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A Unique Tradition

The only way from Finland to elsewhere in the world was for long over the sea. Finland borders both in south and west in a gulf of the Atlantic Ocean. Even today most of Finland's import and export is transported over the sea.

Yet abroad Finns are not known as a seafaring folk. This may partly be due to the legislation during the Swedish rule: all export had to go through Stockholm. Even Finland's traditional export article tar is known abroad as "Stockholm tar".

Finns prospered in the international trade market, because Finnish ships were cheaper than those from elsewhere. Finland had abundant forests for ship building material, and even skilled shipbuilders were not paid very much. Finland was then an ideal place to build ships in, and normally a ship would pay its building price back in 4-5 years, sometimes faster.

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