Saturday, March 10, 2007

Trip to Finland capital - Helsinki

During this week I was in Helsinki, Finland. City have seen to me very practical, with well developed infrastructure for public sector. I mean, that it seems there is no problems with hotels, restaurants, transport and other services. It's not very cold in Helsinki now, only -4..0 °C, and almost no snow. In the city center they have trams, with advertisements - 'FEEL California, TASTE California', this looks quite interesting in cold Finland ;-)


Architectural style of the city center - broad roads, high buildings, big squares:




It is possible, that there is no terrible traffic jams in the city, because Helsinki have a subway. However, at 8:30 PM subway station hall was quite empty - only one person:


I have noticed, that in Helsinki, Russian culture presence is strong. It feels everywhere - architecture, street names and even souvenirs ;-). Russian souvenirs in Helsinki:


There is Russian culture presence in Helsinki, because Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia (1809-1917). However, there was The Language Decree issued in 1863 by the Emperor of the Russian Empire Alexander II. It was the beginning of the process through which Finnish became an official administrative language equal to Swedish. In the Senate Square in Helsinki there is the monument to Alexander II "The Liberator":


The same monument, from closer look:


I hope, provided information will be useful, if you will be planning a trip to Helsinki.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was in Helsinki 2 it was grate and the blog is realy good to. I woud like to give a tipp , for me it was kind of hard to find a Hotel , but it was helpful this page .. hope u will fell the same: http://www.cylex.fi/helsinki/hotel.html