I have been complaining about a lack of Finnish history. Well here is some real history for you, that is purely Finnish. In 1865 a wood pulp mill company started in the town of Tampere (today the second largest urban area in Finland at around 300 000 people). The company later relocated to the town of Nokia, which had better resources for hydro power production. In the twentieth century a company called "Finnish Rubber Works" began, their main product being tyres. Finnish Rubber Works bought out "Nokia Wood Mills" and "Finnish Cable Works" and merged to become the Nokia Corporation in 1967. This was the birth of the company that began to produce mobile phones in the 1980s. There is a 38% chance you have a Nokia phone with you right now, as that is their world market share. They are by far the biggest company in Finland today, employing around 15 000 designers plus other staff, although most hardware production happens in China.
Today it is still a tyre factory, once a wood pulp mill, the birth place of the Nokia corporation.
Don't be deceived, the "n" in Nokian is a case ending- this is the Nokia tyre company.
Yesterday we were very happy to post off Christmas presents to Australia and Canada, in all 5 parcels took us less than half an hour to organise, pack, weigh and mail. This would have taken a minimum of 4 hours in a Russian post office. In Finland it was not only stress free but enjoyable!
Yesterday we had some spectacular stormy skies, I managed to catch this one.
4 comments:
Occasionally in Australia I have seen something similar, with dark skies threatening a hail storm, and yet the scene has been bathed in bright sunlight from another part of the sky which is free of clouds.
I think that the brightly lit scene gives some sort of emotional uplift to our spirits, in what might be a foreboding scene. Part of the reason we take notice is because it is such an unusual event.
Good photo! We're getting some now...
oh, a helpful history website for Finland is
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html
This site was originally to educate US government staff & military regarding 'lesser-known' areas of the world as can be quite extensive, but will only go as far as 1988-1998. The section on 'Medieval society and economy' suggests it wasn't always completely intolerable (comparatively) for the Finns - having Finnish bishops from 1291 and no serfdom for example, although the Finns had limited political power. The story of their conversion and Swedish dominance is worth a read (under the link 'THE ERA OF SWEDISH RULE, c. 1150-1809').
The deleted comment above was my attempt at editing.
My Mum calls this "Mediteranean light" - you sometimes get it in Melbourne in winter...
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