Talk:Helsinki

Helsinki page is giving an error and is not displayed. Someone please correct!

Security issues

Is it really so scary down here that we need such a huge text block to explain that it actually isn't that dangerous at all? As far as I know, apart from drunken fights the only dangerous thing here are the slippery pavements.

Well noted; those sections tend to swell when locals start noting every bad thing that has ever happened and why it's not going to happen again. I tried to cut it down to size (and noted the pavements!). Jpatokal 10:08, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

-- I added once removed warning about crossing the streets; it's indeed very relevant for foreign visitors that came from countries where pedestrians can take it granted that their rights will be respected (re: http://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/artikkeli/Helsingiss%C3%A4+loukkaantuneet+norjalaiset+ovat+toipumassa/1135229433299)

Also, I think it is worthwhile destination information to underline that Helsinki *is* exceptionally safe to walk around and that there is no need to stay in the hotel and limit the excursions to clear daylight even if you're not of the young and adventurious type; my experience is that there are foreign cities where the good citizens shun the idea of entering the streets by foot after the darkness falls and any streets outside the neon-lit area are practically abandoned by the pedestrians.

The murder rate in Helsinki is much higher than almost all other European cities. 12.5 per 100,000 people per year compared to about 2 for dublin, london, vienna, rome, oslo etc. The murder rate in Helsinki is actually 2.55 Not 12.5 There is error in BBC source http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Maakunnissa+enemm%C3%A4n+henkirikoksia+kuin+Helsingiss%C3%A4/1135233424670

Question concerning content

Hi, just some 1 week ago I was visiting the cathedral and at multiple spots paint came off the wall. Thus I'm a little surpised to read "the cathedral has recently been refurbished and looks better than ever" - when was this refurbishment? Or was it only at the outside? Thanks for that info, Schoschi of de.wikitravel.org

To do:

Get-Around-section: What about cars - about parking in city centre to be more precise (fees, places etc?)

Drink-section: Maybe divided into subsections: citycenter, Uudenmaankatu and surroundigs, Kallio?

Party-section: Nightclubs shouldn't be to hard... there aren't that many. I don't have much expertise in that area, though.

Shop-section: Not my area either...

btw, If you add restaurants which are not in the center (or vicinity), we should probably create subsections there too.

-- Jussi

Is Helsinki big enough to divide up into districts? See Wikitravel:huge city article template and Wikitravel:district article template for some ideas. --Evan 17:09, 21 Jan 2004 (EST)

No, not really. Population is around 500,000 and almost all attractions, watering holes and hotels are in the fairly compact center. Jpatokal 23:23, 29 Aug 2004 (EDT)

Err, those population statistics could be more presize, something like almost 560 000 for Helsinki and over 1,2 million for the Helsinki Region. Useful link: http://www.hel.fi/english/info/facts.html (Sorry, this probably isn't the right place for comments...)

Destination of the month

As this article will be the DotM for August, I think it might be a good idea if we all give it a once-over for manual of style compatibility. It looks good, but I've seen a few things that could use some more info, and some of these URLs need to be unpacked. --Evan 08:17, 28 Jul 2005 (EDT)

State

So I put this down as a "guide" but I think someone could argue it's a star. I think what it's lacking is a "tourist-style map" but I'm not sure if what's there would count. Comments?. Majnoona 22:48, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Similary to Stockholm

What makes Helsinki similar to Stockholm? Since it's reading in the article. Does Stockholm have the Russian empire like architecture like Helsinki does, from what I know it does not. I find it deceptive and it should be changed. OR if not then please explane!

They're both small, Nordic and boring, but Stockholm is a little bigger. "Russian" architecture in Helsinki is pretty much limited to the Uspenski Cathedral. But instead of just deleting, how about you write a better description? Jpatokal 03:16, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

I guess Helsinki and Stockholm being boring is pretty subjective, huh? I changed it a bit, feel free to comment if you don't feel convinced.

Eh, all what C.L. Engel has made in Helsinki is Russian Empire style. So, basically only whole senate square. Also few more not so important buildings like Merikasarmi (current foreign ministry) Uspenski is only example of Russian church architecture. Otherwise whole city is full of buildings designed by Russians or in St. Petersburg by order of Russian Tsar. Basically Sederholms house is one of only buildings from Swedish time since of burn of Helsinki in 1808 and rest of which is not more or less Russian is younger than 90 years. TeeMa

Reviews from Flyertalk

mosburger from Flyertalk has kindly granted permission to copy his capsule reviews of fine Helsinki restaurants to Wikitravel. Jpatokal 10:16, 6 July 2006 (EDT)and god said pie rocks

Focus on Helsinki?

I'm wondering about the focus of this article; should it be on the city of Helsinki alone or should the whole metropolitan area be covered? On one hand the three major cities (Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa) work pretty much in cooperation and the municipality distinction is somewhat artificial — the international airport is actually located in Vantaa and "Helsinki" University of Technology is located in Espoo — but on the other hand, they are three distinct cities.

It just seems a bit odd that these three major Finnish cities (1st, 2nd and 4th largest as far as population goes) are all covered in one article (Espoo and Vantaa currently redirect to the Helsinki article) while much smaller cities and towns in Finland have their own articles. Furthermore, is a visitor to Helsinki really going to take the bus to Iso Omena or Myyrmanni malls when shopping? Jopo 08:14, 21 August 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, this is a bit tricky. But I don't think Espoo or Vantaa are "destinations" in the sense required for an article, so I don't see a need for splitting them off. If the Helsinki article is ever districted, then it would make sense to put them in their own districts. Jpatokal 08:31, 21 August 2006 (EDT)

hel.fi vs helsinki.fi

So, some obscure history... the U of Helsinki (of Linus Torvalds fame) snagged helsinki.fi before the city caught onto this Intarweb thing, and the city was consequently relegated to hel.fi and wasn't too happy about it. After lots of fighting, the university agreed to decamp to helsinki.fi/university, and helsinki.fi was turned into the spectacularly useless "Helsinki Portal". The official tourism pages are still under hel.fi, so in my opinion that's where the official link should go. Jpatokal 08:44, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

helsinki.fi was revamped recently and seems much improved. The front page now actually has useful stuff like event listings, weather info and the Journey Planner. A "Tourism and recreation" section also exists. On the other hand the hel.fi page is still around and has a link to helsinki.fi so I guess it continues to be more official. Lcpitkan 05:55, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Unnecessary Swedish names?

Jpatokal, can you state why the Swedish names are unnecessary? The Swedish names can often be easier to remember than the Finnish names (and vice versa), so can't both names stay?

BTW my edits had also more information than just place and street names, and it appears you reverted also them... :) 153.1.21.18 10:46, 12 December 2006 (EST)

See Talk:Finland. Jpatokal 10:59, 12 December 2006 (EST)

OK, fine, but wtf is this then: There is also a significant Swedish speaking minority, and at many venues downtown you can also get service in Swedish. – if Swedish street and place names are unnecessary, wouldn't this be too? Ultrix 07:16, 20 December 2006 (EST)

That's there in case you happen to speak Swedish. (And if you do, you're not going to need tables of Swedish words.) Jpatokal 10:46, 20 December 2006 (EST)

Yeah, and if you do speak Swedish, you're most likely going to need the Swedish place names too. That's another argument for keeping them in the article, at least when mentioned the first time. If there's just "Katajanokka", and a Swede asks his Finland-Swedish friend eg. "kan du ta oss till Katajanokka när vi visiterar er" (= can you take us to Katajanokka when we visit you), will the Finland-Swede of course understand, but it sounds ridiculous. A bit like if you were talking in Finnish "mennäänks Stockholmiin vai Haparandaan" instead of Tukholmaan and Haaparantaan - ludicrous, isn't it? Ultrix 05:49, 9 February 2007 (EST)

Under the arbitrary three-first-letters rule I proposed on Talk:Finland, Katajanokka/Skatudden qualifies. But let's keep this on Talk:Finland, I'd prefer to establish a country-wide policy... Jpatokal 06:56, 9 February 2007 (EST)

I haven't edited any public wiki-article yet, so I'll just start with making a remark on this discussion page. In the understand/history-part of the Helsinki article it says that "...establisment of Sveaborg (nowadays Suomenlinna) Maritime Fortress...". I quickly read through the finnish/swedish-discussion on the talk/Finland page, but this still seems wrong. The name of Sveaborg hasn't changed to "Suomenlinna", "Suomenlinna" is just the finnish name.Pihlip 24.7.2011

Euros

This is the English Wikitravel, so prices should be listed as €1.50 (English), not 1,50€ (Finnish). Jpatokal 16:54, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

Jopo, thanks for finally cleaning that up! Up next, all other articles for Finland =P Jpatokal 12:14, 14 May 2007 (EDT)

 ;) --Jopo 04:07, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Murder rates

I'm not disputing that Helsinki (like the rest of Finland) has a high murder rate by European standards. However, I don't think this has anything to do with visitors to the city, because an overwhelming majority of the people getting murdered in Finland end up that way in drunken family disputes. If you disagree, please find me one (1) case of a tourist being murdered in Helsinki. Jpatokal 09:05, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

Drunken family disputes? Are you serious? That's the number one cause of murders in Finland? -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 13:30, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

Yup. And the weapon of choice is a knife (one of these, to be exact). Jpatokal 12:23, 8 October 2007 (EDT)

Number one cause of homicides in Finland is drunken fights among groups of people, who have gathered to drink in some other place than public bar(how do you say "ryyppyporukka" in English?). Sometimes there`s family members included, but thats not the point. The point is excessive consumption of alcohol somewhere where no-one is going to stop the fight or call the police before it`s too late. And yes, often there`s knife(s) involved.

Also, often these people have a lot of troubles in their life already, like alcoholism, long lasting unemployment, perhaps more or less crime records etc.

http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/rikos.shtml/arkistot/rikos/2008/01/599275

http://www.haaste.om.fi/29086.htm

(links are in Finnish)

Hessu 03:39, 6 June 2008 (EDT)

Dramatic performance?

Hi all,

If I'm looking to catch some dramatic performance in Helsinki, what venues should I look out for?219.95.250.190 11:23, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Whys Festivals

Whys festivals under understand-it's a DO thing. Keep smiling, ee ^talk 23:52, 16 November 2008 (EST).

Bug?

Hi,

The Loose bar is incorrectly listed as Frederikinkatu 34. However, when I go to edit the page, it appears that the address is correct (annankatu 25) in the editing textarea. What's going on? In any case, the main page needs to be updated.

It lists correctly for me, try updating (F5) or using this link - should make it work for you. --Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 14:50, 18 April 2009 (EDT)

"Cope" section copied from Stockholm article

At least part of the "Cope" section appears to have been copied from the Wikitravel Stockholm article. In particular, the Canadian who had difficulty getting cash in Stockholm is me. Someone else falsely edited that article to say "some people, such as a Canadian", but it was only me.

I also commented about the Forex currency exchanges and their high commission. It looks like this "information" on the Helsinki page was just copied from what I wrote about Stockholm. I haven't been to Helsinki. If this information was just copied from what I wrote about Stockholm, it doesn't belong here.

The revision that copied the Stockholm article was: Revision as of 07:43, 1 January 2013 by 109.204.185.160.

Hi! Thanks for bringing this to our attention! Please feel free to rewrite it Thank you! IBAlex (talk) 20:38, 29 March 2013 (EDT)

I just tried to take out the text copied from the Stockholm article, but my attempt was blocked as an "unconstructive edit".

Sorry to hear that. Wikitravel has several abuse filters that protect the site from large text deletions. This helps us protect the site from vandals, I hope you understand. I see that your IP is not blocked anymore. I have just reverted all the edits made by IP address 109.204.185.160. Again, thank you so much for letting us know about that. Highly appreciated! IBAlex (talk) 15:19, 1 April 2013 (EDT)

Banner same as first image

Currently the banner and the first image on the page depict the same attraction (Tuomiokirkko) and generally look pretty similar. Doesn't that make anyone else feel like there's absolutely nothing else to see in Helsinki except for this one thing? Sarasti (talk) 09:04, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

Hi! Thanks for your message! Good observation, I just changed the image. Next time please feel free to just plunge forward and change/ remove a picture if you see it's needed. Here is a policy page that explains how to do it. Thanks! IBAlex (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2015 (EDT)