Helsinki & Southern Finland

The south coast was settled by Finnic farmers and fishermen long before Swedish colonists arrived in the Middle Ages, giving Uusimaa its Swedish-speaking fringe. Häme was an inland heartland of its own, and the Swedes built Häme Castle there in the 13th century to hold it. Porvoo was already a trading town by the 14th century, and King Gustav Vasa founded Helsinki in 1550 to rival Tallinn across the gulf — for two centuries it stayed small.

The 18th century turned the south into a frontier. After the wars of 1700–21 and 1741–43, Sweden lost the south-east, including Hamina and Lappeenranta, to Russia, and began building the Sveaborg fortress — today Suomenlinna — off Helsinki in 1748 to guard what remained. It surrendered to Russia in 1808, and at the Diet of Porvoo in 1809 Tsar Alexander I received the oath of the Finnish estates as Grand Duke. Russia moved the capital from Turku to Helsinki in 1812, and Carl Ludvig Engel rebuilt its centre in imperial neoclassical style.

Industry followed in the 19th century: sawmills and pulp mills along the Kymi river, the port of Kotka, railways to St Petersburg. The civil war of 1918 was fought hard here, and Helsinki was taken by German troops aiding the Whites. After the Second World War South Karelia became border country when Vyborg and the Karelian Isthmus went to the USSR, and the post-war decades pulled people from across Finland into Helsinki, host of the 1952 Olympics, and its neighbours Espoo and Vantaa, which grew into the country's economic core.

This is Finland's most bilingual region. Helsinki is officially Helsingfors too, and towns along the Uusimaa coast such as Porvoo, Raseborg and Sipoo have large Swedish-speaking communities with their own schools, newspapers and theatre. Helsinki has its own old slang, stadin slangi, Finnish full of Swedish, German and Russian loanwords, and the capital is also by far the most multicultural place in the country, with Russian, Estonian, Somali and Arabic among the common languages.

Häme has a quieter identity and a strong musical claim: Jean Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna in 1865, and Lahti's symphony orchestra and Sibelius Hall keep up his music. Lahti is equally known for its ski jumps and the Lahti Ski Games held on the Salpausselkä ridge each winter.

The calendar peaks at Vappu, when students cap the Havis Amanda statue in Helsinki on the evening of 30 April and picnic in Kaivopuisto park next day, and at Midsummer, when the city empties to the cottages. Helsinki adds the Flow music festival and the Helsinki Festival in August, and Kotka's summer Sea Days celebrate its port. Porvoo keeps the memory of the national poet J. L. Runeberg, who lived there, and on 5 February the whole country eats his torte.

More than two million people live in this region, most of them in the capital area: Helsinki has about 680,000 residents, Espoo about 320,000 and Vantaa about 250,000. Lahti, with about 120,000, is the next city, followed by Lappeenranta, Hämeenlinna, Kouvola, Porvoo and Kotka, each with somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000.

The capital area holds government, finance, the main universities and most of Finland's technology and game companies — Nokia is headquartered in Espoo and Supercell in Helsinki. Elsewhere the economy is older: forest industry along the Kymi river, Finland's largest port complex at HaminaKotka, Lahti's furniture and machinery firms, and Lappeenranta's university of technology. South Karelia's shops and hotels long relied on Russian visitors, and the border closure has hit them hard.

The day starts early and follows Finnish routine: work from about eight, a hot lunch before noon, home by late afternoon, then sport, sauna or the supermarket. Helsinki people use trams, bicycles and the metro, swim at public beaches and winter-swimming spots, and spend summer weekends at cottages on the coast or in Häme. Housing costs, the growth of the capital at the expense of the rest of the country, and integrating newcomers are the local issues.

The coast eats from the Baltic. Silakka, Baltic herring, is fried or pickled and sold on Helsinki's Market Square, where the herring market in October has been held since the 18th century, and smoked salmon, whitefish and crayfish parties in August are summer staples. The Swedish-speaking coast keeps its own table of pickled herring, gravlax and snaps at Midsummer.

Porvoo is the home of the Runebergintorttu, a small almond-and-rum cake topped with raspberry jam and icing, and of the Brunberg sweet factory. Helsinki gave Finland Fazer, the confectioner whose blue-wrapped milk chocolate is a national habit. Lappeenranta's market kiosks sell vety and atomi, deep-fried meat pies with ham, egg or both added, and Hämeenlinna and the Häme countryside have a tradition of sahti, a cloudy farmhouse beer brewed with juniper.

In the capital, restaurants range from Nordic tasting menus using forest herbs, berries and game to lohikeitto salmon soup in the Old Market Hall, which opened in 1889. Korvapuusti cinnamon buns and filter coffee fill the cafés, and summer brings new potatoes with dill, strawberries and peas bought by the litre at the market.

Helsinki's centre is walkable: Senate Square with Engel's white cathedral, the Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral, the Market Square and Old Market Hall, the Ateneum and Kiasma galleries, the Oodi library, the rock-hewn Temppeliaukio church and the Sibelius Monument. A short ferry crosses to Suomenlinna, the island fortress with ramparts, dry dock and museums. Just outside the city are Nuuksio National Park's forest lakes in Espoo, Hvitträsk, the architects' studio-home in Kirkkonummi, the ironworks village of Fiskars and the seaside town of Hanko.

East along the coast, Porvoo's old town of wooden houses and red riverside storehouses surrounds its cathedral. Further on, Kotka has the Maretarium aquarium, the Langinkoski fishing lodge built for Tsar Alexander III on the Kymi rapids, and harbour parks, while nearby Hamina keeps a circular fortress town plan. Inland, the Verla groundwood mill in Kouvola is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hämeenlinna has Häme Castle, Sibelius's birthplace museum, the park of Aulanko and, nearby, the Iittala glass village. Lahti offers the ski-jump towers and winter-sports museum, Sibelius Hall on Lake Vesijärvi, and access to Päijänne National Park's ridges and islands. In South Karelia, Lappeenranta's fortress quarter, harbour and cruises open onto Lake Saimaa, and neighbouring Imatra has its rapids and the turreted Imatra State Hotel.