Finland Travel

South Coast

Administrator — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:42:11 +0000

The southern coast of Finland extends west and east from Helsinki in two roughly equal stretches: one ending in a finger of land jutting into the Baltic towards Sweden, the other coming up short at the Russian border. For much of Finland’s history it was the arena for these two powers to flex their muscles at each other, and this coastline, with its important harbours and fortresses, saw a good share of the action. To this day the coastal settlements are a curious mixture. Kotka, an important industrial port, is near Hamina, whose quaint citadel shape gives it the feel of a quiet military mu- seum. Hanko, on a peninsula, boasts luxurious tsarist villas, but was the scene of desperate fighting against the Russians in WWII. Nearby, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only artillery some of the peaceful Swedish-speaking seaside towns have ever seen is the starting gun for the annual regatta. The whole coastline is a cartographer’s nightmare. Speckled with thousands of islands and islets in a series of archipelagos, it is popular yachting territory and accessible by cruises from all the main towns along this coast.The most enchanting places to visit on the south coast perhaps sound like unlikely at-tractions. A series of historic ironworks have been converted into beautiful rural retreats, with millstreams sparkling alongside the forge buildings, which these days are anything from museums to design shops. In the west, Fiskars and Fagervik stand out, while in the east, little Ruotsinpyhtää is equally beguiling.This stretch of coast is the Finnish section of the Kuninkaantie, or King’s Rd, a marked tourist route extending from Bergen in Norway to St Petersburg.

Oulu, Kainuu & Koillismaa

Administrator — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:26:09 +0000

In between the Lakeland and Lapland, the central strip of Finland is a transitional regioncomprising the province of Oulu to the west, the wilderness area of Kainuu to the east,and Koillismaa in the northeast. Administratively, the entire region is called Oulu Province. Ouluitself is a vibrant, exciting city with a booming technology industry, lively marketsquare, and, in summer, some memorable terraced bars and cafés. It’s the undisputed capital of the region, and a great stop on the way north. Kainuu is a heavily forested wilderness traversed by the famed UKK trekking route close to the border with Russia. Koillismaa, near the Russian border, is the transitional region between the south and Lapland,and includes the rugged Kuusamo area and Oulanka National Park – one of the naturalhighlights of Finxland. It is an area of tumbling rivers, isolated lakes and dense forests.Finns entered the Kainuu region in the 16th century, violating the earlier border treaty between Sweden and Russia. In the late 16th century, the region witnessed fierce frontier wars between Russians and citizens of the Swedish Empire. After these bloody wars, Swedish territory was pushed further east, to where the border stands today. By the 19th century tar had become the salvation of the economically depressed Kainuuregion, but most of the profits were sent downriver to Oulu, along with the barrels of tar.During WWII, bloody battles were fought against the Red Army in the area around Kuhmo,and soon after the war a flood of emigrants escaped poverty-stricken Kainuu for Sweden and elsewhere. The region remains sparsely populated.

PREHISTORY

Administrator — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:53:08 +0000

Little is known of the earliest human settlement in Finland. As the glaciers receded at the end of the last Ice Age, the first permanent inhabitants of what is now Finland probably began arriving around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Around this time the Baltic Sea formed, flooding what was a large freshwater lake. To this day, it’s one of the least saline of the major seas.But Finland was almost certainly inhabited long before this period. Re-cent finds of worked flint tools in a cave at Kristinestad suggest sporadic human presence as far back as 100,000 years ago, between Ice Ages.The first settlers in Finland came from Russia and present-day Estonia. These people hunted elk and beaver using stone tools and weapons and gradually spread out into the whole of the region. Sites have been found in southern Finland dating from around the eighth millennium BC. Pottery appears in archaeological records in the late sixth millennium BC, marking the beginning of the Late Stone Age, or Neolithic period. The discovery of ceramics makes it easier to identify broad groups of people, and it is clear that a new group arrived in southern Finland in 3000 BC or thereabouts. From this point on, we can see the development of definable Finno-Ugrian cultures. The central/northern culture, who had least cultural contact with the newcomers, have been labelled as proto-Sámi.The Bronze Age, from around 1700 BC to 600 BC, is characterised by strong trade contacts between southern Finland and other groups around the Baltic Sea, and the use of stone cairns for burials.