My cubemate will be in Finland for two weeks in March for business. He’s going to take a few days vacation while he’s there, but has been struggling to find anything to do there (and then). The town, Jamsa, is in southern Finland and apparently isn’t near anything except an airbase. So far, the only thing that’s caught his interest is cross-country skiing or staying in a bed and breakfast for a few days, but he may have to do either one by himself. He’s also considering a train ride to St. Petersburg, but we work for a defense contractor, and he’d likely have to jump through hoops with Security. So, any Finndopers, or Eurodopers, or anyone else been to this not-so-booming metropolis, or within a train ride (less than 5 hours, preferably) of it?
Well, I sure hope your cubemate likes trees and lakes…I’m not familiar with the lake district (my relatives are in Ostrobothnia), but it looks like Jamsa is not too far from Tampere and Jyvaskyla, and a train to Helsinki might not be too unreasonable. If you pick up a guidebook to Finland, there should be some decent information on those cities. If he wants to do something a bit more unusual, he could consider taking a flight up to Rovaniemi, which is a few miles south of the Arctic Circle–he can then take a taxi up to the circle itself and do the tourist thing. (At the circle itself, there’s about umpteen million souvenir shops, and they’ve painted a big stripe on the ground, so of course you stand with one foot on either side and get your picture taken.) There’s also an interesting museum about life in the Arctic in Rovaniemi.
Helsinki is the only place I’ve been to, but I’m going up north in a couple of months. Helsinki is nice, a couple of days there is time well spent, but two days there is about all it’s worth. While researching my upcoming trip, I was thinking of Turku and Tampere. Turku was the original capital and it looks like a couple of days there would also be well spent. Not so sure of Tampere.
FWIW I’m going up north (Oulu, Kemi) because it’s cold and dark. I’m planning on a trip on an ice breaker and hoping for a glimpse of the northern lights.
Savolinna is also quite popular, I understand, but I get the impression it’s more of a summer destination (although that’s probably true of the whole country 
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And it’s easy to get to Estonia from there. Different country, no visa hassles like Russia.
Find the Lonely Plantet guide for Finland (they also make have others that include Finland, but not as in depth.) LP also has a pretty good website www.lonelyplanet.com
I think Rough Guide also has one, but I find that series really wordy.