A new gloss Finnish Helsinki has spent 33 million turning itself into a millennial European City of Culture.

From: Evening Standard - London | Date: January 10, 2000| Author: HENRY SUTTON | Copyright information

I'D always felt rather sorry for Helsinki, stuffed up there in a distant corner of the Baltic near the freezing Russian border. It never seemed able to compete with the crisp, Scandinavian glamour of, say, Copenhagen or Stockholm. The first time I went I found only freezing fog and nowhere to go. It was no wonder, I thought, that the Finns turned to alcohol and public saunas to warm themselves in the long, dark winters.

But, having just visited again, 15 years later, I believe the cit...

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