Everything about Finland for foreigners

Tomorrow evening 15.5.2011 will be a very special evening in Finland when our national ice hockey team is playing in the ice hockey world championship final agains Sweden. Every sports pub will be crowded tomorrow and if Finland wins the game there will be a huge party evening at least in the biggest cities.

Helsingin Sanomat tells that w ith less than a week to go before Parliamentary elections, the conservative National Coalition Party remains Finland’s most popular. In what appears to be developing into a close race, the True Finns have fallen from second to fourth place, while the Social Democratic Party has inched past the Centre Party to the number-two spot. More information about the poll is here. http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Poll+National+Coalition+Party+the+largest+SDP+gains+True+Finns+fall+back/1135265335553

Parlamentary elections in Finland take place every fourth year. The next elections are this spring and campaigns are going on at the moment. This year elections have been very interesting because nationalist new party (Perussuomalaiset) has received significant media attention. Voting will take place April 17th 2011. The list of candidates in parlamentary elections can be found here: http://192.49.229.35/E2011/e/ehd_listat/kokomaa.htm

Finland is a democracy and parliament elections are every fourth and presidental elections in every sixth year. In these elections only persons with Finnish nationality can vote. However in the city level municipal elections all persons (18 years old or more) who have permanent adress in the city or town and citizenship in some EU country, Norway or Iceland, can vote. Also citizens of other countries can vote if they have had permanent adress in the city or town for more than two years.

If you are living in Finland and you want to find natural ways to meet local people and learn more about local lifestyle you may find these tips useful. 1. Use internet and Facebook Facebook is a good way to get better contact to the people you already know in Finland. Facebook will not only help you to connect with your friends but it makes you easy to see what are they interested in. By checking the new groups they join and news they comment you will quikly learn many things about the lives of your Finnish friends. In most working places it's very normal to ask friends in facebook at least those colleagues you meet reguraly at work. If you are working in a smaller organization you can ask almost everyone to be your facebook friend. 2. Be active in NPF organizations There is huge number of all kinds of non-profit organizations in Finland. If you are interested in arts, sports, charity or culture you surely find an organization to join and meet people with similar interests. ...

The leading newspaper is Finland is definitely Helsingin Sanomat. This is THE neswpaper in whole Finland and not just at capital area. International edition of Helsingin Sanomat is here: http://www.hs.fi/english/?cmp=tm_etu_english Yleisradio is the leading TV-broadcaster in Finland. They offer news about Finland also in English. http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news// Helsinki Times is a small international newspaper targeted to non-finnish speaking people living Finland. http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/