Victoria Laaksonen, Russia

A meaningful decade in a meaningful city

Hello everyone, nice to meet you!

My name is Victoria Laaksonen and I am originally from Russia. I moved to Finland in 2010, in the age of 19, all by myself – after dreaming about it for several years as a teenager and finally finding a way to make the dream come true. My first trip to Finland was made a year earlier, it was my actual birthday on the 11th of August – I turned 18, it was finally possible for me to travel alone as an adult, so I headed abroad for the first time in my life, and spent a week in Helsinki and Tampere with my friend whom I met online. Back then all I could say in Finnish was “moi”, “kiitos” and a couple of swear words. After that I visited a couple of times and exactly a year later I moved to Finland already able to speak fluent Finnish (motivation and practice were the key for me if you wonder) as I became a student of a Finnish vocational school.

After graduating I moved to Tampere, so if I count the numerous visits and times/weeks/months which I spent before settling down here, it makes about a decade that I’ve spent in Tampere. Usually one’s twenties are a very important chapter, and it has been very meaningful for me too: during this decade spent in Tampere there happened many first’s and many significant milestones of my life: for example first job, our marriage, birth of our 2 kids… So, yes, this place really holds special times in my heart and in my history.

One of the reasons for wanting to become a Tampere Ambassador was my will to give back to this city. I am honoured to be accepted as one of Talent Ambassadors and being able to take a part in projects meaningful for this city’s current and future residents and even for the city’s brand and reputation: it is great that Tampere values equality, accessibility, diversity and sustainability, and I am happy to participate in projects helping to increase the diversity and togetherness in our society.

Currently I am a third-year student at Tampere university, a translator (let me know if you need a translation from Finnish to Russian or backwards, English goes too!) and I also work part-time at the university as an Research assistant/Industry ambassador and HUB’s growth hacker until the end of this academic year.

 The topics of my interest are for example personal growth and entrepreneurship. I love to learn about things through others’ experience, so another reason for joining the Tampere Ambassador programme is that I’d like to gain a wider perspective on life, to get to look at things from others’ points of view, to hear about different experiences – as I think all of this enriches our lives in general, and of course to network in order to make the things mentioned above possible. I consider myself as a very empathetic and understanding person, so I think I’m in a right place.

As a hobby I do photography and am much into interior decorating – particularly for kids and in general. From time to time I update my Instagram page with pictures and little stories about our life, so feel free to connect with me over there @laa_victoria or via LinkedIn where you can find me by my name.

See you around!