Finnish photographer Henri Luoma has made a breathtaking time lapse video from the northern Finland. There is no other video that displays the cold full moon winter nights, starry sky and Northern Lights as beautifully as this video.
Congratulations to Henri for making such an amazing video! I am eager to see more of his time lapse videos in the future.
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.
This is a television advertisement for Finnish "seven eleven" type of convenience store, Siwa.
What the man says, freely translated:
"Uhh... Trip to the grocery store. Perfect opening hours. 2000 most loved products in Finland. Gorgeous snack bites. Beautiful parcel services. Stunning customers. Dazzling staff... and perfect atmosphere. Oh yeah... Siwa - that slightly superior grocery store. "
When I saw the ad first time, I was really interested in the product it was about to sell. I was expecting the product to be some kind of food or perhaps some cleaning agent. To my surprise, it was an advertisement for a magazine, and the magazine is about forests!
The Aarre magazine covers wide range of topics from the leisure use of the forests to the business benefits. The Finnish word "aarre" means "treasure" in English.
You should know that Finland is covered with forests: the forests cover at least 70% of the land. Finland's forests cover larger area than the whole country of Italy or the United Kingdom. One out of five Finnish citizens owns at least some area of forest. When divided for the people, Finland, along with the neighbor country Sweden, have the largest forests in Europe.
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.
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. :)
