SPBanker

Finland acquired small islands and rocks in the Tornio River. The principle governing state border between Finland and Sweden along Tornio River comes from Hamina Peacy Treaty between Russia and Sweden in 1809.

Border can move again in 2032.

intuition

Good one!

But I was thinking about a lighthouse that Russia built in the 19th century on the wrong side of the border on the island Märket. No one thought of it even when the border was re-affirmed after the Åland crisis in 1921 and so it was operated for another 55 years by Finns who actually lived on foreign soil to do so. First many years after last resident of the island was gone did the countries do a territory swap, creating one of the funnier border lines. (The 1:1 swap was done in order to preserve both countries exact areal and water border for fishing rights. However, the border adjustment led to Finland's westernmost point moved some 50 meters.)

SPBanker

Now that you told me/us, I remember this.. Good one.

casper79

I didn't know, but the champagne bottles in Y and J are different size. 200 ml in J, 18x ml in Y.

intuition

Finally I feel appreciated for my choice of flying J only!

Steve_Hun

Have just received the e-mail below. Applied for it, let's see if they are interested in my opinion! Anyone else got invited?

Hi!

Come and share your thoughts about the role of digital products and services for Finnair! We're looking for people to take part in a 45 minute interview where we'll be sharing some prompts and asking questions around what is valuable to you as a traveller.

The interviews are done by Made by Many on behalf of Finnair.

To register your interest to take part in the interviews please let us know your availability, preferred contact method (Skype or Google Hangouts) and contact details through the link below.

(Removed personalised link)

Please note that only a select number of Finnair customers will be able to take part in the activity. We will notify the selected participants as soon as possible and set up a time for the interview. The interviews will take place on Friday 9th and Monday 12th of June.

All selected participants will receive 10 000 Finnair Plus award points.
Thanks, we look forward to speaking to you!

Kind regards,
Finnair team

WilcoRoger

Once I had a similar interview on a different subject - there were 2 interviewers, one from AY and one from the agency. (You should have seen the AY girl's eyes when I spread out my double-full house of FFP elite cards. I think that gave her an inkling about this hobby )

OH-LGG

Nice to see how our Swedish correspondent learns important Finnish words.

Like we do here in Finland learning Swedish: "Spöken, finns dom ?"

intuition

Haha, yes soon I know more Finnish than Maori words.
I didn't get the marsuhäkki word at first, but it was catchy. (I got it a few days later, I'm explaining the crap out of that below, please don't let that destroy the pleasure of our new cabin designator!)


The other night I got stuck on Arenan on yle.fi and learned that Finnish is not at all the incomprehensible monolith it might appear at first. Apparently there are some 4 000 words borrowed from that other national language, so I guess I started to look for patterns how to encrypt a Swedish word into Finnish. Like 'Matta' into 'Matto' or 'Kapten' into 'Kapteeni'.

Anyway, Marsu seems like just a cute shorted version of 'Marsvin' (which apparently came from German 'Meerschweinchen' (small sea(!) pig).

Decrypting 'Häkki' back to swedish I get 'Häck' which is currently used to explain a containment with grids or bars (often wodden) - in older language it would have been used specifically for a bird cage, as the verb for birds breeding is 'Häcka'.

CeruleanBlue

"Häck" also means something entirely different in rikssvenska: an anatomical designation. But of course you left that out because of sophistication.

intuition

Oh yes, there are plenty of risks when guessing words!

Thanks for assuming sophistication, but it was perhaps more out of fear I'd bore the audience to death...


There are actually 3 distinctly different meanings of 'Häck' in rikssvenska. Most common is the meaning "Hedge" where those Germans with their Hansa did it again - Rule the world by exporting words! (it is called 'Hecke' in German).
Perhaps Häkki and it's meaning as a farming related word was already established and Finnish speakers don't like homonyms as much as Swedish speakers do, because Finnish language didn't borrow this one but instead constructed a new word using native terms: 'Pensasaita' ("fence of bushes" if I read that right?)




Second meaning is indeed a non-offensive word for posterior. But is is actually an older shipbuilding term, describing the aft part of a ship or actually everything located behind the rudder point, above water. Some 500 years ago this section became a status symbol. I grew in size and got lots of ornaments and gold. It is not hard to understand why the word for this highly decorative and eye-catching feature in colloquial language came to describe the butt of people!



Vasa stern color model [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], by Peter Isotalo (Own work), from Wikimedia Commons





The third meaning (gridded or barred containment) is rarer and not used in everyday language so without the marsuhäkki context it would have been difficult to make the association.
As for a bird cage we've even moved away from that German influence, and might now call it a 'Voljär', shamelessly copied from french volière (oh la la, conquer the world by exporting those sensual words!)

TPJ

Amazing stuff. How was it before Schengen? Was there any passport control on this small, divided island?

PS. Now at least I know where Tornio is

Purjelentaja

There has been no passport control between Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark since 12July 1952. Iceland joined the passport union 1955 and Faroe islands in 1966, and it has been practically allowed to cross the borders between these countries anywhere, not just official crossing points. The difference to Schengen is that there is no obligation to carry any kind of travel document to cross the borders between these countries, unlike Schengen area, where one must have passport or ID card with him/her even if there are no control on borders. That passport union worked until the refugee crisis that set up temporary border checks between Sweden and Denmark, but apart from that, it still is valid. So no, there was no passport control on this small divided island.

oliver2002

Does the glare of gold and platimum cover your other flaws and convince girls to fall for you?

'Heck' is also used in German to describe the 'stern' of a ship. 'Aft' is the section towards the 'stern' end of the ship. Hence the mysterious 'Lavatories in aft' placard in some aircraft

Andaman

The border line is almost invisible in north, there is even an 18 hole golf course on the border, 11 holes in Sweden and 7 in Finland.

Due to the time difference you can hit the longest Hole.-in.-one in the world on the 6th hole – The ball flies approximately one hour and 5 seconds due to the time difference between Sweden and Finland since the borderline lies on the 6th green.

http://torniogolf.fi/course/?lang=en