General English Level 2 GELEV2 Unit 02 Topic 04.doc Finland Size: 338,000 sq km Population: 5,170,000 Nationality: Finnish Capital city: Helsinki Where?: Northern Europe, Sweden and Russia are its neighbours. Climate: cold Things to see: Turku – the oldest city, the Arctic Circle, Lapland Culture Language: Finnish, Swedish Main food: potatoes, fish and meat sauces Customs: Most people shake hands when they meet. Before they go into a home they take off their shoes. Finnish people love having saunas. A sauna is a hot room where people sit together. Festivals Midsummer’s Day (Juhannus) is the most important festival for the Finnish. It is on the longest day of the year, when the sun shines for more than 20 hours. On this day the Finnish celebrate summer. Most of the year it is very cold in Finland so the Finnish have a lot of fun on this day. Before the festival many people clean their homes and make special decorations. Many people make big fires and have parties. They sing, dance and play music. At midnight people usually light big fires. 67 QUESTLANGUAGE