Pupletts in Sweden: Helsinki, Tallinn and Stockholm

For our second day in Helsinki, our friends suggested that we head out to a small island just off the coast of Helsinki, called Suomenlinna.

Suomenlinna or Sveaborg (as it know in Swedish) is a sea fortress built across six islands. It was originally named Viapori (the phonetic Finnish representation of Sveaborg), but the name was changed to Suomenlinna in 1918. The Finnish name for Finland is Suomi, so Suomenlinna literally means Finland Castle (Linna is Finnish for castle).

Suomenlinna is a UNESCO World Heritage Listed site that was commenced in 1748 as part of a reinforcement of Finnish borders due to the wars between Sweden and Russia. At the time Finland was part of Sweden and highly important in its defence against the Russians.

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History:
The fortress was built over forty years (the original plan was for a much larger fortress with a construction time for four years - sounds like a standard defence project...). Part of the cause of the delay was the Pomeranian War (1756-1763). In the war between Russia and Sweden in 1788-1790 (Gustav III's War) the base operated as a naval base but was never attacked. In 1808 the fortress was attacked for the first time and Viapori was surrendered to the Russians after minor skirmishes. The surrender is quite famous and even factors in a short story by George RR Martin ("The Fortress"). Essentially Russia attacked and took Helsinki in 1808 and then focused their bombardment on the fortress. The commander, Carl Olof Cronstedt waited for reinforcements that never arrived and despite having 7000 men under his command he surrendered. It is believed that psychological warfare by the Russians, bribed advisors and isolation led to the surrender, despite the fact that the fortress could have held for much longer.

In 1809 Finland was yielded to Russia (in part due to the failure of Suomenlinna) and Finland became an autonomous duchy of the Russian Empire.

The Russians extended the barracks and shipyards on the island but was attacked in the Crimean War. After 47 hours of bombardment the allied forces were unable to destroy the guns and didn't land any forces.

The fortress remained part of Russia defenses for World War I and eventually was handed over to Finland with Finland's Independence in 1917, when the island became a prison camp.
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Our invasion of Suomenlinna was via a ferry from the Helsinki harbour.

Heading out of Helsinki Harbour

Islands in Helsinki bay

Barracks on Suomenlinna

Map of Suomenlinna

We landed on Iso Mustasaari (in Swedish: Stora Östersvartö - English: Big Black Island) and decided to head up to Pikku Mustasaari (Small Black Island) to start.

Pikku Mustaari is still a functioning naval base and we were warned quite clearly to stick to the path on pain of punishment... (better than punishment of pain). Although the punishment was unspecified we decided to avoid it.

The bridge between Iso Mustasaari and Pikku Mustasaari

Naval Base Warning Sign

Map of Pikku Mustasaari

The Pikku Mustasaari island still belongs to the Finnish Defence force and is used to train naval cadets and conscripts.

Tomas and his friends collected bunches of flowers for their mums

Looking out from Pikku Mustasaari

Arch into the Naval Base

We loved the random rock alignment in the defensive walls

From Pikku Mustasaari we headed across to Länsi Mustasaari (West Black Island). This island seemed to house the residential areas for naval base, so we had a quick look but then headed back towards Iso Mustasaari.

Bridge between Pikku and Länsi Mustasaari

Our first stop on Iso Mustasaari was the Suomenlinna Kirkko (Suomenlinna Church). This was built as an Eastern Orthodox garrison church in 1854 for Russian troops on the island. The central dome doubles as a lighthouse and had an awesome fence made in 1870 from the cannons and chains that Sweden had used to close to straits.

Kristine didn't like my joke that is is where saints come to get Canonized.

Entrance

The Church

Our next stop was the military museum:

Cannons in the Military Museum

A flag taken from Vyborg in 1944 when it was lost in the Continuation War

A heavy rocket launcher from 1958 - 95mm caliber, range of 400-500m, armour piercing of 560mm

The military history of Finland around the World Wars was quite interesting.

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History
Finland initially entered the war on the side of the Germans against Russia over the debated ownership of the Karelian Isthus, Gulf of Finland Islands and Hanko Peninsula. The Soviets were attempting to completely annex Finland, so the Finns sided with the Axis forces.

The first attack was a bombardment of Helsinki in 1939 and this united the previously divided the Finnish forces (In 1918 Finland had a civil war in which the 'Red Finns' wanted Russian Liberation of Finland and the 'White Finns' wanted to retain independence.)

Finland held out better than expected, but had less supplies that the Russians and none of the neighboring countries were willing to help and face the Russians. Finland yielded in 1940 and Russia gained large portions of Finland.

When the Germans attacked Russia (Operation Barbarossa) Finland allowed the Germans to take positions in Finland and took part in the invasion. This war became known as the Continuation War.

In 1944 the president of Finland Risto Ryti gave Germany his personal guarantee that Finland wouldn't seek peace with Russia, despite the country being exhausted of supplies and resources and starting to collapse under Russian pressure. In return the Germans provide Finland with more guns.

The Finns held the next Russia push and Ryti resigned. The Parliament then selected Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim as leader (elections couldn't take place due to the war). Mannerheim was told by the Parliament to seek peace with Russia. A ceasefire was agreed in 1944 and one of the terms of peace was the expulsion of the 200,000 German forces out of Finland within two weeks.

The Germans started to withdraw but the Russians became angry that the withdrawal was taking too long and the Finns and Russians attacked the Germans. The Germans saw this as a betrayal and destroyed almost every building, bridge and road that they passed on their retreat from Lapland.

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On our way out we saw this interesting door badge:

Turns out it translates to fire panel, but I can see a major fire and the warning yelling "Get to the Paloilmoitinkeskus!".. The place would be burnt down before he got there.

Next we headed across to Susisaari (Wolf Island) and Kustaanmiekka (Gustav's Sword). This held a lot of the fortifications and gun emplacements as well as the submarine Vesikko.

Kustaanmiekka

Heading over to Susisaari

Cameron at the walls

The walls

Kids on the rocks - to show scale

The Submarine Vesikko was launched in 1933 in Turku. It operated as CV 707 until 1936 It served in WWI and WWII, sinking the Soviet Merchant Ship Vyborg. It was retired in 1944 after Finland was banned from operating submarines. The name Vesikko is the Finnish word for European Mink.