Kluuvi (; sv, Gloet) is the commercial centre of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, and a

neighbourhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural are ...

in the

Vironniemi Vironniemi ( sv, Estnäs; literally the "Cape of Estonia" or the "Estonian Peninsula"district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

of Helsinki. The

Helsinki Central railway station Helsinki Central Station ( fi, Helsingin päärautatieasema, sv, Helsingfors centralstation) ( HEC) is the main station for commuter rail and long-distance trains departing from Helsinki, Finland. The station is used by approximately 400,000 peo ...

Hotel Kämp Hotel Kämp () is an historic hotel in Kluuvi, Helsinki, Finland. It is a member of Leading Hotels of the World. The hotel, originally built in 1887 by Carl Kämp, was designed by Theodor Höijer. The building was demolished and the facade was r ...

and Hotel Arthur, the Helsinki main post office, the

Stockmann Stockmann plc is a Finnish retailer established in 1862. Stockmann's eight company-owned department stores are in Finland (six), Estonia (one), and Latvia (one). There also was an additional nine Stockmann-branded department stores in Russia o ...

and

Sokos Sokos is a chain of department stores in Finland that is part of the S Group, which also operates the hotel chain, Sokos Hotels. Department stores * Helsinki (centre) * Helsinki ( Kaari) * Hämeenlinna * Joensuu * Jyväskylä * Kajaani * Ko ...

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s, the Kluuvi shopping centre and the main offices of Finnish banks are located in Kluuvi. Kluuvi includes the central campus of the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

, the

Ateneum Ateneum is an art museum in Helsinki, Finland and one of the three museums forming the Finnish National Gallery. It is located in the centre of Helsinki on the south side of Rautatientori square close to Helsinki Central railway station. It ha ...

art museum, and the

movie theatre A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

s Maxim, Kinopalatsi and Bristol. The northeastern part of Kluuvi, which includes the

Kaisaniemi park Kaisaniemi park ( fi, Kaisaniemen puisto, sv, Kajsaniemiparken) is a popular park, in the center of Helsinki, in the region of Kluuvi. The Kaisaniemi Park was named after Catharina "Cajsa" Wahllund.Suomen kansallisbiografia (National Biography o ...

, is commonly called Kaisaniemi, but it is not the official name of any neighbourhood in Helsinki. The neighbourhood is home to 23,000 jobs and several hundred inhabitants. The official name of the neighbourhood is very seldom used in everyday speech, Helsinkians usually refer to the area as "the centre" (''keskusta'') or "the core centre" (''ydinkeskusta'').

History

The

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

word ''kluuvi'' and the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

word ''glo'' mean a

gloe lake Flads and gloe lakes are different stages in the process where a bay in the sea turns into a freshwater lake due to post-glacial rebound. Location Flads and gloe lakes exist in the Baltic Sea in Finland and Sweden. These types of brackish lagoo ...

- a bay that is closed up or closing up. The district was originally a bay called Kluuvinlahti in the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland ( fi, Suomenlahti; et, Soome laht; rus, Фи́нский зали́в, r=Finskiy zaliv, p=ˈfʲinskʲɪj zɐˈlʲif; sv, Finska viken) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and E ...

, which eventually became swampy. The bay stretched from Töölönlahti to the

Esplanadi Esplanadi ( sv, Esplanaden), colloquially known as Espa, is an esplanade and urban park in downtown Helsinki, Finland, situated between the Erottaja square and the Market Square. It is bordered on its northern and southern sides by the Pohjoisesp ...

park. It was the last remnant of a strait that had originally connected Töölönlahti and Eteläsatama but had already closed in the 16th century because of the

post-glacial rebound Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound ...

. This also caused the island east to it to become a cape, which was named

Vironniemi Vironniemi ( sv, Estnäs; literally the "Cape of Estonia" or the "Estonian Peninsula"seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of '' Rhodophyta'' (red), ''Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

and other plants can still be smelled near construction sites. The street Vilhonkatu (approximately meaning "Wilhelm's street") was named in 1836, probably after the senator Otto Wilhelm Klinckowström, who oversaw the organisation of the Kaisaniemi park in the 1830s. The street had originally been named Wästra Mellan Gatan (Swedish for "western middle street") since 1820. The street got a Finnish name Vilhelminkatu in 1909, and was further renamed Vilhonkatu in 1928. The street Fabianinkatu has in turn been named after the governor-general Fabian Steinheil. Emperor

Alexander I of Russia Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. The son of ...

instructed Steinheil and state councillor Johan Albrecht Ehrenström in 1819 to give names to new streets planned in Helsinki and so they in a way acted as the first street name committee in the city. The street's unofficial Finnish name was Faapianinkatu until 1909.Terho et al. (ed.) 1970, p. 96. The

Helsinki Metro The Helsinki Metro ( fi, Helsingin metro, sv, Helsingfors metro) is a rapid transit system serving Greater Helsinki, Finland. It is the world's northernmost metro system. It was opened to the general public on 2 August 1982 after 27 years of p ...

construction found a ''kluuvi'' in the district, when it turned out the planned site for a metro tunnel was supposed to go didn't have a solid rock base. The soft ground had to be artificially frozen before it was possible to dig through it to construct a solid base for the metro track.

References

External links

{{coord, 60, 10, N, 24, 57, E, region:FI_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki, display=title Vironniemi district