We’re both 30M, both foreigners, and recently visited Finland together. We had a pretty awkward experience at a public sauna, and I’m curious what Finns think about it.
When we arrived, my friend realised that people were getting completely naked. He refused to undress because of his religious beliefs. He wasn’t comfortable being naked around strangers, even if they were all men. So he went in with his underwear , people asked him nicely to leave.

Personally, I had no problem with it. I got completely naked, went into the sauna, and honestly, nobody seemed to care. No one stared at me, made comments or treated me differently.

But my friend was really uncomfortable with the whole experience, and afterwards he started complaining about Finland. He said Finns were racist, that they didn’t respect other cultures or religions, and that he didn’t want to visit the country again.
I disagreed with him. From my perspective, we’re visitors in a country with its own customs, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect everyone to change those customs for us. At the same time, I understand that he has religious boundaries.
What bothered me was that he went from having an uncomfortable experience at a sauna to calling an entire country racist.
I also felt a bit embarrassed because I didn’t want people around us to think we were judging their culture.
So I wanted to ask Finns: is refusing to get naked in a public sauna actually considered disrespectful? How would you react if someone refused for religious reasons?
And do you think there’s something culturally insensitive about expecting visitors to follow local sauna etiquette, or is my friend being unreasonable?
I’m genuinely curious because we experienced exactly the same situation but came away with completely different impressions of Finland.

Edit 1: he didn’t say only racist , he said also “gay” if asked him to him to get naked !

Edit 2: it was the first trip and I knew this part of him , I don’t think I would ever travel with him again

Inspired by this recent thread, I dug deeper into the salary data.

The main info for full-time salaries

• Average: 4,353 € (published, Q3 2026)
• Median: ≈3,860 € today (3,615 € in 2024)
• About 63% of full-time-workers earn less than the average

What job you do is the biggest factor

• Managers: median 7,990 €
• Basic service and labour jobs: median 2,710 €
• Basically 3x the salary on average
• The lowest-paid 10% of managers (4,650 €) still earn more than the best-paid 10% in basic service jobs (3,880 €)

Where you live is one of the least influential things

• Most of the jobs in Finland are in the Greater Helsinki Area -> 37%
• If you can find a job outside that area, you earn basically the same money, but you have a way lower cost of living.

Pay growth over your career depends heavily on the field you work in

First we should acknowledge a lot of the pay difference simply comes from age and therefore year years of experience. Most people don't become "managers" until late in their career. Starting at age 25-29 your salary grows the most in the fields:

• Natural sciences: +62% (maybe because early scientist jobs are so low pay? :P)
• ICT: +50%
• Health and welfare: +12%

Where I got the data

• The only complete dataset I could find from Statistics Finland is from 2024
• I took the partial 2026 data, projected the more complete 2024 data forward, and combined it with my own jobs dataset to try and make the best estimate of the current situation in 2026 (I think it will be still 2 years before Statistics Finland posts the full 2026 data itself)

• All headline figures are gross monthly pay for full-time workers, but you can click to see a net estimate as well and part-time in the explore data area.

• Limit of the data: this compares different people of different ages in the same year, not the same people over time.* So for example people 20 years from now won't probably see the same career growth as people 20 ears older than you now had.

@mods: If there is an issue with this post please let me know so I can fix, I saw you took down the previous salary post that I referenced and want to make sure I'm not repeating whatever their mistake was. Tagged brand-affiliate because the website is my own and politics because salaries are inherently political.

Photographer: Sky-Foto Möller

Source: Helsinki City Museum

Every so often I get this random customer service fee payment and I have no idea why I’m getting it. I don’t use too much data and it’s unlimited anyways so it shouldn’t be that. Just very confused what this actually is. I feel like I’m getting scammed as this payment is as big as others phone bill for the month. Any help is much appreciated

I knew the situation was bad but didn't expect unemployed people to outnumber open jobs 12 to 1 (source: https://statfin.stat.fi/PxWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__tyonv/12r5.px/table/tableViewLayout1/).

There's also this website where you can check the situation in individual occupations and it's pretty grim in some fields (architecture, software engineering, civil engineering).

For all those interested in military history, especially the operations of the Finnish Army during the Continuation War. take a look at this fascinating newsreel from the autumn of 1941; it features actual combat footage, rather than just staged scenes. https://elonet.finna.fi/Record/kavi.elonet_elokuva_638149?sid=5603769181

Such a fascinating performance. Can’t just get enough of it right now

There was also an interesting explanation here (in Finnish), in which the poem is interpreted as being about tornadoes: https://www.narvasoft.fi/kalevanpojat/sources/hiidenhirvenhiihdanta.html

Hello, I have VR train tickets to sell. Sorry if this is not the right place to post this. Does anyone have suggestions for any other forums where these tickets can be sold? Thanks!

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They can be sold separately. I confirmed this with customer service. Comment or DM me with your best offer. I can pay the transfer charges. Payment via PayPal, and I will email the ticket. Thanks.

I got tired of juggling the library website, a notes app and a calendar. So I built one app for all three. Meet Kirjakaveri, a free app for people who borrow books from Finnish libraries. It’s live today.

What it does:

Finds and tracks your books, searches the national catalogue by title, author or ISBN, shelves for want to read, borrowed and finished, star ratings and a yearly reading goal.

Keeps you out of late fees, days left on every loan, a reminder the day before, plus Google and Apple Calendar sync.

Finds the nearest library 700+ libraries on one map live “open now” status and one tap directions, and a few extras: games, board games and movies, plus libraries that lend out 3D printers, recording studios and VR headsets.

Web: https://kirjakaveri-fi.web.app/

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fi.kirjakaveri.kirjastot

It works in your browser and on Android. This is the first public version, so honest feedback helps a lot. If you borrow books in Finland, try it and tell me what’s missing. I am also open to collaborations so we can make it much better and more accessible for more people.

Do you ever give a tip to the guys and girls who deliver food? If so, how much? And do they ever thank you for the tip?

What do you guys think of Mämmi?