"Helsinki -a city on the sea" a Helsinki Travel Page by magor65

Helsinki grew out of a small settlement founded in 1550 by Swedish king Gustav Vasa. It became the capital of Finland only in 1812, after Finland had been taken over by Russia. Only then the development of the city started. No wonder that Russian influences are so visible in the architecture of the place. Although Helsinki is quite a big city, it has kept the atmosphere of a middle-size town. There are no skyscrapers, most buildings have just a few floors. Kauppatori with its open air market in the city centre makes you forget that you are in the capital.
Helsinki is not only the mainland. There are above 300 islands belonging to it - some of them are uninhabited, others have a population of several thousand. On our way to Suomenlinna and then to Tallin we saw a lot of tiny islands with just one house and we wondered how their inhabitants can survive big storms there.