Helsinki, Finland; November 2, 2000.

These are photos from a trip I made to Helsinki, Finland while I was studying abroad in Europe. November 2, 2000.

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the southern part of Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, by the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is 577,928 (28 February 2009), making it the most populous municipality in Finland by a wide margin. The foreign-born population stands at around 10%.
Helsinki, along with the neighbouring cities of Vantaa (Vanda), Espoo (Esbo), and Kauniainen (Grankulla), constitutes what is known as the capital region, with over 1,000,000 inhabitants. The Greater Helsinki area contains 12 municipalities and has a population of over 1,300,000.[2] The Greater Helsinki accounts for a quarter of the population of Finland, 29% of jobs, and a third of the GDP.
Helsinki is Finland's capital for business, education, research, culture, and government. Greater Helsinki has eight universities and six technology parks. Some 70% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region. The immigration of rural residents has made it one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in Europe.

History

Founded in 1550 as a rival to the Hanseatic city of Reval (today: Tallinn) by King Gustav I of Sweden, the town of Helsinki struggled in its infancy. The fledgling settlement was plagued by poverty, wars, and diseases. The plague of 1710 killed two-thirds of the inhabitants of Helsinki. For a long time it remained a small coastal town, overshadowed by the more thriving trade centers in the Baltic region. The construction of the Sveaborg (In Finnish Viapori, today also Suomenlinna) naval fortress helped improve its status, but it was not until Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and annexed Finland as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 that Helsinki began to develop into a major city.
In order to reduce Swedish influence in Finland, Czar Alexander I of Russia moved the capital from Turku, which had close ties to Sweden, to Helsinki. The Royal Academy of Turku, back then the only university in the country, was relocated to Helsinki in 1827 and eventually became the modern University of Helsinki. The move consolidated the city's new role, and the following decades saw unprecedented growth and development for the city, creating the prerequisites for the birth of the modern world class capital in the 20th century. This transformation is highly apparent in the downtown core, which was rebuilt in neoclassical style to resemble St. Petersburg. As elsewhere, technological advancements such as railroads and industrialization were a key factor behind the growth.

Uspenski Cathedral

Uspenski Cathedral (Finnish: Uspenskin katedraali, Swedish: Uspenskij-katedralen, Russian: Успенский собор) is an Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Helsinki, Finland, dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary). Its name comes from the Russian word uspenie, which denotes the Dormition. Designed by the Russian architect Alexey Gornostaev (1808-1862), the cathedral was built after his death in 1862-1868.
The crypt chapel of the cathedral is named after the holy Alexander Hotovitzky, who served as vicar of the Orthodox parish of Helsinki 1914-1917.
The Cathedral is set upon a hillside on the Katajanokka peninsula overlooking the city. On the back of the cathedral, there is a plaque commemorating Russian Emperor Alexander II, who was the sovereign of the Grand Duchy of Finland during the cathedral's construction. Main cathedral of the Finnish Orthodox Church in the diocese of Helsinki, Uspenski Cathedral is claimed to be the largest orthodox church in Western Europe, although Finland is normally included into Northern Europe.

Port of Helsinki

Helsinki Cathedral

Helsinki Cathedral (in Finnish Helsingin tuomiokirkko or Suurkirkko, in Swedish Helsingfors domkyrka or Storkyrkan) is an Evangelical Lutheran cathedral of the Diocese of Helsinki, located in the centre of Helsinki, Finland. The church was originally built as a tribute to the Grand Duke, Nicholas I, the Tsar of Russia and until the independence of Finland in 1917, it was called St. Nicholas' Church.
Market Square, Helsinki. Helsinki Cathedral is in the center of the image.
A distinct landmark in the scenery of central Helsinki, with a tall green dome surrounded by four smaller domes, the church was built in 1830-1852, in neoclassical style. It was designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, to form the climax of the whole Senate Square laid out by Engel, surrounded by a number of buildings all designed by him. The building has a Greek-cross plan (i.e. a square central mass and four arms of equal length), and is symmetrical in each of the four cardinal directions, each marked by a colonnade and pediment. Engel had intended to place a further row of columns on the west end to mark the main entrance (opposite the altar at the east end), but this was never realised. The building was later altered by his successor Ernst Lohrmann, whose four small domes make the architectural connection to the cathedral's model, Saint Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, even clearer. Lohrmann also erected two separately standing bell towers and zinc statues of the Twelve Apostles at apexes and corners of the roofline.
Today the cathedral is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Helsinki. Annually more than 350,000 people visit the church, some of them to attend religious events, but most are tourists. The church is in regular use for both worship services and special events such as weddings. The crypt was renovated in the 1980s by architects Vilhelm Helander and Juha Leiviskä for use for exhibitions and church functions. Helander was also responsible for the conservation repairs to the cathedral in the late 1990s.
Before the cathedral was built, in its place a smaller church stood, called the Church of Ulrika Eleonora. It was dedicated to its patroness, Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden. A facsimile of this church, made entirely from snow, was later constructed on the Senate Square in the early 2000s.