DURING A WINTER like this one, when the whole country is blanketed with snow, the best maintained and illuminated tracks tend to get crowded. Turning your skis towards virgin snow, however, requires a completely new set of equipment, namely forest skis.

Compared to the ordinary cross-country skis, forest skis are much longer (240-280 cm) and wider (7 cm), which is why they float nicely, even in deep snow. One could always opt for snowshoes but they don’t glide like skis do. The tip of the forest ski is slightly narrow and soft as a birch branch. This means that the tip will always stay on the surface even in conditions of poor or powdery snow.

NOW that you’ve scoffed your cut-price Runeberg’s tortes and enjoyed the gluttonous cream-fest that is Shrovetide, don’t forget that on 28 February some poor, cake-bloated individual will drag themselves outside to hoist the flag yet again for Kalevala Day. On this day we celebrate the national epic, an oral tradition collected from the firesides of 19th century Finland and given the form of print by Elias Lönnrot. But what does Kalevala actually mean to the average Finn? SixDegrees asked a few people.

“It’s full of rape, murder and robbery. Like normal Finnish life. Väinämöinen somehow had something to do with the creation of the world. I think a sea-duck laying an egg came into it somehow too. He sang all the things into the world - the rivers, the lakes, the swamps and so on and so on(the list is very long and complicated).” -Jarno (37)

IF YOU THOUGHT Argentina’s gift to the world was Maradona, tango or perhaps beef, you thought wrong. I hereby introduce you to the alfajor.

Admittedly these delicacies are also found in other Latin American countries, but nowhere else do you find people as passionate about these wee confectionaries as in Argentina – and Argentines do like to claim these treats as their own invention.

Anyone who has taken a look at Microsoft Xbox 360’s downloadable Arcade titles can hardly have failed to notice one title in particular sitting pretty at the top of the downloaded charts. Developed by Finnish company RedLynx Limited, Trials HD is an insanely addictive game involving a motorbike and obstacle courses of ever-increasing difficulty. It is by all accounts one of the best-selling downloadable titles on the 360, having sold over 500,000 digital copies since its launch in mid-August last year.

The immense success of the game has bucked the economic trend. “It’s harder to justify a 50 or 60 euro price tag for a retail game in stores...

T-shirts are great aren’t they? Utilitarian, unisex and ever-present, the humble tee is probably the single most-worn item of clothing in the world. Obviously you can go to your ubiquitous and unoriginal H&M or Intersport stores to make your sartorial fashion statement, or you can go for something rather more individual. My Cup of T is a T-shirt store located in central Helsinki. It’s small, cosy and stocks tees that you just won’t find in any other store in Finland.

“We order a maximum of eight T-shirts per design,” Mirka Markkula a.k.a. the ‘boss lady’ told 6D, “in keeping with our philosophy of promoting individual style.” The store stocks just a few brands...