Critical Communications World - CCW

Useful tips for your stay in Helsinki

Whether you decide to spend a few hours or several days in Helsinki, you can always find something interesting and unique to see and experience. Just in one day, you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere of the Helsinki archipelago, get to know the city's unique architecture and visit the best cultural attractions.

Ateneum Art Museum

The Ateneum is the home of Finnish art and part of the Finnish National Gallery. The museum's collection includes more than 20,000 national treasures. The Ateneum has art dating from the 19th century to modern. In recent years, the museum has held successful temporary exhibitions starring artists such as Tove Jansson, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso and Ilya Repin.⁣

Helsinki Olympic Stadion

The Helsinki Olympic Stadion, built in 1938, was designed in functionalistic style by the architects Yrjö Lindegren and Toivo Jäntti. The Olympic Games were held in 1952 in Helsinki. Today the Olympic Stadium hosts both national and international sporting events and outdoor concerts. The Stadium Tower is 72 meters (235 feet) high and at the top you can admire the urban landscape and central Helsinki.

Suomenlinna Sea Fortress

Suomenlinna sea fortress is a Unesco World Heritage Site located on the coast of Helsinki, and also a suburb of Helsinki with around 800 residents.

The fortress was shaped by three historic eras when it helped to defend first Sweden, then Russia and ultimately Finland. There are six kilometres of walls, 100 cannons, exciting tunnels, and beautiful parks. There are also museums, guided tours, events and restaurants in Suomenlinna.

Allas Sea Pool

Allas Sea Pool is a marine spa and an oasis of urban culture right at the heart of the city. It offers new ways of enjoying the Baltic Sea, just a stone's throw away from the Market Square and other main attractions. Allas is open all year round, providing unique experiences and recreational activities for townies and travelers. The marine spa has three saunas, two warm water pools and one sea water pool, to which the water is pumped from nearby streams and filtered clean. In addition to these, there's also a café, restaurant Seagrill and Allas Sky Bar.

Airbus in Finland

More than 370 highly-skilled employees work at Airbus in Finland, primarily in the area of research and development, engineering and project management. The Finnish entity, which has locations in Helsinki and Jyväskylä, is a fully integrated part of the international organisation in Airbus, with know-how and experience exchanged and shared across different sites. Largely export-driven, over 90 percent of revenue comes from outside the country.

Home of TETRA

Finland’s Virve, based on Airbus’ TETRA solution, was the first nationwide TETRA communication network in the world and is at the core of all mission-critical authority communications in the country. In 2020-century Airbus continues to support Virve and is also committed to the Virve 2.0 project with delivering Agnet for end users.

Useful Finnish Words and Phrases

Contrary to popular belief, Finnish is a language that is vastly diverse from any of the other Scandinavian languages. In fact, a non Finnish-speaking Scandinavian person wouldn’t understand a word – written or spoken – of Finnish. That’s how different they are.

If you want to impress Finnish people, try wishing them 'hei, moi, moro or terve'. That's the Finnish way of saying Hello!

You may also find these other, most commonly used words and phrases useful during your stay in Helsinki:

• Good afternoon: Hyvää päivää
• Goodbye: Näkemiin
• Yes: Kyllä
• No: Ei
• Thank you: Kiitos
• You are welcome: Ei kestä
• Excuse me: Anteeksi
• My name is ...: Nimeni on ...
• Nice to meet you: Hauska tavata
• Helsinki Expo and Convention centre: Messukeskus
• Tram: Raitiovaunu
• Metro: Metro
• Sauna: Sauna

Having trouble pronouncing the words? Usually, Finnish words are pronounced just like they are spelled. However, keep these differences between Finnish and English vowels in mind when pronouncing Finnish phrases:

• A: pronounced like the "u" in "cup"
• Ä (with umlaut): sounds close to the "a" in "hat"
• E: pronounced like "e" in "hen"
• I: sounds like "i" in "tip"
• Y: close to the "u" in the British pronunciation of "you" with tight lips
• Ö (with umlaut): pronounced like the "u" in "fur" with tight lips

Sisu: The Finnish art of inner strength

The Finnish word “sisu” is untranslatable, but that doesn’t stop people from trying: determination, guts, hardiness, courage and willpower are some of the terms people use in English.

Sisu helps people to take the next step — or the first one. For example, Finnish people have been known to think that swimming in icy water is fun and healthy, but it takes sisu to do it! It does help if there’s a sauna nearby so you can warm up afterwards.