Vyborg Library Interior2 (cropped)

Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Vyborg Bay, to the northwest of St. Petersburg, east of the Finnish capital Helsinki, and south of Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland. The population of Vyborg is as follows:

Located in the boundary zone between the East Slavic/Russian and Finnish worlds,Life & Society: Tracing Finland's Eastern Border – This Is Finland
/ref> formerly well known as one of the few medieval towns in Finland, Vyborg has changed hands several times in history, most recently in 1944 when the Soviet Union captured it from Finland during World War II. Finland evacuated the entire population of the city and resettled them within the rest of the country. On March 25, 2010, Dmitry Medvedev named Vyborg the "City of Military Glory". In Russia, a city can be awarded that title if there have been fierce battles in or near the city and in the Russian view, the defenders of the homeland have shown bravery, perseverance, and general heroism. During the Finnish Civil War in 1918, Vyborg was officially the second-most significant city in Finland after Helsinki, representing it as Finland's most multicultural city internationally.Göran Lindgren: ''Viipuri sodan jaloissa'', p. 6. ''Helsingin Reservin Sanomat'', no. 2/2013, March 12, 2013. (in Finnish)Pimeä historia: Verinen Viipuri – historioitsija Teemu Keskisarja jäljittää kohtalonhetkiä
— ''YLE'' (in Finnish)

The city hosts the Russian end of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, laid in 2011 and operated by a consortium led by Russia's Gazprom state hydrocarbons enterprise to pump of natural gas a year under the Baltic Sea to Lubmin, Germany.

History

Early history

According to archeological research, the area of what is now Vyborg used to be a trading center on the Vuoksi River's western branch, which has since dried up. The region was inhabited by the Karelians, a Balto-Finnic tribe which gradually came under the domination of Novgorod and Sweden. It has been claimed that Vyborg appeared in the 11th–12th centuries as a mixed Karelian-Russian settlement, although there is no archeological proof of any East Slavic settlement of that time in the area and it is not mentioned in any earliest historical documents, such as the Novgorod First Chronicle or the Primary Chronicle. Wider settlement in the area of Vyborg is generally regarded to date from 13th century onwards when Hanseatic traders began traveling to Novgorod.

Vyborg Castle was founded during the Third Swedish Crusade in 1293 by ''marsk'' Torkel Knutsson on the site of an older Karelian fort which was burned. The castle, which was the first centre for the spread of Christianity in Karelia, was fought over for decades between Sweden and the Republic of Novgorod. As a result of the Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 between the Novgorod Republic and Sweden, Vyborg was finally recognized as a part of Sweden. The town's trade privileges were chartered by the Pan-Scandinavian King Eric of Pomerania in 1403. It withstood a prolonged siege by Daniil Shchenya during the Russo-Swedish War of 1496–1497.

Under Swedish rule, Vyborg was closely associated with the noble family of Bååt, originally from Småland. The late-medieval commanders and fief holders of Vyborg were (almost always) descended from or married to the Bååt family. In practice, though not having this as their formal title, they functioned as Margraves, had feudal privileges, and kept all the crown's incomes from the fief to use for the defense of the realm's eastern border.

1710 to 1917

Vyborg remained in Swedish hands until its capture in 1710 after the Siege of Vyborg by Tsar Peter the Great in the Great Northern War. In the course of Peter's second administrative reform, Vyborg became the seat of the Vyborg Province of St. Petersburg Governorate. The 1721 Treaty of Nystad, which concluded the war with Sweden, finalized the transfer of the town and a part of Old Finland to Russia. The loss of Vyborg led Sweden to develop Fredrikshamn as a substitute port town. Another result of the loss of Vyborg was that its diocese was moved to Borgå, transforming the town into an important learning centre.

In 1744, Vyborg became the seat of the Vyborg Governorate. In 1783, the governorate was transformed into the Vyborg Viceroyalty and in 1801 back into Vyborg Governorate. In 1802, the Vyborg Governorate was renamed the Finland Governorate.

One of the largest naval battles in history, the Battle of Vyborg Bay, was fought off the shore of the Vyborg Bay on July 4, 1790.

After the rest of Finland was ceded to Russia in 1809, Emperor Alexander I incorporated the town and the governorate into the newly-created Grand Duchy of Finland in 1811 (1812 NS).

Over the course of the 19th century, the town developed as the centre of administration and trade for eastern Finland. The inauguration of the Saimaa Canal in 1856 benefited the local economy, as it opened the vast waterways of Eastern Finland to the sea. Vyborg was never a major industrial center and lacked large production facilities, but its location made it serve as a focal point of transports of all industries on the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia and southeastern Finland. Trams in Vyborg started in 1912.

The Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin lived in the town for a period between the February Revolution and October Revolution of 1917.

Finnish period

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fall of the Russian Empire, Finland declared itself independent. During the Finnish Civil War, Vyborg was in the hands of the Finnish Red Guards until it was captured by the White Guard in the Battle of Vyborg, on April 29, 1918. In April to May 1918, 360 to civilians were murdered by White Guards during the Vyborg massacre. The city served as the starting point of the civil war, which later spread to the rest of Finland.

Vyborg served as the seat of Viipuri Province. In the 1930 census, the administrative area of the city of Vyborg had 52,253 inhabitants. There were a total of 19,986 inhabitants in the rural areas of Vyborg and in Uura, which was located outside the borders of Vyborg but was included in the census, and so the total population of the census area was 72,239. Of the total inhabitants in the census area, 67,609 spoke Finnish, 2,103 Swedish, 1,807 Russian and 439 German. In 1939, the population was slightly less than 75,000 and was Finland's second-largest (Population Register) or fourth-largest (Church and Civil Register) city, depending on the census data. Vyborg had sizable minorities of Swedes, Germans, Russians, Romani, Tatars and Jews. During that time, Alvar Aalto built the Vyborg Library, an icon of functionalist architecture.

Winter and Continuation Wars

During the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940, over 70,000 people were evacuated from Vyborg to other parts of Finland. The Winter War was concluded by the Moscow Peace Treaty, which stipulated the transfer of Vyborg to Soviet control, and the whole Karelian Isthmus, and those places were emptied of their residents, to Soviet control. It was incorporated into the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic on March 31, 1940. As the town was still held by the Finns, the remaining Finnish population, some 10,000 people, had to be evacuated in haste before the handover. Thus, practically the whole population of Finnish Vyborg was resettled elsewhere in Finland. The town became the administrative center of Vyborgsky District.

The evacuees from Finnish Karelia came to be a vociferous political force, and their wish to return to their homes was an important motive when Finland sought support from Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. As a result, Finland fought with Nazi Germany as a co-belligerent during the Second World War.

On August 29, 1941, Vyborg was captured by Finnish troops. At first, the Finnish Army did not allow civilians into the town. Of the 6,287 buildings, 3,807 had been destroyed. The first civilians started to arrive on late September, and by the end of the year, Vyborg had a population of about 9,700. In December 1941, the