Affectionately known as the ‘Daughter of the Baltic’, the city sits at the arrowhead of a peninsula, surrounded by an archipelago of 315 islands, perfectly placed between its two great trading cousins, Stockholm and Moscow.
The city’s population just teeters over half a million and with its tallest city centre building only 12 storeys high, Helsinki seems almost provincial. However, statistics reveal that the city is one of the fastest growing areas in the European Union. Within the last decade, 100,000 inhabitants have moved into greater Helsinki and by the year 2030, government statistics predict over 1.3 million people will be living within the region.
In a European perspective, Helsinki is relatively young (450 years), yet it is Finland’s sixth oldest town. The Swedes, who extended their empire into Finland in 1155, founded the city of ‘Helsingfors’ (the name still used by the Swedes) in 1550, when King Gustav Vasa needed a site for a strategic and competitively placed trading port.
It languished as a coastal backwater until Imperialist Russia invaded in 1809. The Grand Duchy required a new power base and Helsinki was chosen because of its major trump card, the massive sea fortress (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site) of Suomenlinna.
Modern Helsinki was born when Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917. The new republic boomed throughout the 1920s and 30s, when the architectural movements of the era (Modernism and Functionalism) were fathered by one of Finland’s most famous sons, internationally acclaimed architect Alvar Aalto.
Helsinki stepped on to the world stage when the Olympic Stadium was completed in 1938, although the games were postponed due to the war and were finally held there in 1952. It still holds the record as the smallest city in the world to host the Olympic Games.
Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995, securing Helsinki’s ties with Europe. The city’s distinctive ‘East meets West’ culture is symbolised in the contrast between the cool, clean lines of Finlandia Hall and the rich golden ‘onion’ dome of Uspenski Cathedral.
The centre of the city, the Neo-Classical mini-St Petersburg built by German-born architect Carl Engel, is easily explored on foot and most of the main sights are within walking distance of the centre.
The pace of Helsinki life varies with the seasons. In the summer, when average temperatures climb to 18°C (64°F) and above, the whole city comes alive. The bars overflow onto the streets and throughout July and August, the Finns revel in 20-hour-long summer days. Temperatures can sometimes reach 28°C (82°F), a climatic oddity that has been attributed to global warming.
In winter, they plummet to an average of - 5°C (23°F) and the city goes underground, becoming a creative hive of productivity. These long, dark nights have led Helsinkiläiset (Helsinkians) to be one of the world’s most ‘connected’ people on the planet; one in 10 use the Internet daily.
Perhaps it is the balance between these two climatic extremes that conspires to make Helsinki one of Europe’s most creative and technologically progressive capitals.