Finn Samu Seitsalo combines the incompatible - north and south.
For a quarter of a century, he has been working to make schools in Finland as good as possible, and he often visits the Balkans privately.
He loves the Dalmatian coast, the wines from this area and he was once in an unsuccessful search for bears on Tara, a mountain in Serbia.
Recently, this Finn has also been learning Serbian.
In an interview with the BBC in Serbian, he describes how love at first sight was born between the former Yugoslavia and him.
He came for the first time during the war - in 1993, when the trip brought him to Slovenia for a meeting of the European Youth Organization - they visited the Slovenian capital Ljubljana and the coastal town of Piran.
"I felt, especially then in Ljubljana, as if I had been there before.
"There was a strange connection, and since then I've been back many times," says Seitsalo, who has a master's in business administration.
He was in almost all the countries created after the breakup of Yugoslavia - Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia.
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Schools are a mirror of society
Although not a teacher, Seitsalo has been working at the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI) for 26 years - he is currently the director.
The agency, which employs 450 people, is part of the Ministry of Education and is responsible for the development of preschool, primary, secondary and higher education.
"I am convinced that the school system is in some way a mirror of the entire society," Seitsalo points out.
When asked whether in Finland, like many students in the Balkans, they learn a lot of facts by heart just to get a grade or if this knowledge prepares them for life, there is a somewhat unexpected answer.
"The basic idea is to see a person as a whole, and that is the starting point for education as well," he says.
They do not have an educational inspection
Education policy in Finland is based on trust that the teacher will do the job properly and they have no educational inspection at all.
"It is also a matter of ideology, in our system there is trust from the Agency to the classroom.
"That's why we don't have inspectors in the Agency, we want to invest the money we would give them in the development of education," says Seitsalo.
It is similar in schools.
Seitsalo recalled how a group of colleagues from Ireland were amazed during a visit to the school in Helsinki.
They talked to the teacher and the principal and asked how often the teachers report to the principal about student success and progress.
"I remember the expression on my colleague's face, he was confused, he didn't understand what he was asking.
"`You mean the conversation with the director at the beginning of the year and the one at the end or something else?', he asked, because regular submission of reports simply does not exist," says Seistalo.
There are no national, standardized tests in the Finnish education system, except at the end of high school - like the state matura, which also serves as an entrance exam for colleges.
Anyone who wants to become a teacher must have a master's degree.
There are special exams at the faculty for teachers, the same is true for subject teachers, with mandatory pedagogical subjects and an oral interview.
The "most suitable candidate" is chosen, not necessarily the one with the best grades.
A system based on trust
The teacher also chooses the textbooks he will teach, and it is up to him to decide whether, for example, he will teach a lesson about the Second World War by playing a film.
"The whole system is based on trust and I believe that we have achieved many good results because of that.
"Young people still want to become teachers, almost as much as lawyers or doctors," he states.
They are motivated by the possibility to influence the work, as well as the freedom to decide how to perform it, he adds.
There is a national curriculum for all subjects, but only the core curriculum and guidelines.
More detailed plans are determined by the municipalities in accordance with their needs.
However, what the lesson will look like - the teacher decides, he is responsible for that.
"There are goals in terms of what the student should know, say after the first three grades.
"Evaluations are done by teachers, but the national guidelines prescribe what a student should know for which grade - in the range from 4 to 10," says Seitsalo.
Four is the worst and 10 is the best.
There are several publishing houses that print textbooks, the state does not interfere.
The state subsidizes textbooks for some subjects that are not common or that are studied by a small number of students - in the Romani or Lapland language.
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Free education - completely
Primary school in Finland has nine grades from 7 to 16 years old, and recently three-year secondary education is also legally mandatory.
There are several options - to enroll in high school, as preparation for college, or one of the 160 majors in vocational schools with many hours of practice and learning through work.
It is also possible to enroll in a university from vocational schools - academic or professional studies.
Before elementary school, children go to pre-school for one year, and in the process of transition to two years.
Since education is compulsory, it is also free, but that does not mean only free education, as in the Balkans.
Students there have free textbooks, pencils, notebooks, erasers and everyone gets the same.
Travel to school is also reimbursed if someone travels more than seven kilometers, but the details vary from city to city.
"Since this year, computers and laptops in high schools, as well as everything needed for learning materials, are free.
"If you learn to be a hairdresser, you will also get tools - scissors, a comb, everything you need to work," notes Seitsalo.
Also, in Finland all children in primary school have a free lunch.
In this way, the community ensures that everyone has a nutritious, tasty and varied hot meal, and that parents have no obligations regarding it.
Private schools exist, but are legally prohibited from making a profit.
Higher education is also free.
How much is that?
All this costs a lot, but it is a political decision that it should be so.
"If you compare with GDP, 3,5 or 3,6 percent goes to education in Finland.
"The Ministry of Education is in the second richest place, after the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the Ministry of Defense is somewhere near the bottom," notes Seistalo.
Gross domestic product of this Nordic country with 5,5 million inhabitants amounts to 269 billion dollars, according to data from the World Bank.
By comparison, Serbia with a population of 6,9 million has five times smaller GDP - of 53 billion dollars.
"If you invest in education, you won't have to invest in the police," he points out.
The Finnish education system is often considered one of the best in the world, however, Seistalo believes there is still room for improvement.
"I think that we in Finland have a pretty good education system, but we can't rely on that, we have to keep improving.
"That's why international cooperation is important," he says.
A unique educational soup
In the framework of the agency that Seitsalo manages, an Expert Center was established last fall, the aim of which is to strengthen Finland's role in solving the global learning crisis.
By sending Finnish experts, the center should help in efforts to achieve fairer and more inclusive quality education in developing countries.
The activities of this Center are financed from funds for development cooperation managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Finland has set aside four million euros for these purposes alone in the period 2021-2023.
"The basis of our comprehensive education system, which was developed until the seventies, lies in international cooperation.
"We went to Sweden, to America, we looked up to Germany, we copied some things from different countries, but we made our own broth that is different from everyone else," notes Seitsalo.
What attracts him to the Balkans?
Finland borders Russia in the east, he visited Moscow and Saint Petersburg several times as a young man.
He assumed that he would see something similar in the Balkans.
"I was surprised to see the difference between Ljubljana and cities in Russia.
"The architecture was different, but so were the people, the atmosphere - everything was different," he says.
As he visited the region countless times after that, he became convinced that some entrenched opinions contained a grain of truth.
"You have the image that we in the north are organized, I have the feeling that in the Balkans it is a bit more chaotic.
"It's nothing black and white, that something is good and something bad, but there are some differences and they are reflected in the school systems," says Seitsalo.
What can be improved in Finnish schools?
Since inequality in society is growing, differences are also being recognized among schools.
In order to reduce inequalities, they have a policy in Helsinki positive discrimination.
This means that poorer schools will receive more money from the budget - this is calculated based on the average salary in that area, parents' education and the number of immigrants living there.
"In America, the best schools with the most success get the most money and get even better."
"We are trying to reduce these differences, especially between municipalities," says Seistalo.
According to data from the PISA test, the difference between the worst and best students is the smallest in Finland, notes Seitsalo.
"It is not necessary that we have the best students in Finland, this is important," he adds.
They also work to make children more comfortable in schools.
"Some boys get bored while studying and are interested in other things, these are the things we are improving," says Seitsalo.
Nature, wines, people and brandy
He has not been on a business visit to the Balkan countries yet, he came mainly for tourism.
"I was mostly in Dalmatia in Croatia, I think the reasons are quite natural, especially in summer.
"I was, of course, also in Serbia - in Belgrade, Niš, Mokra Gora, Fruška Gora," he enumerates.
He once went on an organized trip to Tara, to try to see bears.
"We stayed in the evening and saw some birds, but no bears.
"The ranger asked us why a Finn came here to see bears," he says with a smile.
After returning home, he talked to a colleague who was in eastern Finland in those days - he saw 17 bears in just one night.
The main reason he often returned to the Balkans was the people, he says.
"They are friendly, open, easy to approach and it's the same no matter what country you are in."
"It's hard to make generalizations, but if I were to do that, maybe because of historical and cultural reasons, people in the Balkans are more open than here in Finland," says Seitsalo.
Finland is several times larger than Serbia in terms of area, but it is one of the least populated.
Since a quarter of the territory is covered by the Arctic Circle, the majority of the population lives in the south of the country and in cities.
When he comes to the south, he enjoys the nature, but also the food and wines made in the Balkans.
"Croatia and Serbia may have the best wines.
"What makes them interesting are autochthonous types of grapes that do not exist anywhere else, these are some things that should be explored more deeply," he notes.
He is a big fan of basketball and that was an additional motive for his visits to the area of the former Yugoslavia.
He lives in Helsinki, and was born in a city in the southwest of the country - Nokia, which gained world fame because of the mobile phone factory of the same name.
We speak in English, although he has been studying and going to private Serbian lessons with his wife since September.
He wants that when he comes again, he better understands the people around him and talks to them.
"You can survive in the Balkans with English and in some places get help with German, but when you speak the local language, it opens many doors and creates stronger bonds between people," he points out.
In the spirit of the advertisement "Nokia connecting people" and its Balkan version "brandy connects people", this Finnish official easily chooses his favorite Serbian word:
"Herbalist", he says with a smile and a soft c.
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