Helsinki ~ Travel

Helsinki ( listen (help·info); Swedish: Helsingfors, listen (help·info)) is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is 588,941 (31 January 2011 making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is located some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, 300 kilometres (190 mi) west of St. Petersburg, Russia and 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia. Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities.

Suomenlinna has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991.

The Helsinki Metropolitan Area includes the city of Helsinki and three other cities: Espoo and Vantaa, which immediately border Helsinki to the west and north, respectively; and Kauniainen, which is an enclave within the city of Espoo. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the world's northernmost urban area among those with a population of over one million people, and the city is the northernmost capital of a EU member state. Altogether 1.1 million people, approximately one in five Finns, live in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.

Aleksanterinkatu in Central Helsinki.

Helsinki is Finland's major political, educational, financial, cultural and research centre as well as one of northern Europe's major cities. Approximately 70% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region.

Aleksi in Central Helsinki.

The nearby city of Vantaa in the Helsinki metropolitan area is the location of Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. Since early 2009, Helsinki has been exploring a merger with Vantaa. On 30 March 2009, the city council of Vantaa agreed to review Helsinki's proposal of a possible merger, while emphasizing that the review is not about the possibility of terminating the existence of the city of Vantaa. On 31 January 2011, the city council of Vantaa turned down Helsinki's proposal of a possible merger, with 45 votes against the proposal compared to 22 in favour of it.

In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, narrowly beating Eindhoven for the title.

The view across summertime Kaisaniemenlahti.

Climate

Helsinki has a humid continental climate. Owing to the mitigating influence of the Baltic Sea and Gulf Stream, temperatures in winter are much higher than the far northern location might suggest, with the average in January and February around −5 °C (23 °F).[13] Temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F) occur normally a week or two in a year. However, because of the latitude, days last less than six hours around the winter solstice with really low Sun rays, and the very cloudy weather at this time of year accentuates the darkness. Conversely, Helsinki enjoys long days in summer, close to nineteen hours around the summer solstice.[14] The average maximum temperature from June to August is around 19 to 21 °C (66 to 70 °F). Due to the marine effect, especially in the summer daily temperatures are cooler and night temperatures are higher than further away in the mainland. As near as in Vantaa, the climate is surprisingly much more continental, with warmer summers and colder winters. The highest temperature ever recorded at city centre was 34.0 °C (93.2 °F) on 28 July 2010 and the lowest was −34.3 °C (−30 °F) on 10 January 1987.

Parliament of Finland on the right, and new supplemental offices on the left.

Cityscape

Carl Ludvig Engel (1778–1840) was appointed to design a new city centre all on his own. He designed several neoclassical buildings in Helsinki. The focal point of Engel's city plan is the Senate Square. It is surrounded by the Government Palace (to the east), the main building of the University (to the west), and (to the north) the enormous Cathedral, which was finished in 1852, twelve years after C. L. Engel's death. Subsequently, Engel's neoclassical plan stimulated the epithet, The White City Of The North. Helsinki is, however, perhaps even more famous for its numerous Art Nouveau (Jugend in Finnish) influenced buildings of the romantic nationalism, designed in the early 1900s and strongly influenced by the Kalevala, which is a very popular theme in the national romantic art of that era. Helsinki's Art Nouveau style is also featured in large residential areas such as Katajanokka and Ullanlinna. The master of the Finnish Art Nouveau was Eliel Saarinen (1873–1950), whose architectural masterpiece was the Helsinki central railway station.

Cafe Regatta near Sibelius Park

Helsinki also features several buildings by the world-renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898–1976), recognized as one of the pioneers of architectural functionalism. However, some of his works, such as the headquarters of the paper company Stora Enso and the concert venue, Finlandia Hall, have been subject to divided opinions from the citizens.

The Helsinki Cathedral is probably the most prominent building and symbol of the city

Renowned functionalist buildings in Helsinki by other architects include the Olympic Stadium, the Tennis Palace, the Rowing Stadium, the Swimming Stadium, the Velodrome, the Glass Palace, the Exhibition Hall (now Töölö Sports Hall) and Helsinki-Malmi Airport. The sports venues were built to serve the 1940 Helsinki Olympic Games; the games were initially cancelled due to the Second World War, but the venues eventually got to fulfill their purpose in the 1952 Olympic Games. Many of them are listed by DoCoMoMo as significant examples of modern architecture. The Olympic Stadium and Helsinki-Malmi Airport are in addition catalogued by the National Board of Antiquities as cultural-historical environments of national significance.

A panoramic view over the southernmost districts of Helsinki from Hotel Torni. The Helsinki Old Church and its surrounding park are seen in the foreground, while the towers of St. John's Church (near center) and Mikael Agricola Church (right) can be seen in the middle distance, backdropped by the Gulf of Finland

As a historical footnote, Helsinki's neoclassical buildings were often used as a backdrop for scenes set to take place in the Soviet Union in many Cold War era Hollywood movies, when filming in the USSR was not possible. Some of the more notable ones are The Kremlin Letter (1970), Reds (1981) and Gorky Park (1983). Because some streetscapes were reminiscent of Leningrad's and Moscow's old buildings, they too were used in movie productions—much to some residents' dismay. At the same time the government secretly instructed Finnish officials not to extend assistance to such film projects.

A panoramic view of Helsinki Central Railway Station and its surroundings.

Transportation

Roads

The backbone of Helsinki's motorway network consists of three semicircular ring roads, Ring I, Ring II, and Ring III, which connect together expressways heading to other parts of Finland, and the western and eastern arteries of Länsiväylä and Itäväylä respectively. While variants of a Keskustatunneli tunnel under the city centre have been repeatedly proposed, as of 2011 the plan remains on the drawing board.

A panoramic view of Kamppi Central and its surroundings.

Helsinki has some 390 cars per 1000 inhabitants. This is less than in cities of similar density, for instance, Brussels' 483 per 1000 and Stockholm's 401, and Oslo's 413.

Kamppi Center, a shopping and transportation complex in the Kamppi district in the centre of Helsinki

Rail transport and buses

Public transportation is generally a hotly debated subject in the local politics of Helsinki. In Helsinki metropolitan area, public transportation is managed under Helsinki Region Transport, the metropolitan area transportation authority. The diverse public transport system consists of trams, commuter rail, the subway, bus lines and two ferry lines.

Main building of the University of Helsinki

Today, Helsinki is the only city in Finland to have trams or subway trains. There used to be two other cities in Finland with trams: Turku and Viipuri (Vyborg, now in Russia), but both have since abandoned trams. The Helsinki Metro, opened in the year 1982, is the only subway system in Finland. In 2006, the construction of the long debated extension of the subway system west into Espoo was approved, and serious debate about an eastern extension into Sipoo has taken place.

Kiasma is a contemporary art museum located at the heart of Helsinki.

The possibility of a Helsinki to Tallinn Tunnel is currently being researched. The rail tunnel would connect Helsinki to the Estonian capital Tallinn, further linking Helsinki to the rest of continental Europe by Rail Baltica.

The Helsinki Metro with its characteristic bright orange trains is the world's northernmost subway.

Aviation

Air traffic is handled primarily from the international Helsinki Airport, located approximately 19 kilometres (12 mi) north of Helsinki's downtown area, in the neighbouring city of Vantaa. Helsinki's second airport, Malmi Airport, is mainly used for general and private aviation. Helicopter flights to Tallinn are available from Hernesaari Heliport.

Skyline of central Helsinki, as seen from the roof of the Erottaja fire station.

Sea transport

Ferry connections to Tallinn, Mariehamn and Stockholm are serviced by various companies. Finnlines passenger-freight ferries to Gdynia, Poland, Travemünde, Germany and Rostock, Germany are also available. St Peter Line offers passenger ferry service to Saint Petersburg several times a week.