Hei! I was meaning to post this earlier, but I'm finally getting around to writing about my trip to Helsinki a few weeks ago (January 20th). I tried to add a little history lesson into this post, so I hope you enjoy it :)
Helsinki is located in the south of Finland, and it about 3.5 hours away from Jyväskylä. My friends and I decided we wanted to visit for the day. Lucky for us, there are a ton of busses and trains that run daily from Helsinki to Jyväskylä and back. Since we wanted to spend as much of the day in the city as possible, we took the earliest bus at 7:30am. We arrived in Helsinki around 11am, and spent the rest of the morning doing our own walking tour of the city. A couple of my friends had visited before, so they knew their way around and were able to take us to see some of the sites.
Before I talk anymore about the trip, I want to give some background that you all have a better idea of the history of Helsinki and Finland in general.
For a long time, Finland was not an independent country, but was ruled by the Swedes and then overtaken by the Russians. Finland actually just celebrated their 100 year anniversary of independence last year, in 2017 so there is definitely a lot of foreign influence still present in the country. Anyway, in the 1550s, when Finland was still under Swedish rule, the Swedish King founded the town of Helsinki (or Helsingfors in Swedish) with the intention of consolidating all trade into the southern region of the country. The idea was that the city would be able to compete with Tallinn in Estonia, which was the biggest trade city at the time. However, the Swedes actually took over northern Estonia in the 1560s, which meant they didn't need Helsinki anymore. So the development of the city was forgotten. However, in the late 1600s, Russia began to develop the city of St. Petersburg, which posed a potential threat against Finland. To retaliate, the Swedes decided to started again to develop Helsinki, this time as a military defence against Russian attack. In the 1740s, they built the island fortress of Suomenlinna, which is located just off the coast of Helsinki.
Unfortunately, in 1808, the Russians attacked and took over Helsinki and Suomenlinna and took over Finland. This meant that Finland was now under Russian rule, and the city of Helsinki was named its capital. During the takeover, most of Helsinki was burned down, and so the Russians decided to rebuilt Helsinki. They decided to rebuilt in a neo-classical "empire" style, in order to reflect the power of Russia and also to reflect the fact that it was the capital of the country. The biggest building in the city is the Helsinki cathedral, and was the last to be completed. Interestingly, a lot of the buildings in Helsinki and especially in the city centre, are still original from this era.
By the 1900s, there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the Russian rule, both in Finland and in Russia. In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, Finland took the opportunity to declare its independence. Immediately following this, there was a civil war in Finland, between the communist population and the government at the time. Ultimately, the non-communist government won, and the country began to develop. But it really wasn't until after World War II that the city of Helsinki truly began to develop and flourish.
Anyway, my friends and I spent the morning of our trip touring around the city on foot. To me, a lot of the buildings in Helsinki look pretty old and "European," and I definitely saw a lot of the grand, "empire" style that was intended during the rebuild. The most impressive building for me was definitely the cathedral. I remember we were just walking and all of a sudden we turned a corner, and it pretty much came out of nowhere! We spent some time admiring the building and checking out the inside before heading down to the harbour. At the harbour we found the Helsinki Market Hall, where we got some lunch. After that we decided we would spend the afternoon visiting Suomenlinna, which is the military fortress that was built on an island. We took a ferry to get there. What is interesting about Suomenlinna is that a lot of the buildings are still originals from the time they were built so there is a lot of history. But there are also people who live permanently on the islands, which makes it seem a lot more real.
Suomenlinna was pretty impressive, and I really liked seeing all the old-style buildings. From what I read, the entire place was pretty much remodelled when the Russians took over, so I think there was definitely a lot of Russian influence in terms of architecture and construction.
After we finished our tour of Suomenlinna, we headed back to Helsinki for the evening. By now it was around 4pm or so. We walked around the downtown a little bit more and picked up some souvenirs before heading to dinner. One thing that all of us had been looking forward to was to try some typical Finnish food. In Jyväskylä we had had a hard time finding any typical Finnish restaurants, but there are many more options in Helsinki. The one we went to was called Savotta and was located directly in front of the Cathedral. This restaurant was very authentic in that it kept with very traditional decor. I had a cheddar-onion soup for an appetizer and then a carrot waffle with roasted vegetables and a cream sauce. I think because Finland and Canada are so similar in terms of climate, a lot of the traditional food here is not so different from what I might eat at home. So for this reason, I found that the food was pretty comforting and pretty delicious.
Our bus left Helsinki at 8:15pm, so we headed back to the us station after dinner. We ended up in Jyväskylä by about 11:30, and then headed back to our apartments. It was a pretty long day but I think we all had a really good time.
Kiitos! Moi moi! Thanks for reading :)
