What is it like to live in Qatar? A Finn tells

Qatar’s public relations disaster is getting worse by the day.

The emirate’s attempts to remove rainbow colors from the futsal arenas are already taking on sad aspects.

On Tuesday, before the match between Argentina and Saudi Arabia, the local authorities had torn the flag he was carrying from the journalist and started trampling it on the ground.

The only problem was that the Brazilian journalist had the flag of the state of Pernambuco, which was adopted in 1817.

The story continues after the picture

For some reason Fifa and Qatar do not understand that they are only making the situation worse all the time.

However, there is something exciting in Qatar. The number of Finns living there has multiplied in just a couple of years. So what fascinates the tiny Persian Gulf peninsula so much that today almost 300 Finns have chosen it as their home?

Iltalehti met a Finnish engineer who lived in Doha for a long time at his home. Because talking about Qatar can cause trouble for his family in everyday life, he appears in this article under the first name Jari.

He describes what the everyday life of a well-income family in Qatar is like. The contrast with the experience of the most disadvantaged in society is quite stark.

The good sides of the country can be divided into three different pillars.

1. Basic security

– This is an extremely safe place to live, Jari says with long experience.

That’s certainly what it is for the well-to-do. For example, social security is quite comprehensive. Health care is practically free for everyone who lives in Qatar (for an annual fee of about 30 euros). In addition to that, especially well-paid foreigners often have private insurance, which makes them less of a burden on the public side.

The same division can be found in education. Parents can choose either a public and free school or one of the numerous private schools. In Doha, British, American, Lebanese, Indian, French, as well as completely Finnish schools are available.

The public school is in Arabic, but the language of instruction at the Qatar-Finland International School, for example, which follows the Finnish curriculum under the leadership of Finnish teachers, is English.

The Finnish school is medium priced for a private school. Tuition fees vary between approximately 13,000 and 17,000 euros depending on the class level, but there is a small but.

– Usually the employer pays for the education up to the third child, Jari says.

2. Internationality

Qatar is a truly multicultural state. People of about 160 different nationalities live in its territory, and actual native Qataris are only about ten percent of the population.

Multiculturalism can also be seen in the services. For example, alcohol is prohibited in Muslim countries, and in neighboring Saudi Arabia, you can only get it at one of the parties of the embassies of different countries.

In Qatar, the matter has been resolved so that foreigners can buy alcohol for a certain amount per month from a specialized store. You can also get pork from the same place.

You have to reserve your own time to visit the store in advance, and you can only apply for the right to buy after three months of living there.

Alcohol is also available in several hotels and bars.

3. Salary level

It’s pointless to hide it. Salaries in Qatar are astronomically high.

Local police officers can receive a salary of around 120,000 euros per year. In a country where there is no income tax at all, it means net income.

– For example, Filipino housekeepers here earn more than three times what they would earn in their home country, for example, as teachers, Jari knows.

Their monthly income ranges between 800 and 1,200 euros – again, clean hands. For many poor countries, remittances from people working abroad are an important part of the national economy.

– I am a family man, and still have 100,000–200,000 euros left in my savings a year,

So it’s clear that over the years something has been left behind.

– I have invested it forward, he hints.