I am one of Russian brides who have married the Finn. I am very sociable. In homeland people used to interrupt each other eternally and liked to talk more than to listen. In Finland people talk less. Life here is quiet, and culture of relations is another. Such an impression, that Finns have already told each other all they wanted.
The husband has made me a happy woman - happy because I'm loved. He has unusually gentle relationships with my (the husband stresses it all the time - with "ours") daughter from the first marriage. She not simply calls him "daddy", and really considers him the father. I can't assert it, but it seems, that an average Finnish daddy is better than an average Russian one. As the daughter says, those Finnish children with whom she is acquainted love daddy more than mum. And in a day off mothers are frequently engaged in cleaning, and daddies go with children to the pool, the zoo or simply play with them.
Our traditional family dinners, alas, are almost not practiced in Finland. Here people eat in a restaurant, or on the move. For Finns the meal is simply a necessary physiological process, but not a pleasant to the Russian heart way of conversation with a overfilled mouth. It always seemed to me that the family becomes family while gathered at a table. But how much it took to achieve it in Finland! The husband firstly did not want to sit at the common table: it is more habitual for him to take something quickly from a refrigerator and to eat on running. And even now we have family supper very seldom. It is not easy for Russian brides to understand such way of life.
The husband admires my cooking though here I simply feel shy of receiving visitors in such a way as we got used to do it in Russia. In Finland such merchant scope would seem indecent. Traditional supper for visitors here looks simply. First the salad from the cut vegetables without seasonings is served; pouring for the salad is put in a little bottle separately. Then meat or fish with potatoes is served, and sometimes simply beautifully decorated sandwiches, strictly one for each person. Wine and water is given to hot meals. Then everybody drinks coffee independently on the time of the day.