Talented Finnish YouTube personality

Have you seen the video where a Finnish girl talks different languages, but the words are gibberish? Well I have embedded it here for your convenience.

The girl in the video is extremely talented (and pretty) Sara, who became an internet celebrity in only few days. Her video (embedded in this post) gathered 1 million views in one day only, and just after three days the video had over 3 million views. Currently the number of views is 8,803,519 and rising...

Sara works as a cashier in a small town supermarket and is totally overwhelmed from the sudden attention she has got. She has been contacted from all over the world and she has received job offers, interview requests (for example Ellen DeGeneres has been shown some interest) etc. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has posted about her video in his Facebook wall. She has also already appeared in Finnish TV, just 10 days after her video went viral.

Check out also her other videos!

 

Animated fruits are singing christmas songs - tv advertisements

These two television advertisements for the Christmas season are created for the Finnish soft drink and beer producer Hartwall, promoting the soft drink brand Jaffa. The original artwork has been created by a famous Finnish graphic designer Erik Bruun. The advertisements are following the designer's original style for the same soft drink brand, from the 50's and 60's.


 

In this advertisement, the fruits are singing the Finnish Christmas song "Sylvian joululaulu" (Sylvia's Christmas song). The song lyrics are based on the poem "Sylvias hälsning från Sicilien" from 1853, by a Finnish writer Zacharias Topelius (1818-1898).

The poem is written in Swedish, but the most loved version of this song has been made from the Finnish translation done in 1918. The composition is made by Karl Collan (1828-1871).

The song has been selected in the 1960's and again in the year 2002 as the most beautiful Christmas song.

This song is a slightly happier "No onkos tullut joulu" (Well, is it Christmas), it is from a poem by a Finnish writer J. H. Erkko (1849-1906). The melody for this song is traditional Finnish melody.

Links:

Erik Bruun - http://www.bruundesign.com/tuotteet.html?id=1/
Jaffa - http://www.jaffa.fi/
Hartwall - http://www.hartwall.fi/en

Modern Finnish sauna

The old Finnish sauna tradition has evolved along with the urban lifestyle. Check out how the modern Finnish saunas look like today!

http://www.iltalehti.fi/sisustus/201303210142931_sz.shtml


For more information about the sauna and the sauna tradition, watch the great video below.

Finnish cuisine - karjalanpiirakka

Karelian pasties, or Karelian pies, are as Finnish food as you can get. The pie is originated from the Karelian region, but nowadays the pies are eaten everywhere in Finland. The pie even has the status of "Traditional Speciality Guaranteed" in Europe.

Nowadays the pie has most commonly rice porridge filling with a rye crust. The other popular filling is mashed potato, but it can be also barley or buckwheat (which are rare). The crust can be also something else than rye, often wheat or rarely buckwheat.

You can buy the pies from a grocery store, but those pies are often factory made. You can get better Karelian pies if you buy them from a bakery, but then they are much more expensive.

It is also possible to make the pies yourself, really, they are not that hard to make, but surprisingly baking your own Karelian pies is not common. But if you take the time to bake the pies yourself, I can guarantee they taste better than any pie you can buy from a store or a bakery.

The first videos shows the steps _really_ quickly, but the second one has more slower and more traditional approach. In the latter video, you can also have a peek to a traditional Finnish home. :)

Links:
General info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelian_pasty
Recipe in English - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Karjalanpiirakat
Traditional Speciality Guaranteed - Karjalanpiirakka

The most beautiful Finnish summer sauna

The readers of the www.iltalehti.fi, an online version of the Finnish tabloid newspaper Iltalehti, have voted the most beautiful summer sauna for the year 2012.

The most voted sauna is a small self built "smoke sauna", without running water, plumbing, chimney or electricity. The sauna is so small, that there is no place or space for washing yourself, so the users of the sauna must wash themselves in the nearby lake.

The sauna is located in a small village of Kuukasjärvi (130 inhabitants).

Links:
http://www.iltalehti.fi/asuminen/2012091116062647_an.shtml



Näytä suurempi kartta

Tough as life - Finnish bread commercial

The living in Finland is tough, or at least it used to be. This bread commercial has references to the already past lifestyle, which was full of work, very modest and mirthless.

The boy in the commercial tries to cut the hard bread made out of rye with his knife (Finnish knife called 'puukko'), but fails. The boy even cuts his finger with the knife, but the rugged dad just glances at his son and asks "Well, are you hungry or not?"

The rye bread is popular bread in Finland, and Finns are always surprised (and amused) how little people in other countries use rye when baking their breads. The rye bread can be dried when it becomes crispbread style bread, and it can be stored for months. This was a great help during the long Finnish winters, when there was only little food available.

Links:
Rye bread - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_bread
Oululainen - http://www.oululainen.fi