12 June: Helsinki Day

12 June is considered to be the birthday of Finland's capital city. Here are some facts about Helsinki you might not know.

1. While Helsinki is the largest city in Finland, with a population of around 650,000, it is the second most thinly populated capital city in Europe (after Brussels).
2. Its area is 82.5 square miles (214.8 square kilometers).
3. The city is built on a peninsula and includes 315 islands, with numerous bridges connecting them all. Some of the notable ones are Korkeasaari, where Finland's largest zoo is to be found, the fortress island of Suomenlinna, the military island of Santahamina, and Pihlajasaari, which is popular in summer with naturists and gay men.
4. It's not entirely clear where the name Helsinki came from. One theory is that it was named by settlers from Hälsingland in central Sweden who named its river "Helsinge River" (today it's called the Vantaa). The settlement was named for the river. It could also derive from an old Swedish word for neck, meaning the narrowest part of a river.
5. The city was founded in 1550, by King Gustav I of Sweden. At that time it was called ‘Helsingfors’, which is still used as an official name. Gustav wanted to build a trading town to rival the city of Reval (today known as Tallinn). He ordered the bourgeoisie of the towns of Porvoo, Ekenäs, Rauma and Ulvila to move to Helsingfors. However, the town was plagued by poverty, wars, and diseases, and didn't grow for some time.
6. It's the coldest capital city in the world - the average annual temperature is 0 °C or less, with no sun at all for 51 days a year and about 120 days when it rains.
7. That said, if you go there in winter, you will not see any Snow on the pavements because they have underground heating, so any snow will melt.
8. Their tap water is among the best quality in the world. It is conveyed to people's taps by Päijännetunneli, the longest water tunnel in the world. In fact, the tap water is so good that they export it, with Saudi Arabia being one of its customers.
9. Helsinki doesn't have any twin cities but has partnership relations with several - Saint Petersburg and Moscow, Russia; Tallinn, Estonia; Stockholm, Sweden; Berlin, Germany and Beijing, China.
10. Since 2012 the city has been home to a swimming pool especially for Dogs, which offers swimming lessons for puppies.

The Raiders Trilogy

Book One

Book Three

Book Two

   

Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from. 
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.