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.

The Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis

Just recently the northern lights have been very spectacular here in Finland. Unusually, the northern lights have been visible also in the southern parts Finland, not just in the north.

Gallery of the recent northern lights; images from all around Finland:
http://yle.fi/uutiset/revontulet_valaisivat_suomen_taivaan_-_kuvagalleria/6541715#gallery

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 watched Finn in YouTube - Beatboxer Felix Zenger

The most watched Finn in YouTube is without no doubt talented beatboxer Felix Zenger.

Today (in January 2013) the most watched Zenger's video has over 35 million views.

Links:
Homepage - www.felixzenger.com
Wiki (in Finnish) - http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Zenger

Tampere city ads - Stop the nonsense

This is how the Finnish city of Tampere is advertising itself. The advertisements are created by the movie and television industry students from the Tampere University, for advertising the Tampere region.

Links:
Rest of the videos - https://www.youtube.com/user/Pirkanmaanbrandi
Tampere region - http://www.tampereallbright.fi/

Meanwhile in Finland

This is Finnish humor: A guy is buried in a snow pile, in his swimming trunks. The other guy pretends to be a host for a nature document and disturbs the sleeping creature. The guy from the snow pile "wakes up" and goes into the freezing cold lake for a swim. Once the guy gets out from the water, instead of going to a hot shower or a sauna, he goes back to "sleep" in the snow pile.

You can see that there are also other people going for a swim at the same time. That is because winter swimming in a freezing cold water ("avantouinti" in Finnish) is an actual hobby for some of the Finns. There are public places where the water is kept unfrozen with water pumps and possibility for a shower or a sauna is arranged.

Links:

In English - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_swimming

More images - http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avantouinti

Beastie Boys Sabotage parody

Well, while the video is clearly a parody, like is the original one also, I would like to see this video also as a homage to the Beastie Boys' music and videos.

The music video is created for the Finnish TV show "Putous", which contains improvisatory comedy, sketches and music, and is broadcasted entirely live in front of the live audience. The show is about to start its fourth season on 5.1.2013 on channel MTV3.

The music for the video is created by DJ Slow with lyrics by Paleface.

Links:

DJ Slow
http://www.djslow.fi/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_(DJ)

Paleface
http://www.last.fm/music/Paleface

Putous
http://www.mtv3.fi/putous/