Hyvää päivää/Good day! The “virtual” spring session of Finnish language classes will start on Monday, March 30, at 6 PM and will run for consecutive Mondays, ending on May 18. Email Lorna for details.
Classes are held on line w/ZOOM software.
To register, please contact Lorna Sulin at LDSULIN@verizon.net or 978 407-9690, FCSP, PO Box 30, Fitchburg, MA 01420.
Kiitos/Thank you! and Stay Safe!
Finland has a new government, headed by Social Democratic Party vice chair, Sanna Marin. The administration is Finland’s 76th.
At just 34 years old, Marin, the former Minister for Transport and Communications, is now the world’s youngest premier. Her cabinet consists of 12 women and seven men. All leaders of the five-party government coalition are women.
President Sauli Niinistö appointed the new administration shortly after 3pm on Tuesday, at the same time accepting the resignation of the previous government led by SDP chair Antti Rinne.
Rinne had been premier for just six months before tendering his resignation over his mishandling of a labour dispute between postal workers and their state-owned employer, national mail carrier Posti. Rinne and his government continued in a caretaker capacity until Marin’s formal appointment on Tuesday.
Welcoming the Raivaaja Foundation:
The Raivaaja Foundation is pleased to announce that it will become the first Heritage Affiliate of Finlandia Foundation National (FFN)
About FFN Heritage Affiliates:
“..As the premier Finnish-American cultural organization, Finlandia Foundation National
(FFN) champions a vibrant Finnish-American heritage and legacy that builds bridges
between modern Finland and the United States, enabling people of all backgrounds to
share in the traditions, values, and spirit of Finland and Finnish America.
To further this mission, FFN is introducing a new category of affiliation within its national
chapter network: Heritage Affiliates.
A Heritage Affiliate is an organization whose primary focus is the preservation,
documentation, interpretation, and representation of Finnish-American heritage and
history. These organizations play a vital role in safeguarding the stories, language, culture,
and historical record of Finnish America, even though they may not operate as traditional,
membership-based chapters or host public cultural programming in the same way as local
affiliates.
Heritage Affiliates share FFN’s deep commitment to Heritage and History, one of FFN’s
six core values, and expand the FFN network by strengthening connections to archival
work, historical scholarship, publications, and cultural memory..” T.Flanagon Executive Director FFN
Beloved in Finland, Helene Schjerfbeck is just becoming hot in Manhattan, where a show of paintings at the Met Museum is likely to leave you awe-struck.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/arts/design/helene-schjerfbeck-met-museum.html?smid=em-share
“If you dislike the shortened daylight of winter, please know that you are luckier than Helene Schjerfbeck. A Finnish painter of copious gifts, she spent most of her life in or around Helsinki, contemplating cold skies and winters that lasted for more than half the year. On the other hand, she found an alternate light source through her paintings, many of which are portraits and self-portraits whose warm internal glow rescues their forms from surrounding darkness.
“Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck” offers a moving introduction to an artist whose name you probably do not know. Although Schjerfbeck, who died in 1946, at age 83, is one of the two or three most celebrated artists in Finland, where the tributes include the 2020 biopic “Helene,” she has remained a relative stranger here. This is the first major show of her work in New York in a generation, and the Met claims it owns the one and only painting of hers that resides in this country. Titled “The Lace Shawl” (1920), it was purchased in 2023, a crucial first step in building local recognition for an artist’s work…” (more at NY Times))
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/arts/design/helene-schjerfbeck-met-museum.html?smid=em-share
Border guards say they found ship with anchor lowered into sea after detection of fault in Helsinki-Tallinn telecoms link.
Finnish authorities have boarded and seized a cargo vessel sailing from Russia on suspicion of sabotaging two underwater telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea, where a series of similar incidents have occurred in recent years.
The vessel, the Fitburg, was on its way from St Petersburg to Haifa in Israel. Finnish coastguard officers boarded the ship at 11am, about six hours after disruption to the cables was first reported. Fourteen crew members, including several Russians, were taken into custody.
A helicopter sent to investigate reported that the ship was dragging its anchor along the bottom of the seabed. “At this stage, it is still too early to assess whether this was an intentional act or an accident,” Helsinki’s deputy police chief Heikki Kopperoinentoldthe Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. From https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/finnish-police-seize-vessel-suspected-damaging-underwater-cable
Billed as the official home town of Santa Claus, or joulupukki as he is known in Finland, the city of Rovaniemi offers every imaginable Father Christmas-related experience – from a visit to his “office” on the Arctic Circle to reindeer sleigh rides. He even has his own branch of the Finnish design house Marimekko.
But this Christmas season, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world coming in search of Santa, Finnish Lapland’s snow-covered capital is becoming an increasingly popular destination for international military visitors.
In recent weeks, thousands of Nato soldiers have been through Rovaniemi, which also has an airbase, for training exercises at nearby Rovajärvi, western Europe’s largest military exercise area, where they are preparing for a potential attack by Russia. Rovajärvi is about 55 miles from the Russian border….more at
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/10/nato-russia-finland-border-lapland-santa-park
One of the cornerstones of our national resilience is the strategic grain reserve system. These reserves include wheat, oats, barley and rye, grains that are central to both our agriculture and our diet. Stored in secure facilities across the country, they are rotated using the Fifo (first in, first out) method to maintain quality and ensure older grains are used before newer ones. These reserves are designed to sustain the population for nine months in the event of a global supply-chain collapse or domestic production disruption. During the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, they have helped reassure the public.
Finland’s food self-sufficiency rate is around 80%. That means we produce most of the food we consume, which is a rare achievement in today’s interconnected world. This is thanks to our farmers, who operate more than 40,000 farms nationwide. In 2024, crop production was the main activity on 74% of farms, while livestock farming was practised on 20%. The average farm size is 56 hectares. Despite a short growing season and a limited variety of crops, our agricultural sector is efficient, innovative and supported by strong infrastructure. These farms are the backbone of our food system and their role in national security cannot be overstated.
Preparedness also starts at home. In Finland, household-level readiness is essential. One of our most effective tools is the 72-hour model, which encourages every household to be self-sufficient: to have enough food and bottled water (five litres per person) for three days. We advise having a stock of dry foods that keep well, such as nuts or dried fruit. Our home emergency supply kit checklist includes such items as a first aid kit, iodine tablets, a battery-powered radio, torch, power bank, portable stove, toilet paper and duct tape.
By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal, Reuters – 7:28 AM ET 8/29/2025
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. tariff exemption for package shipments valued under $800 ended on Friday, raising costs and disrupting supply chain models for e-commerce companies, small businesses using online marketplaces and consumers alike.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency began collecting normal duty rates on all global parcel imports, regardless of value, country of origin, (Finland included) or mode of transportation at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Friday. It offered a flat-rate duty option of $80 to $200 per package shipped from foreign postal agencies for six months.
The change broadens the Trump administration’s cancellation of the de minimis exemption for packages from China and Hong Kong in May as part of an effort to halt shipments of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals into the U.S..
North Karelia force says fence dividing Finland and Russia is no Berlin Wall – but it is now a key geopolitical faultline
Among the serene lakes, thick forest and summer houses of North Karelia’s border zone, the line between Finland and Russia is almost invisible. Walking along the border path in Meriinaho, part of the Finnish border guard station of Ilomantsi, we are closer to St Petersburg than to Helsinki. This is the most easterly point of the continental European Union.
Every now and then a discreet pair of matching striped fibreglass posts pop up from the blueberry patches on either side of the frontier. One is painted blue and white to indicate Finland, the other green and red to mark Russia.
Despite generations of tensions and several wars, until recently these sparsely planted bollards – plus surveillance by Finnish and Russian border guards – were deemed sufficient to demarcate the neighbours. But the mood on both sides of the 830-mile (1,340km) frontier, now also a critical Nato border, is changing fast.
Last week as he sat down at the White House with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump for talks on how to end the war in Ukraine, Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, drew on the border to convey to the US president Europe’s collective concern.
He told Trump: “We might come from a small country but we have a long border with Russia, over 800 miles. And we of course have our own historical experience with Russia, from world war two, the winter war and the war of continuation.”
In an attempt to strike a note of optimism, he added: “We found a solution in 1944 and I’m sure that we will be able to find a solution in 2025.” (more at):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/25/finland-fence-nato-border-russia
Miranda Bryant in Meriinaho, North Karelia Mon 25 Aug 2025 10.02 EDT
The Associated Press
OULU, Finland >> Finnish air guitarist Aapo “The Angus” Rautio plucked victory from thin air on Friday night, grabbing the world championship title for his homeland for the first time since 2000.
This year’s Air Guitar World Championships reached the climax with a final Friday evening on a square in the western city of Oulu. It’s the 28th edition of a three-day event held in Finland that brings together competitors from 13 countries.
Contestants are judged on the performance of two songs in two separate rounds, each lasting 60 seconds, with the singers pretending to play an imaginary guitar.
Passion is a must, but much of the rest is up to the contenders. Props and costumes are allowed, but backup bands and real instruments are off-limits.
The two-hour final pits last year’s winner, Canada’s Zachary “Ichabod Fame” Knowles, against eight national champions and seven contenders who emerged from the qualifying rounds. The challengers include U.S. champion Saladin “Six String Sal” Thomas and German champion Patrick “Van Airhoven” Culek.
The winner is chosen by a five-member jury of performing arts professionals. Whoever is crowned will win an actual guitar — a “Flying Finn” made by Finnish guitar maker Matti Nevalainen.
The championships were first held in 1996. Their organizers state that “according to the competition ideology, wars will end, climate change will stop and all bad things will vanish when all the people in the world play the air guitar.”
Contestants may, according to the rules, “use an electric or an acoustic air guitar, or both.” The jury takes into account “originality, the ability to be taken over by the music, stage presence, technical merit, artistic impression and Airness.”
Each jury member scores the performances with a mark between 4.0 and 6.0. Each contestant’s scores from the first and second round — the first with a song chosen by the performer and the second with one chosen by the organizers — are added together and the candidate with the highest total score wins.
On Oct. 14, 2025, Microsoft will officially end public support for Windows 10 — that means no more software updates, security patches, or technical support for your Windows 10 computer, no matter how well it still works.
Don’t worry: If you’re using a Windows 10 PC right now, it’s not going to magically stop working next year. So, what to do?
2. Ride it out with Windows 10…“Trying to secure an outdated operating system is hopeless,” said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of the Finland-based cybersecurity group WithSecure. When new patches and updates are released for Windows 11, he says, attackers will reverse-engineer those releases to see if the same vulnerabilities exist in Windows 10 as well. “Most of them will, and users running Windows 10 will be attacked,” he addedOR
3. if you’re one of those people whose PC simply won’t play nice with Windows 11, it might be worth considering buying a new computer outright.
4. Ditch Windows altogether….a,) In the past, we’ve found success with ChromeOS Flex — free software or b.) there’s always Linux — distributions like Mint and Ubuntu are relatively easy to get started with ( best of all; it’s free and Finnish – from Linus Torvalds).
From the Washington Post 08/25
Real ID requirements for those flying within the United States begin Wednesday after nearly 20 years of delays.
The day ahead of the deadline, people lined up at government offices across the country to secure their compliant IDs. In Chicago, officials established a Real ID Supercenter for walk-in appointments, while officials in California and elsewhere planned to continue offering extended hours for the crush of appointments.
“I’m here today so I won’t be right on the deadline, which is tomorrow,” said Marion Henderson, who applied for her Real ID on Tuesday in Jackson, Mississippi.
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, on Tuesday assured people who don’t yet have a REAL ID but need to take a domestic flight Wednesday that they will be able to fly after clearing additional identity checks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/real-id-domestic-flights
