Is Helsinki the coolest city in the world?

(CNN) – When it snows, the flakes come to you like splinters of ice. A biting wind freezes the ears. Daylight only lasts a few hours.

And nobody talks a lot.

Helsinki in the middle of winter sounds like a place to avoid at all costs. A dark, dark city that shivers under piles of snow.

So, how are the Finns doing? How do they survive such painful conditions and always come out smiling?

Silence.

"The Finns are calm," says comedian Krisse Salminen, who gained fame in Finland by behaving almost exactly the same way as most of his compatriots.

No chatter

After a brief snowshoeing expedition around Nuuksio, Salimen tries to explain the Finnish character while grilling traditional makkara sausages over a fire built in a kota – a tent resembling a yurt used by nomadic Samis living in the Arctic region of Lapland.

As Salminen explains, it is perfectly acceptable for Finnish friends or family members to meet for a drink or a meal and barely exchange a word.

"If you're with parents, you can sit on a table and nobody says anything," she says. "It's not weird.We just eat and then someone says:" Mmmhmm ", and then we eat again.

"We do not talk like you do in America," she adds. "We are talking deeply or we are not talking."

Which does not mean that the Finns have no sense of humor, hence the flourishing comedy circuit that saw Salminen become famous.

She even made an appearance at the most discussed TV event in Finland – a popular two-hour program every year on the country's national holiday. It mainly involves shaking hands with a VIP personality before everyone dances.

But if no one speaks, how do Finns handle basic social activities such as dating?

"Tinder" jokes Salminen.

Apart from the internet dating scene, the Finns nevertheless manage an impressive amount of social gatherings. In bad weather, when most people come home to warm up, they head for running, swimming, dancing, saunas, skating and even legal graffiti.

The music too. For all the pleasures that Finns appreciate in silence, there is an equal enthusiasm to turn the volume up to the extreme and relax.

Today, heavy metal is one of the most important musical exports in the country – which seems to be a leap forward from the time when composer Jean Sibelius' clbadical compositions were the soundtrack of the independence of Finland in the early twentieth century compared to Russia.

Nordic melancholy

Maybe not, says the grandson of Sibelius, musician and composer Lauri Porra.

Porra, who plays bbad guitar in her own heavy metal band Stratovarius, said that while Sibelius's music was inspired by the nature and loneliness of Finnish forests, she shared an affinity with the country's contemporary hard rock.

"I think there is a link," he said, explaining that he was at the heart of Finnish national characteristics.

"The sun goes down very early and the winters are dark," he says. "And then in the summer, we fall in love with love and the sun never sets and I guess everyone knows a little Nordic melancholy and the way the Finns express their emotions."

According to Esa Lilja, professor of music at the University of Helsinki, a specialist in modern rock and roll, Finland has a special affinity for heavy metal music. It is also partly explained by a Liberal government willing to invest in young heads. .

According to him, an educational system set up in the 1960s and 1970s gives everyone in Finland access to musical training, regardless of their economic or social origin.

"And most of these guys now playing in famous heavy metal bands have been to these music schools," he says.

This level of support for the arts has also enabled Helsinki to forge a reputation as a hub of creativity, with a design district that, with its boutiques and trendy galleries, is in itself a major attraction for international visitors. .

Lilja is less sold to the idea that the music reflects a particular Finnish temperament.

A land apart

"It's a bit like a myth that Finnish musicians, or Finns in general, like to think that we are a strange country and that we live in weird woods, rather sad and non-expressive," he said. he declares.

"In part, it's true, we are strange people living in the woods on the edge of the world, yes, and no one speaks our language."

Even if it's not your scene, it's worth listening to Finnish music at one of the many concerts or events in or around Helsinki.

Ida-Katharina Kiljander, who teaches heavy metal singing techniques in Oulu, about 370 km north of Helsinki, will attend the audience. For her, music is an expression of the emotions that many Finns feel otherwise uncomfortable to share.

"They had so much energy," Kiljander said after the show. "I would say it's very typical, you can hear it almost every weekend in Helsinki."

This primordial energy release may have been equaled in Finland only by those who engage in another extreme and equally stimulating activity: ice-swimming.

As part of the popular sauna ritual for many locals, it involves getting out of the scorching heat inside to plunge into icy water.

Grit and perseverance

"That makes the blood flow," said Alexander Stubb, former Finnish Prime Minister, while enjoying a sauna with friends after jogging in the snow-covered streets of Helsinki. "It's also the tradition, we've been doing it for centuries and we feel a lot about this sauna, [it’s] a Finnish invention. [It’s] in fact a Finnish word, the only Finnish word we have ".

Although it is essentially relaxing, the Finnish sauna is subject to some rigid protocols. Participants should preferably be naked. Men and women generally use separate facilities, even though it is not uncommon for families to sit together. There is no badual connotations.

Ice-swimming is not as common as the sauna, but it does reflect a proud trait defended by many Finns: a courage in the face of hardships such as survival in winter or in the centuries preceding the declaration of independence in 1917. Sweden then Russia.

They even have a word for this stoicism: sisu.

"It's courage and perseverance and you break it and you stick to it," says Stubb. "It's part of our national psyche and history."

Although not everyone expresses sisu in the same way, this link with nature, silent Finnish forests, wild nature and fresh, cold air is crucial – as are some more generally nocturnal activities.

"Some of us are hibernating, others are playing sports and I think a lot of kids are born in the winter … and will drink a lot too," Stubb laughed. "It's a combo, I think you have to be a lot outside.

"It makes you survive."