'There go my plans': Finnish embassy in Canberra goes viral after logistics post

In recent days, the Finnish Embassy has become something of a meme, but its ambassador does not mind at all.

"As long as it's positive and good and brings us more visibility to the work we do to bring Australia and Finland closer," Arto Haapea said.

It all began when Mr Haapea fronted a video promoting a campaign encouraging singles to enter a competition where they could travel to the Nordic country and dine with other singles.

Then, three days later, the embassy published another more hum-drum post informing the community it would be closed for a day for a team planning event.

"That on the heels of the other post just went even more viral,"

Mr Haapea said.

Each post now has about 80 million views, according to the ambassador, far surpassing anything the embassy has seen before on its Instagram page.

Reaction to the first video was understandable to embassy staff — the somewhat tongue-in-cheek reel included lines such as "maybe the problem is not you, maybe it's your postcode".

"You've tried Tinder, you've tried Bumble, but have you tried Helsinki?" Mr Haapea asks in the video.

But responses to the second post about the embassy's temporary closure took things to another level.

"Bad day to be a Finnish embassy in Canberra enthusiast," one person commented.

"There go my plans," said another.

More notable commenters included the official Canberra Raiders account, which simply said: "Bugger".

And travel company Contiki added its own thoughts, saying: "day's ruined now, cheers".

Finland's embassy in the Czech Republic also chimed in: 

"For anyone affected by this closure, the Embassy of Finland in Prague will be open as usual tomorrow."

Helping people 'discover Finland'

Mr Haapea said the team was amused by the reaction to the closure for their planning day, but their initial focus was work.

"We were all gathered outside of Canberra for a planning day with the team, and we just basically started laughing because we saw the memes and we thought they were hilarious," he said.

"We decided just to carry on obviously with the planning day agenda, because we had lots of things to plan and sort of talk about with the team for next year."

He said 99 per cent of the online interaction had been positive and he hoped it would encourage people to visit their country, while also continuing to strengthen the relationship between Finland and Australia.

He said the goal was to "help more people discover Finland and know about Finland, be curious about what Finland has to offer". 

"And then we really didn't expect that to happen with the posting about the embassy closure for one day. But, we're also learning about algorithms and how they work,"

he said.

'Innovative' Finnish cuisine

The reasoning behind the singles campaign was to promote Finland's cuisine, Mr Haapea said.

The Finns eat a diet similar to that eaten in Tasmania, he said, including plenty of salmon.

"The Finnish cuisine is quite innovative these days. It's not what it used to be maybe 20 years ago," he said.

"It's not like everyone has to walk out of Finland with a ring on their finger or a partner that they have found, quite the contrary.

"The whole model is that they will have group dinners, so there will be eight international guests and two Finnish singles. So, it's more about getting to know people and enjoying the food and the company."

And, while an image circulating online that appears to show a huge queue of people outside the embassy is AI-generated, Mr Haapea said the interest in the embassy was not entirely a red herring.

In addition to the overwhelming online response, some people are indeed stopping by.

"We've had small groups of visitors, like three or four or five at a time, and they've been just taking pictures," he said.