What the Finnish Summer has to offer for you

The idea to this page came to my mind, because of my foreign friends who are going to visit Finland this summer. I thought that it would be wise to 'investigate' the www-pages beforehand and then give them information about what is going on here during the summer via Internet.

The Finnish summer, even though it's very short, is full of different kinds of events. And as the sun 'never' goes down, it allows you to have fun all night long! Check the links I have chosen and make your own plans for the hot summer '96.

If you will find general information about how to travel in Finland or what to do during the summer, go and see the following pages:

travel in Finland
lomalle 'go to holiday'
Unfortunately the second link doesn't tell you anything in English, but if you recognize some names, you'll find perhaps some information in English as well.

What I really wanted to do was to give you some hints where you can go and why. The events are put into categories in order to help you to find the most interesting ones.

ROCK

The Rock-Summer begins with Provinssirock. This tradiotional Rock-festival will again gather rock fans from all over Finland. But don't forget to take your rain coat with you!

Join the best midsummer festival Rantarock , which is held in Vaasa. The popular radio station Radio Mafia is there too.

In the end of June everybody goes to Turku! The second oldest Rock-festival in the world Ruisrock brings to the stage famous foreign rock names like Blur, Pulp, Neil Young and Finnish singers Hector, Kuustonen, J. Karjalainen, just to mention few of them.

And you'll find more information here: Puistoblues 'Garden Blues'. This festival is organized with enthusiasm. The volunteers of the Blues-Jazz Diggarit Association work without pay for this happening to succeed. There is something for the children as well

The biggest and I suppose the oldest Jazz-festival in Finland is Pori Jazz. The music starts 12 July and goes on for the whole week. Go and see the pages, but take some time with you: there are loads of nice pictures of the musicians!

FOLK MUSIC

Folk music is near to my heart, because one of the best music festivals I know is in Kaustinen. Kaustinen Folk Music Festival is more than just folk music. You meet people from different countries and the music connects you during the early hours of the day. This year at the festival you can hear the Finnish groups Tallarit and Pinnin pojat. I even heard a rumour that the Swedish band Nordman would play some evening during the week from 13.7. - 21.7. You just can't miss this one!

Finnish folk music and folk dance has its own homepage as well.

DO YOU WANNA DANCE?

I don't know why the biggest tango event in Finnland, Seinäjoen tangomarkkinat, don't advertise itself in the web better than this link. I wonder where the sponsors are? Tango is the Finnish culture in its best, if you ask me. (It's also the only dance I can dance...)

And if you want meet Finns (younger and older), go and check the dancing places. Here is a link to the Finnish dance server.

There is a dancing place near to my parents' house too. Come and dance at Lampin lava!

MOVIES

Unfortunately Finns are not a big movie folk. Some cinemas are even closed during the summer!

But thanks to the movie fans, we have a few movie festivals here.

Espoo Cine The pages are not yet updated, but the last year's program sounds very promissing.
During the Film festival in Sodankylä you might even meet the famous film directorAki Kaurismäki

These very naturally my own suggestions for the summer. If you want to have more information, try the following link:

Finland festivals homepage

This page was done by Heidi Isoniemi at the university of Vaasa. I hope you enjoyed your browsing and found some interesting events for the summer. Have a lovely holiday!