Description
On October 17, guide, journalist and writer Alexey Shishkin invites you to embark on a journey through a Helsinki that no longer exists: a city of Russian soldiers, merchants, industrialists and artists in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland. We will recall the most important merchant families of historic Helsingfors: the Kiselevs, the Sinebryukhovs and the Ushakovs. We will learn what newcomers from Russia wrote about Finnish life, and how the events of the Sveaborg uprising shocked the city. We will ascend to the Assumption Cathedral and in the alleys of Krununhaka discover an old Russian almshouse and works by Russian architects. We will discuss how the self‑perception of Finland’s Russians changed throughout the 19th–20th centuries, and how they preserved, or sometimes altered, their identity. You will learn in which house a Russian entrepreneur sold a Finn the country’s first private aeroplane, and where Tove Jansson worked side by side with a talented refugee from Soviet Russia. The tour starts at Senate Square, by the monument to Alexander II. It ends at the Orthodox section of the Hietaniemi cemetery. PS: For guests from Estonia: the price of the tour does not include Tallinn‑Helsinki tickets and return.