Considering the number of shops per one square meter, the Finnish capital can be compared with some huge duty-free zone. What is especially pleasant is that the best shopping places are at the same time the most often visited by tourists. It means that walking and a sightseeing tour can be combined with looking at shop windows and fittings. There are a lot of things to see and to try on in Helsinki.
On the one hand, Helsinki is not a European capital of shopping like London, Paris, Milan and more modest Prague. On the other hand, the Finns, who patiently bear all the shifts and changes of Scandinavian climate, surround themselves with comfort and entertainments in order to have something to do in nasty weather which is not at all rare here. As a result, while there is one pub per each square meter in Dublin (probably, as part of the efforts to fight winds and chillness), there is one shop or shopping centre per square meter in Helsinki. And it is, of course, apart from various cafes, bistros, restaurants and clubs which are more of night entertainments. Many shops within the city close early by Moscow standards – at seven or eight p.m., and if they work on Saturday, they close in the afternoon.
Of course, Finnish shopping has no claims to elegance and glamour, it is more focused on buying simple practical things at reasonable prices, long-forgotten in Moscow. Here one can buy really warm and comfortable clothes for winter, and it is a piece of luck that the Finnish clothes are very similar to ours.
Among important items on the shopping list in Finland, we can also find ceramic or glass dishes, as well as home furnishings. The Finns have as developed a taste for laconic, functional and originally-looking things as their western neighbors. And even if they can’t boast their own IKEA, unlike the Swedes, they have their own designer brands, though less present in mass consumption. Besides a traditional selection of souvenirs, such as figurines of deer, crafts made of deer leather, dolls dressed in national costumes and moomins, one can bring more exotic and practical presents from Finland, such as a kit for the Finnish bath, fen-berry marmalade or liqueur. The funniest place for such shopping is the waterfront market where good-natured Finns sell berries, mushrooms, fish and crafts made of wood, leather, wool and fur under tents. Here they also propose a fast-food menu: they fry fresh-caught fish. You can have a snack on centrally placed benches or go just a little further to the parapet. The main thing is to protect the food from the gulls flying nearby which, judging by their size, obviously succeed in food hunting.