- Talsinki
Talsinki (sometimes also Hellinna or Hellinn) is a colloquial name for the frequent, cheap and easy travel between
Helsinki ,Finland andTallinn ,Estonia . It is an obviousportmanteau of the cities' names."Talsinki" is often used to imply that the commercial centre of Tallinn has become "the Helsinkians' living room". Every summer, thousands of Helsinkian
tourist s travel to Tallinn and back the same day, spending their entire time in Tallinn shopping in the variousdepartment store s andmarket s in the city centre and the Old Town, attracted by the cheap prices. Very few tourists venture outside the centre, and fewer still travel to other Estonian cities.The converse happens much more rarely. Many Estonian tourists like to visit Finland every year, but the shopping phenomenon on their side is not necessarily "cheap" shopping but rather "different" shopping - it's about finding different goods. After the fall of the
Soviet Union in1991 , Estonian living standard (although still not on the level of Finland) has improved drastically. In fact, many goods are more expensive in Estonia than in Finland (e.g. some food supplies, clothes etc.)There are also have been proposals to connect Helsinki and Tallinn as a one metropolitan area, like
Copenhagen andMalmö (Oresund Region ), by a railroad beneath theGulf of Finland . However, these proposals haven't got any significant support yet.External links
* [http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/11129/ 'Talsinki' - a 21st century metropolis]
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