1952 and the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007. In 2011, the Monocle magazine ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its “Liveable Cities Index 2011”. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s August 2015 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in globally, Helsinki placed among the world’s top ten cities.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #4

“My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often.” - Christopher Lee

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel!

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest us!

Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only. Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.

Please link your entry using the Linky tool below:

Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. Helsinki has a population of 626,305, an urban population of 1.2 million (31 December 2013), and a metropolitan population of 1.4 million, making it the most populous municipality and urban area in Finland.

Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) north east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 388 kilometres (241 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities. The Helsinki metropolitan area includes the urban core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, and surrounding commuter towns.

It is the world’s northernmost metro area of over one million people, and the city is the northernmost capital of an EU member state. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest Nordic metropolitan area after the metropolitan areas of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Oslo, and the City of Helsinki is the third biggest Nordic city after Stockholm and Oslo. Helsinki is Finland's major political, educational, financial, cultural, and research centre as well as one of northern Europe's major cities.

Approximately 75% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region. The nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, narrowly beating Eindhoven for the title.

The city was the venue for the XV Olympic Games 1952 and the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007. In 2011, the Monocle magazine ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its “Liveable Cities Index 2011”. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s August 2015 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in globally, Helsinki placed among the world’s top ten cities.

KALEVALA DAY

“Thus the wise and worthy singer 
Sings not all his garnered wisdom;
Better leave unsung some sayings
Than to sing them out of season.” - The Kalevala
 
February 28, is Kalevala Day in Finland. The Kalevala is Finland’s national epic poem, researched and transcribed by Dr. Elias Lönnrot (1802-1835). Lönnrot and his assistants travelled throughout the country, asking people to tell them whatever they could remember about the folklore surrounding Kalevala, the “Land of Heroes”. On February 28, 1835, after years of research, Lönnrot signed the preface to the first edition of the poem. Its more than 20,000 verses brought to life the adventures of such characters as the warrior Lemminkäinen and the blacksmith Ilmarinen, who played a part in the creation of the world when he forged the “lids of heaven”. This event marked a turning point in Finnish literature; up to this point, little had been written in the Finnish language. Lönnrot is honoured with parades and concerts on this day.
 
The first edition of the Kalevala appeared in 1835. Inspired by his later collecting trips and the folk poetry recorded by others, Lönnrot decided to broaden his epic to create a more extensive whole. The second edition of the Kalevala appeared in December 1849. The work contains 22,795 lines of verse divided into 50 distinct cantos. To distinguish between the two editions, the expanded version was referred to as the “New Kalevala” and the earlier version came to be known as the “Old Kalevala”.
 
The Kalevala is made up of metric folk poems: epic and lyric poetry, as well as incantations and wedding poetry. The metre of the poetic language, generally known as the kalevala-metre, is trochaic tetrametre, the prevailing poetic metre north of the Gulf of Finland and in Ingria.
 
The publication of the Kalevala was a significant factor in the National Awakening movement in Finland, part of the patriotic nationalist revival taking place throughout Europe during the mid-19th century. This led ultimately to Finnish independence and to a greater role for literature in Finnish, rather than in Swedish as had been the rule prior to this.   The poems of the Kalevala have been illustrated by some of the country’s greatest artists.
 
Composer Jean Sibelius, too, made extensive use of Kalevala themes in his music, for example in the Four Lemminkäinen Legends, Pohjola’s Daughter, the Kullervo Symphony, and the symphonic poem Tapiola. The epic poem was also reportedly a source of inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien in his “Lord of the Rings” novels, and was definitely in the mind of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , who adapted the idiosyncratic Kalevala meter for his Song of Hiawatha.
 
In a completely different vein, Kalevala characters and places still live on in business life, in the names given to many key Finnish companies, although in recent years there is a tendency to replace traditional names with more “international” ones!

POINSETTIAS, FINLAND & ST NICK

“Not loving is but a long dying.” Wu of Han
 

The poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima, is the birthday plant for today.  The generic name may be related to the Greek euphoreo = “bring forth abundantly” and/or phorbe = “pasture, fodder, forage”.  The latter is more unlikely as most plants in this genus bear a poisonous sap.  The plant is long associated with the festivities of Christmas and the bright red “flowers” are the bracts (highly coloured leaves) that surround the small and rather insignificant flowers.  The plant signifies in the language of flowers: “All that shines is not gold”.
 

Today is the birthday of:
Henry VI, king of England (1421);
John Eberhard, pencil maker/industrialist (1822);
Joyce Kilmer, poet (1886);
Lynn Fontanne, actress (1887);
Ira Gershwin, US lyricist (1896);
Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish sociologist (1898);
Agnes Moorehead, US actress (1906);
Dave Brubeck, pianist (1920);
Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, Polish composer (1933);
Chelsea Brown, actress (1947).
 

It is St Nicholas’s Feast Day today. St Nicholas was a bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the 4th century.  Even as a baby, legend recounts, he was so pious that he would not suckle milk on Wednesdays and Fridays, the Days of Penance.  He is reputed to have saved three maidens from prostitution one night by throwing to them through their window three golden balls, which they used as dowry. He also revived three murdered boys that were thrown in a brine tub.  He is thus considered the patron saint of children.  The connection with the brine may also account for his patronage of sailors in some countries (e.g. Greece).  Pawnbrokers also claim the saint as their own, using the three golden balls recounted in the saint’s story as an emblem.
 

Today is also Finland’s Independence Day (since 1917). Finland is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden to the west, Norway to the north and Russia to the east, while Estonia lies to the south across the eponymous Gulf of Finland. An estimated 5.4 million people live in Finland, with the majority concentrated in its southern regions. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Politically, it is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in Helsinki, local governments in 336 municipalities and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. From the 12th until the start of the 19th century, Finland was a part of Sweden. It then became an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire until the Russian Revolution and Russia’s withdrawal from World War I in 1917. This prompted the Finnish Declaration of Independence, which was followed by a civil war where the pro-Bolshevik “Reds” were defeated by the pro-conservative “Whites” with support from the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a monarchy in the country, Finland became the republic that it remains today. Finland joined the United Nations in 1955, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1969, the European Union in 1995 and the eurozone at its inception in 1999. During this time, it built an extensive welfare state. Finland presents both eastern and western European attitudes to global politics and economics.[citation needed] According to some measures, it has the best educational system in Europe and has recently been ranked as one of the world's most peaceful and economically competitive countries. It has also been ranked as one of the world’s countries with the highest quality of life.
 

And if you want to prepare for tomorrow, it will be International Civil Aviation Day which is annually observed December 7 to raise awareness of the importance of international civil aviation and the role that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) plays in international air transport. The organization is a United Nations (UN) body responsible for developing international standards for aviation safety. ICAO, with support from governments, organisations, businesses and individuals, actively promotes International Civil Aviation Day through various activities and events.  This day is celebrated globally, especially in countries such as South Africa, through various activities such as seminars, published material, educational lectures, classroom activities, and news announcements on international civil aviation topics related to the day.