Wherever I go in the educated and less educated world, mention of Nokia usually gets a response of Finland! This is unlike old times where the response used to be: Japan?
Also, not so many years ago, Annikki would spend half an hour explaining to the Indian telephone operator where Finland was before they even considered trying to connect her.
One must, however, remember that even before the advent of Nokia and its mobile phones, Finland has been internationally famous for many things: glass, ceramics, paper, wood products, furniture, textiles, paper machinery, mining equipment, diesel engines, architecture, music, the land of lakes and forests and unrivalled beauty, and much more.
A small country of just 5 million people has achieved much in as many fields as they applied themselves.
In the field of ship building, as well as luxury small boats, Finland has been one of the major players. 
Today is an auspicious day for Finland, as the world’s largest cruise ship, the Oasis of the Seas, registered in the Bahamas and owned by Royal Caribbean, makes its maiden voyage between Fort Lauderdale in Florida and Labadee in Haiti.
The ship was constructed in the Finnish town of Turku, the former capital city of Finland. It was built by a company now known as STX Europe, but which used to be known as Aker Yards Ltd. It is a Soiith Korean company now which took on the 3 major shipyardes in Finland as they knew that the quality of Finnish ships would be unmatched by their efforts in South Korea. Besides cruise ships, they also dominate in another field where Finns have been world leaders - Ice Breakers.
Size-wise it is 361 metres long, compared to the Queen Mary 2 which is 345 metres and the Freedom class which is 339 metres. It was ordered in February 2006 and delivered in October 2009.The cost of the ship is estimated at $ 1.5 billion.
The passenger capacity is 5400, but with double occupancy, it can take on 6296 passengers. The Queen Mary 2 takes on just 2620 while the Freedom class, 3634 passengers.
The ship is manned by 2165 staff. The gross tonnage is 225282. It has 16 passenger decks. The height is 72 metres and the maximum bean is 47 metres. The speed is given as 41.9 km/h
The entertainment area has a studio, theatre, nightclub, jazz and comedy shows. It has a central park with natural vegetation, cafe, bar and shops. The broad-walk is a seaside esplanade, an outdoor amphitheatre, two climbing walls, restaurants, bars, public entertainment areas with also a carousel.
The pool and sports section has an aqua park for kids, 4 pools and 16 whirlpools, a tranquil poolside, a solatrium area, 2 Flowriders, sports courts and a mini golf course.
Finland has been into using luxury liners between Sweden and Finland for as long as I can remember + we used one in 1969. It also ran the FinnJet, a turbopowered cruise liner between Travemunde in Germany and Helsinki in Finland. The cruise liners run constantly between Stockholm and Helsinki, Turku and another Finnish port called Naantali. There are smaller ones between other Finnish and Swedish ports. Besides the Finnish holiday makers and corporate users conducting meetings and course, these boats also carry a large number of trucks with goods across from Western Europe to and from Finland. It is part of the E4 highway which runs from northern Finland all the way to the southern tip of Italy.
Of late, smaller cruise ships have been operating between Finland and Estonia.
The number of passengers on this new cruise ship will carry the equivalent of 16 Boeing 747s.
With the experience of operating and making cruise liners, it is no wonder that Finland is the preferred choice of many companies who want to operate them.
I brought the proposal to run cruise liners along the Western and eastern coasts of India way back in 1975, but there were no takers then.
Will there be anyone now?
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