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Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

helsinkibusinesshub.fi

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Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#591

Post by 1rs »

legohead wrote: post #263
deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

Can you pay for private dentists, or similar, if you need more immediate service? And is the wait similar for major things like cancer, brain tutor, or heart surgery?

Yes you can pay or have (cheap like 1k/year) insurance and get immediate service as well. There are private clinics that also work together with the public system.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#592

Post by titanomachy »

danjac wrote: post #452
titanomachy wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My inlaws are Finnish... the total lack of germanic/romance cognates makes it very difficult for me to remember any vocabulary. But I've never really put in a serious effort to learn it.

The cognates are difficult, true - there are quite a few old Indo-European words if you know where to look ( kulta - gold, kuningas - king, ranta from Swedish strand , i.e. shore). That said, once you've built up a core vocabulary, it's quite easy to learn derived words. For example, kirja , kirjasto , kirjoittaa , kirje - book, library, write, letter. By comparison, you can see how much different all the equivalent…

Cool examples! I can definitely see how Finnish would be easier to learn than English, assuming a lack of familiarity with related languages.

Greek is also very synthetic, so a little basic vocabulary goes a long way. I like the word for "waterproofing", literally "against-through-rain-making" (αδιαβροχοποίηση, a-dia-brocho-poiesi)

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#593

Post by alkonaut »

woobar wrote: post #589
alkonaut wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily have a €4K/mo pension in Finland without private savings. It depends on how much you earned. Calculator https://www.tyoelake.fi/sv/pensionsraknaren/

I've entered €6K/mo (the senior eng salary mentioned in this discussion, aka top 10% salary in Finland) and used €1414 accrued pension (* median value from the table for a person born in 1960) and got €1.9/mo for someone close to retirement. So far I am not sure how easy it is to get to 4K/mo. But my point was more about you mentioning retirement savings only for US workers. While median income earners will get very…

Yes obvioiusly the pension you get in a country is related to how many years you worked in that country. If I moved to Finland I too would get a lower pension than others when I retire in 25 years, but on the other hand I’d be getting a pension from the first 20 years of my career in my home country too. Taken together they’d (unsurprisingly) add up to the €4K or so I expect to get.

Similarly if you move there from a country with lower taxes/pensions such as the US you’d probably bring savings to compensate that you missed a number of years.

After all, these pensions based on number of years worked is often just a form of mandated savings from employers payroll taxes.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#594

Post by antb123 »

deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

Spent a couple years in Vaasa. Swedish is so much easier for English speakers! Picked it up mostly just from watching tv.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#597

Post by LockAndLol »

alibarber wrote: post #465
LockAndLol wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the need to learn the language even a negative? People complain all the time about people coming to their country and not speaking the language after decades, but then gladly move to a foreign country with no intention of ever learning the language. Very hypocritical. You move to a country, you learn the language. If you don't, that's your fault and you have have to deal with it.

Yes, but: In the case of Finland, it is made clear by advertising from semi/official sources (like this website), if not explicitly but very heavily implied, that you can move here and get by fine with English. This is pretty much true, many people do. You can get your paperwork sorted, buy a car, a bank account, deal with the government and have a social life all in English. I have done. But, all of the comments I'm…

> In the case of Finland, it is made clear by advertising from semi/official sources (like this website), if not explicitly but very heavily implied, that you can move here and get by fine with English.

Imo, that's just an excuse. I live in a country that has fantastic English speakers, don't even plan on staying here longer than 3 years and still took the time to learn the language (probably B2-B1 after 2 years). Sure, it's understandable that not everybody wants to do that, but it should be obvious to any foreigner that you lock yourself out of a multitude of jobs by not learning the language.

The only reason I'm saying this is because the top comment listed learning the native language as a negative, which imo it really isn't.

> If I had lived in France for as long as I have in Finland (not even a full year), then there is no question that my French would be at a much higher level than my Finnish is now.

That may be true for you, but definitely not for others. There are foreigners living in France that can barely count in the language. I've seen and heard that first hand. Some extreme example have been in the country a decade. It really depends on where you move to, where you work, who you surround yourself with, and how motivated you are.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#598

Post by lm28469 »

0xfaded wrote: post #374
brryant wrote: post #2

This is honestly a great way for tech entrepreneurs to experience Nordic living. The fact is Finland has one of the most startup friendly environments around: — top schools (Aalto U. produces incredibly talented engineers) — startup friendly ecosystem (cheap rents, cheap internet) — Finnish work culture (direct, no nonsense, hard working but balanced) — fantastic food and beverage scene in downtown Helsinki My wife i…

I moved from SF to the Nordics on a startup visa and feel obligated to temper expectations whenever I see these. - There are good schools and people, but don't expect the density of top people to be anything close to SF. Finding friends to talk shop with requires active engagement. - Every European country is trying to promote itself as startup friendly, and what you are seeing from a distance is being heavily curate…

> Nightlife is just one of those things America does bigger and better

That's highly debatable, I'm European and lived in SF/LA for a while, night life over there always felt "fake" (I don't know how to explain it better but i know many people in my circles felt the same) compared to my experience in Europe, it was like being in a parody of an American feel good movie. So I guess it's very dependent on where you come from and what you grew up with.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#599

Post by woobar »

alkonaut wrote: post #593
woobar wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've entered €6K/mo (the senior eng salary mentioned in this discussion, aka top 10% salary in Finland) and used €1414 accrued pension (* median value from the table for a person born in 1960) and got €1.9/mo for someone close to retirement. So far I am not sure how easy it is to get to 4K/mo. But my point was more about you mentioning retirement savings only for US workers. While median income earners will get very…

Yes obvioiusly the pension you get in a country is related to how many years you worked in that country . If I moved to Finland I too would get a lower pension than others when I retire in 25 years, but on the other hand I’d be getting a pension from the first 20 years of my career in my home country too. Taken together they’d (unsurprisingly) add up to the €4K or so I expect to get. Similarly if you move there from…

I think you have misunderstood me. The fact that someone worked their whole life while living in Finland is accounted for. I.e. the link you've shared includes average amount of accrued pension for each birth year. So if someone was born in 1960, joined workforce around 20 y.o., worked for 40 years they would have in average about €1414. If they continue to work until retirement earning 6K, their pension will grow to 1.9K.

If this 4K/mo is easily achievable only if you have another pension from a more generous country, then it is not proving your point much.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#600

Post by mapgrep »

enriquto wrote: post #538
mapgrep wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ww2 in Europe was largely won by the USSR. Britain and the US opened a western front quite belatedly after years of begging by the USSR, after the Soviets sacrificed 15+ million lives to turn the tide, and after a lot of wasted time focusing on minor gains in North Africa (at Churchill’s insistence). Combined US and UK military’s deaths were less than a tenth those for USSR. We love to pat ourselves on the back with…

> Finland incidentally was a key ally for Hitler in his attack on the USSR. It is extremely callous to Finland to put it that way! The USSR attacked Finland while Germany and the USSR were allies against Poland. Understandably, Finland defended itself from this attack and entered into a defensive war with the USSR. Two years later, while this war was still going on, Germany attacked its ally the USSR. Thus Germany an…

You are wildly incorrect. The Winter War ended well before the Continuation War began. See: The Treaty of Moscow. And it was not just a few German troops. Finland served as a staging point for a major if unsuccessful assault on Murmansk. More important, the Finnish invasion (and taking of Karelia) helped tie down Soviet forces near Leningrad. The alliance was eagerly sought by Finnish politicians convinced (not unreasonably) the Soviets would attack after many months of belligerence toward the Finnish ambassador by Molotov. But they were also convinced that Germany would inevitably defeat USSR and usher in a New Europe (code for fascist Europe - long racist toward Russians, the Finns relished the fraternal ties to Germany and the privileged place they could assume in this new world order).

Finnish leaders actually served time in prison after the war for their war crimes. I am sympathetic to Finlands position but to say the Winter War never ended is an absurd falsehood. An entire book was written about the period between the wars by AF Upton. Finland In Crisis. It is superb. It details extensive deliberate planning at the highest levels between Finland and Germany for months prior to Germany turning on its then ally USSR.

(Here’s a quiz for you. If it was only a few German troops in Finland who quickly left, why is it they burned so much of the north and center of the country e.g. Rovaneimi on their way out and why did Finland have to fight them to get them to leave? They were dug in in bases supplied by Finland.)

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