Finland

Today we explored the city of Helsinki, Finland and I wasn’t very impressed. Aside from the one spectacular site of Senate Square, the architecture and scenery was pretty bland compared to other European cities. I think the best thing about our day in Helsinki was that it was sunny and warm. So instead of describing our day in full, I’ll just give some background on Finland and describe the major sites.

I doubt I will ever go back to Helsinki, and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to go there unless you’re also on a Baltic cruise. There are far too many better places to visit.

The only other thing of note that happened today was that when we got back to the boat after touring Helsinki, Derek and I found our lost bags in our rooms! But the funny thing was, as much as I had been annoyed at not having my bag, once I had it back I found that I didn’t need anything from it immediately. But it was great to have clean clothes for dinner, and sleeping, and the rest of the trip. And I was extremely glad to have my camera battery recharger.

Finland has been inhabited since the last Ice Age ended around 9000 BC. The glaciers were thicker and lasted longer in Finland than anywhere else in Europe, so the land is very flat.

Finland became part of the Swedish Empire in the 13th century and the city of Helsinki wasn’t founded until 1550. It’s actually the only European capital that doesn’t have a medieval history. It was founded as a trading town by the Swedish King Gustav I, to rival Tallinn Estonia as a strategic Baltic port. But it didn’t do very well because of the cold, wars, poverty, and disease.

Helsinki wasn’t more than a village until the 18th century, when Sweden built the huge Suomenlinna Fortress on an island outside of Heslinki’s harbor. It was built with French financial support to counter the rise of Russia. Peter the Great had just built St. Petersburg and had started eyeing the west. The village then started to boom as it supplied the fortress.

Then when Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War of 1808, Russia annexed Finland. This is when the city really started to develop. The downtown core was built in neoclassical style and modeled after St. Petersburg, with stone buildings in yellow and blue pastel colors. Most residents still spoke Swedish, which had been the language of business and culture. But after Russia took over, the Finnish language, which is completely unrelated to other Scandinavian language, began to become more dominate.

In 1917 Finland gained independence from Russia and eventually became a republic. They were able to resist invasion from Russia during WWI, and in 1975 they were the site of the Helsinki agreement that stabilized Europe during the cold war. Hollywood actually used Helsinki as a backdrop for Russia in movies during the cold war, since filming in Russia wasn’t possible and Helsinki’s architecture was so similar to St. Petersburg.

Helsinki

Temppeliauko (Church in the Rock)

This church was literally built inside of a rock. A big hole was blasted out of solid granite and topped with a copper-and-skylight dome made with a 13 mile long coil of copper ribbon. It’s also on top of a bomb shelter that can hold 6,000 people.

When we arrived at the church, all we saw was a big granite outcropping with a dome on the top. Then we went inside to find a simple space with rock walls and a cement floor. It was supposed to have great acoustics, and there was a musician playing the piano. But there were so many tourists there and they were being rude and talking. So it spoiled the experience.

Esplanade

This is a grand pedestrian boulevard that has a narrow park between two roads. It was lined by a continuous string of grand neoclassical buildings.

Senate Square

This was the one spectacular site in Helsinki and according to Rick Steves it’s the finest neoclassical square in Europe. The square was a large city block with a statue of the Russian Czar Alexendar II in the middle. He wasn’t very popular in Europe, but the Finns liked him because he gave Finland more autonomy in 1863 and never pushed the “Russification” of Finland.

On the north side of the square was the grand white Lutheran Cathedral, perched high above the square at the top of some enormous stairs. We went up to sit on the stairs and had a grand view of the square from there. To the east was the old Senate building and to the west was the University of Helsinki. But the view was somewhat spoiled by the tourist buses that coated the roads around the square.

Beside the cathedral was the National Library. During the Russian czarist times, it received a copy of every book printed in the Russian empire. And with all the chaos in Russia during the 20th century, many Slavic texts were destroyed. But Helsinki was relatively stable and the library claims to have the finest collection of Slavic books in the world.

We went inside the Lutheran Cathedral, but the interior was very austere and unadorned, which is typical for protestant churches.

Market Square

This is a long rectangular square at the top of Helsinki’s harbor. Behind it is the blue and white City Hall. And it was filled with orange tents selling food and goods. We had a great lunch here in one of the tents. We got a salmon platter and moose meatball platter that came with potatoes and veggies, and shared everything.

Harbor Tour

We took a 1.5 hour cruise of Helsinki’s harbor and nearby islands. While it had been sunny and warm in the city, the wind on the boat was very chilly. The tour was mostly uninteresting, but we did get to see the Suomenlinna fortress.

The only really interesting part was when we were approaching a strait between two islands and got approached by a police boat. Apparently there was a fire on the island ahead of us and they had closed the strait. So we had to turn around and go around the island on the other side.

Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral

This was a Russian Orthodox church built for the Russian military in 1868. It was a beautiful red brick building topped by onion domes. It was supposed to have a spectacular interior, but unfortunately we were there on the one day a week it was closed.