Culture of Finland
Because of its history and geographic location, Finland has been influenced by the adjacent areas, various Finnic and Baltic peoples as well as the former dominant powers of Sweden and Russia.
Minorities, some of which have a status recognised by the state, such as the Sami, Swedish-speaking Finns, Karelians, Romani, Jews, and Tatars, maintain their cultural identities within Finland.
Recent archaeological finds also reveal the presence of the north-western Komsa culture in northern Finland to be as old as the earliest discoveries on the Norwegian coast.
Finns are traditionally divided into subgroups (heimo) based on their dialect, but these groupings have only minor importance due to 20th-century urbanization and internal migration.
Today, however, most differences are blurred (though rich, powerful Swedish-speaking families still exist) due to mixed marriages and inter-cultural homogenization and communication.
After examining the position of women around the world, the Washington-based Population Crisis Committee reported in 1988 that Finland, slightly behind top-ranked Sweden and just ahead of the United States, was one of the very best places in which a woman could live.
In addition to an expanding welfare system, which since World War II had come to provide them with substantial assistance in the area of childbearing and child-rearing, women had made notable legislative gains that brought them closer to full equality with men.
Despite the sexes' equal educational attainments, and despite a society where sexual differentiation played a smaller role than it did in many other countries, occupational segregation in Finland was marked.
In addition to occupying a secondary position in the workplace, women had longer workdays because they performed a greater share of household tasks than did men.
Men did twice as many household repairs and about an equal amount of shopping, but they devoted only one-third to one-fourth as much time to cleaning, cooking, and caring for children.
[9] The Finnish society encourages equality and liberalism with a popular commitment to the ideals of the welfare state; discouraging disparity of wealth and division into social classes.
In Finnish saunas, temperature is set to about 60–100 °C (sometimes up to 120 °C), and small amounts of water thrown on rocks atop the stove emit steam, which produces a heat sensation.
Forces, shapes, colors, and textures of the northern landscape and the human relationship to nature have strongly influenced also painting, sculpture, and other art forms.
When Sam Vanni's monumental painting Contrapunctus [fi] (1959) won competition for mural in Helsinki, abstract art was considered to be accepted and established in Finland.
His son, Eero Saarinen, though born in Finland is also regarded as an American architect, and created significant pieces of architecture throughout the US, including the TWA Flight Center at New York's Kennedy Airport and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
The composers are accompanied by a large number of great conductors such as Sakari Oramo, Mikko Franck, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Susanna Mälkki, and Leif Segerstam.
Some of the internationally acclaimed Finnish classical musicians are Karita Mattila, Soile Isokoski, Kari Kriikku, Pekka Kuusisto, Réka Szilvay, and Linda Brava.
Some important Jazz Musicians are the brothers Heikki and Pekka Sarmanto, Jukka Linkola, Keith Hall (UK), Esko Linnavalli and Vladimir Schafranov (Russia).
During the decade some progressive rock groups, such as Tasavallan Presidentti and Wigwam, gained respect abroad but failed to make a commercial breakthrough outside Finland.
In 1990s Finnish rock and metal music started to gain international fame with such bands as The 69 Eyes, Amorphis, Children of Bodom, Ensiferum, Norther, Wintersun, HIM, Impaled Nazarene, Lordi, Negative, Nightwish, The Rasmus, Sentenced, Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, and Tarja Turunen, a solo artist, who is popular for mixing classical music with Metal/Rock.
Most recently, the Finnish hard rock/heavy metal band Lordi won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest with a record 292 points, giving Finland its first ever victory.
In 2014 Ismo Leikola was named as the "Funniest Person in the World" in a stand-up comedy competition held by Laugh Factory in the United States.
[28] Also, Remedy Entertainment, notable for creating games such as Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control, were established in Espoo.
Finland has a growing film industry with a number of famous directors such as Aki Kaurismäki, Timo Koivusalo, Aleksi Mäkelä and Klaus Härö.
[30] In 2015, 95% of Finns read a newspaper (in print or online) at least once per week – which was the highest value in countries compared by Reuters (including Denmark (87%) UK (73%) and USA (56%).
When crops failed, survival was sustained through the consumption of fish sourced from the sea and lakes, game hunted from the wilderness, as well as mushrooms and berries gathered from the forests and fields.
Finland has produced three Formula One World Champions – Keke Rosberg (Williams, 1982), Mika Häkkinen (McLaren, 1998 and 1999) and Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari, 2007).
Other notable Finnish Grand Prix drivers include Leo Kinnunen, JJ Lehto, Mika Salo and Heikki Kovalainen.
Some of the most outstanding athletes from the past include Hannes Kolehmainen (1890–1966), Paavo Nurmi (1897–1973) and Ville Ritola (1896–1982) who won eighteen gold and seven silver Olympic medals in the 1910s and 1920s.
Also, in the past, Riku Kiri, Jouko Ahola and Janne Virtanen have been the greatest strength athletes in the country, participating in the World's Strongest Man competition between 1993 and 2000.
