Helsinki Daily: Kamppi busstation

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Kamppi busstation

There's the Mayday celebrations and carneval in Helsinki and other cities of Finland today and tomorrow. Unfortunately you will not be witness to these happenings through this blog as I'm heading off to the peace and quiet of the countryside for a few days.

Instead I leave you to ponder over the new built-in busstation complex Kamppi and on top of that a couple of furry creatures that I came across in the old town region.

The finnish horse, a tough and winter hardy working horse breed. Here undergoing a changing of fur and thus looking quite scruffy.

Another Gottland Russ pony. Also seemingly under process of changing fur.

In case you should wonder, all these photos in my blog were taken in the end of March. So the snow and ice was still present and not a lot of greenery. Not so anymore.

Happy Mayday everyone!

14 comments:

B SQUAREDApril 30, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Interesting plaza around the buildings. I like the horses, too.
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SteffiApril 30, 2009 at 9:54 PM
Wonderful pictures!I love horses too!Have a nice weekend!
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CTG PoniesApril 30, 2009 at 11:47 PM
That building is really impressive! Love the horses too!
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Jane Hards PhotographyMay 1, 2009 at 1:08 AM
Beautiful plaza, but the horse is just so sweet.
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BLSMay 1, 2009 at 12:11 PM
Nice to see the city and the countryside. I like the horse ive never seen that type here. It must be a tough breed to be loseing its winter coat with so much snow still around.
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Pearl MapleMay 1, 2009 at 1:50 PM
Your photos are beautiful, you do manage to find some wonderful views to share with us all.
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GerardoMay 1, 2009 at 5:26 PM
Beautiful place and light in the evening. I will visit helsinki, so I will follow your blog to know more about your city.
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UnknownMay 1, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Great photos. The horse has sort of diminished in status since the widespread us of motorized vehicles. But that may change in the future ...
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NabeelMay 2, 2009 at 4:17 AM
Love the horse picture, the first one. That's a very good pose you snapped there.
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Lavender and Vanilla Friends of the GardensMay 2, 2009 at 9:35 AM
The new bus station looks good. I guess more people are using the buses as petrol is getting more expensive. Or is it cheap in Finland? The ponies are cute. shedding their winter fur preparing for summery days.
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SandyCarlsonMay 3, 2009 at 1:58 AM
The buildings seem to glow with natural light somehow. These shots are an interesting contrast to the lovely, tawny, serene horses.
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Mary ElizabethMay 3, 2009 at 7:59 AM
Ohh! Helsinki is beautiful day or night.
Mary Elizabeth @ Now and Then
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Maria BergMay 6, 2009 at 10:54 PM
Vilken kontrast mellan dessa hus/storstad / och så hästen å landet!
Tråkigt att du inte fick upp bildern hos mig,

bättre lycka nästa gång hoppas jag,
MB
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GeorgeMay 13, 2009 at 7:53 PM
I really like those Finnish horses, but the new bus station is very madern and beautiful.
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Brief history:

Helsinki was first founded by order of king Gustav Wasa of Sweden around the waterfalls of were the river Vantaa runs into the sea, today called The Old Town, in 1550. It was to be a harbour town competing with the city of Tallin, the Estonian capital. It was later on decided that this area did not work well as a harbour site and Helsinki was moved to an other part closer to today's city center in 1640.
In those days the capital of Finland was the town of Turku more to the west along the south coast.
Helsinki has had a history of turmoil and bloodshed due to many wars between Sweden and Russia and has been burned down a few times. The first time was 1570 during an attack from the Russians. In the old days houses were mainly made of wood.
In 1695-1697 was the great hunger years and a huge number of the population succumbed to cholera and starvation.
The black death decimated two thirds of the whole population in 1710. It came to Finland due to the lively hansa connections and in those days Helsinki was a multinational and multilingual town. Something that then dissapeared during the Russian occupation until these days when the same status has again been reached.
The Sveaborg fortress was built by order from the Swedish king for protection against the Russians in 1748-50 as the Russians had managed to occupy Helsinki six years earlier.
In 1808 Sveaborg was finally forced to capitulate to the Russians and Finland became an autonomic part of the Russian empire.
A year after, in 1809 Helsinki was granted capital status as there had been a great fire in Turku previously and the rebuilding work was taking very long.
In 1828 the university was removed from Turku to Helsinki (allthough these days there is a university in Turku too).
The first newspapers started coming out in 1829.
In 1877 the first telephone network started operating.
In 1884 the electricity works started to operate.
In 1891 the first horse drawn tram started trafficing. Trams are a common sight on the streets of Helsinki even today but obviously not drawn by horses any longer. The tram network became electric in 1900.
In 1896 the first public showing of a movie took place.
In 1917 during the Russian revolution Finland was granted indipendancy on the 6th of December.
In 1918 there was an internal war in Finland and also German forces occupied Helsinki.
During the second world war in 1939 the Russians attacked Finland and through the war years many buildings in Helsinki were bombed down.
After the second world war in 1946 Helsinki grew significantly as many of the surrounding villages were incorporated into Helsinki.
In 1950 the amusement park Linnanmaki was founded. It's still operating today but looks very different from the original. Some original features still exist.
In 1952 was the olympic games in Helsinki.
In 1982 the first mobile phone network was taken into use in Helsinki. Also the underground (Metro) started trafficing in that year.
In 1995 Finland became a member of the European Union .
In the year 2000 Helsinki celebrated its 450th birthday.

Helsinki Daily

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Kamppi busstation

14 comments:

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