Aino Virtanen

I am from Tampere, the old factory city, and I moved to Helsinki to study industrial design at Aalto University. After that I worked for a Finnish design company for five years, on glass and textiles, and I still use their mugs every morning. I have been guiding since 2019. My favourite subjects are design, architecture and sauna, which in Finland are all serious topics. Helsinki is a young capital, and much of it was built between 1900 and 1950, when Finland was becoming a country, so every building has a story about identity. I speak Finnish, Swedish and English. I am friendly but I am also Finnish, which means I am comfortable with silence, and I will not fill every minute with talk. I go to a public sauna twice a week and swim in the sea all winter. These days I guide Helsinki live on video: I walk the streets with my phone and answer your questions as we go.