Most of the papers carry news of Raimo Kalevi Hakkarainen, a Helsinki man who died last year and left his entire estate to the local council. Helsingin Sanomat was the first to report the news, noting that the 1.7 million euro inheritance would be enough to pay for 24,000 truckloads of snow to be cleared from Helsinki's streets.
Hakkarainen was a widower and had no children, and his will mandated that his assets should go to the municipality of Helsinki. The main part of his wealth was 13 apartments purchased as investment, and nine of those have now been sold with the money going into the council's coffers.
None of the papers, however, could work out just why Hakkarainen decided to give his estate to the local authority. There was no indication in his will and no specific instructions on how the money should be spent--just that the city of Helsinki should spend it.
Dangerous vegetarians
Tampere daily Aamulehti has a magnificent front page on which it proclaims that "The WWF would take red meat from pupils' plates". The story is about a report released today in which the Finnish branch of WWF looked at the red meat content of school meals. According to national guidelines, there should be less than 500 grams of red meat per week in children's food. WWF reckons that equates to less than 120 grams in school meals, given that pupils eat elsewhere for breakfast and dinner, and at the weekends.
That level is exceeded in Oulu, Kuopio, Lahti, Vantaa and Aamulehti's home city of Tampere. Hence the concern about forced vegetarianism on the front page, and the inside story in which a reporter visits a school to find out just why Tampere kids need every single one of the 127 grams of red meat on offer in school canteens there each week.
One in ten of the kids at Juhannuskylän koulu eats vegetarian food, while eighth grader Eka-Kristian Koivisto tells the paper that he doesn't have much time to consider his meal choices 'when there's homework to do as well'.
Hanna Loimakoski of the school meal provider says however that it's important to offer red meat as some families now can't afford to buy much of it for consumption at home.
Lapland Ladas in demand
Late last year the border guard in Lapland banned people from crossing the frontier from Russia on bicycles. That was intended to stop asylum seekers from making the perilous journey from Murmansk to Finland in very cold temperatures. In fact it just meant that they bought clapped-out old cars in Russia and drove them to the border, abandoning them in Salla or Raja-Jooseppi when they claimed asylum.
Now HS reports that these Ladas and Volgas are in demand among Finnish enthusiasts. The cars were relatively common in Finland back in the days of the Soviet Union, gaining a reputation for reliability despite their less-than-luxurious image.
The rows of old Soviet vehicles lined up by the border has these enthusiasts salivating, and hoping that the border guard will eventually decide to sell them off.