Katajanokka
Katajanokka is a neighbourhood of Helsinki, Finland, with around 5,000 inhabitants in 2023. The district is located adjacent to the immediate downtown area, though in the first major town plan for Helsinki from the mid-18th century, the area fell outside the fortifications planned to encircle the city.
Originally, Katajanokka was a headland of the Helsinki peninsula but is now technically an island, as a small canal was dug across the base of the headland in the 19th century. There are four bridges across the canal connecting Katajanokka with the Helsinki Market Square and Aleksanterinkatu area in mainland Helsinki.
Buildings in Katajanokka include the former Katajanokka prison, the Uspenski Cathedral, the Katajanokka Casino, Wanha Satama, the Stora Enso head office designed by Alvar Aalto, the building of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Katajanokka Terminal used by Viking Line. Katajanokka forms a central part of the South Harbour. In the 19th and 20th centuries Katajanokka was known as an important hub for goods transport and even became the largest import harbour in Finland, but since then its role as a residential area has increased. Katajanokka is served by the Helsinki tram lines 4 and 5.
Katajanokka is one of the most distinguished neighbourhoods in Helsinki. Katajanokka's residents have included former Finnish President Mauno Koivisto, composer Einojuhani Rautavaara and author-artist Tove Jansson.
Overview
The south side of Katajanokka is dominated by a passenger harbour which is frequented by large cruiseferries traveling between Helsinki, Stockholm, Mariehamn, Tallinn and Rostock. The rest of the district comprises co-operative apartment buildings and several small parks. The western part of the residential area, known as the "Old Side" of Katajanokka, is an upscale neighborhood and a well-preserved example of early 20th century Art Nouveau architecture, though up until the mid-19th century – while the centre of Helsinki was being filled with stone buildings – the area was essentially still a wooden shanty town. The eastern part was for a long time a closed military area containing a naval base and shipyard, later a commercial shipyard. It was redeveloped in the 1970s and 1980s into a mainly residential zone, often referred to as the "New Side" of Katajanokka. The new residential area is considered an exceptional example of modern town planning. A major part of the project was the conversion and extension of the old Russian naval barracks to house the Finnish foreign ministry.The northern shore of Katajanokka still serves as a base for the Finnish coast guard, Helsinki maritime police as well as the Finnish icebreaker fleet.
Image:Kauppiaankatu 2.jpg|thumb|Housing cooperatives built around 1902 in the popular Jugendstil style.
Landmarks of Katajanokka include the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, also known as Uspenski Cathedral, the Merikasarmi complex of the Foreign Ministry and the Finnish headquarters of Stora Enso.
Image:Katajanokka prison.jpg|thumb|right|The Katajanokka prison.
Another famous building in Katajanokka is the former district prison of Southern Finland. The old prison dates back to 1837, and functioned as a prison until 2002. The prison underwent an extensive interior renovation to convert the cells of the prison into hotel rooms, with sets of two or three cells combined to make up the current hotel rooms. The Best Western Premier Hotel Katajanokka opened in May 2007 with 106 guest rooms. Renovations cost a reported 15 million euro. As a historic building, strict limits were imposed on the redevelopment due to the strict regime of protection for historically significant buildings that is in effect in Finland. Thus, as a hotel, the exterior of the building has been preserved, as has the central corridor of the old prison and even the old prison wall. A restaurant at the lowest level of the hotel has attempted to keep much of the character of the old prison alive. However, an actual former prisoner told a Finnish newspaper that the supposed "prison cutlery" is very different from what the prison actually used: for example, prisoners never drank out of tin cups.
Image:Viking Gabriella at Eteläsatama Helsinki.jpg|thumb|left|Katajanokka is the harbour of many large cruiseferries; M/S Gabriella from the Viking Line fleet docked to the Katajanokka Terminal.
During the development of Katajanokka in the 1970s and 1980s, many old red brick industrial buildings were spared by converting them for public uses, such as a primary school and an indoors sports arena. There was controversy over the demolition of the former cadet school of the Russian navy, built in the early 20th century. Vacated by the Finnish military in the 1980s, the building survived, with various uses, mainly as a cultural centre. In the late 1990s, the city of Helsinki announced that it was going to demolish the building to build a new apartment building in its place. This caused huge protests, and the demolition was put off for almost a decade, mainly because of opposition from local inhabitants, and the Green League party.
File:Katajanokka waterfront.jpg|thumb|View of the Katajanokka waterfront and Uspenski Cathedral from Pohjoisranta embankment
The navy school building was finally demolished in autumn 2006. However, additional problems resulted: Contrary to what the city of Helsinki and the architecture bureau responsible for the new building had thought, there was no solid rock bottom underneath the old building, but only scattered rocks here and there. Because the original building had stood there since Czarist Russia, no original construction plans were available, and therefore the new plans had to be redone from scratch.
File:Moomintroll at Tove Jansson's Park in Katajanokka.jpg|thumb|right|The Katajanokanpuisto park was renamed as Tove Janssonin puisto on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The ceremony was attended by Moomintroll himself.
The local community organisation of Katajanokka is called Katajanokkaseura. The organization publishes an annual regional magazine, Katajanokan kaiku.
Katajanokan ympärijuoksu
There is an annual running event called the Katajanokan ympärijuoksu, open for everyone who lives in Katajanokka or has relatives living there. The running event has several categories according to age and sex. Children have separate categories for boys and girls, and are divided into two or three age groups. Adults have only one category, but results are separate for men and women.The length of the running varies according to category. Toddlers run once around the inside of a walled-in sporting field. Schoolchildren run around the entire sporting area, younger children once, older children twice. Adults and teenagers run around half of the entire Katajanokka district.
There are no monetary prizes for the event, but winners get medals, and the winner of the adults category gets a trophy. Results are also published in the annual Katajanokan kaiku magazine.
History
The area of Katajanokka was originally mostly forest. In the 17th century there was an ironworks on the northern shore of the area, and there was a grain storage magazine on the Laukkasaari island to the south of the area. The eastern part consisted of pasture grounds for the bourgeoisie.Urban settlement of Helsinki expanded from what is now the Senate Square to Katajanokka already in the 18th century. In the 1749 zoning plan by Augustin Ehrensvärd Katajanokka was an important part of the defense wall surrounding the city as the peninsula had an important strategic value. This zoning plan was never implemented, and fishing families started moving to Katajanokka.
The outskirts settlements formed on the peninsula remained mostly untouched for decades even after the rest of Helsinki had been completely rebuilt according to the zoning plan made by Johan Albrecht Ehrenström in the early 19th century. The Katajanokka canal separating Katajanokka from the mainland and connecting the South and North Harbours of Helsinki with each other, already proposed in Ehrenström's plan, was ultimately only built in 1844.
Name
The name "Katajanokka" literally means "Juniper Point" but the connection with junipers is just a coincidence resulting from a mistranslation.The neighbourhood was originally known in the 17th century by the Swedish name Estnäs Skatan. The Finnish-speaking population did not understand Swedish, so the word skata became kataja.
The Swedish name Skat Udden can be found from a 1775 map, while the Finnish name Katajanokka was first mentioned in the Suometar newspaper in 1856.
Barracks
From the 1810s to the 1830s barracks buildings designed by Carl Ludvig Engel and Anders Fredrik Granstedt for the use of the Russian military were built on the eastern tip of Katajanokka. In 1831 the barracks were taken into use by the First marine crew of Finland, which also caused the name of the barracks to be established as Merikasarmi instead of the Katajanokka barracks. This branch of the military was disestablished in the 1880s when the Grand Duchy of Finland introduced conscription. After this, the area became the base of the Russian Baltic fleet.After Finland became independent the garrison moved to the Finnish Defence Forces. It hosted the Helsinki navy station and military station, the broadcast station of the radio battalion and the Valmet docks until the middle 1970s. The command of the Finnish Navy was located in a red brick building built in the 1880s until 1983 and the Guard Jaeger Regiment used the barracks in the 1960s. The deteriorated barracks buildings were renovated and restored for the use of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1984 to 1989. New side buildings on either side of the old artillery courtyard were also built at the same time. A gate dating to 1776 was left as part of one of the side buildings. It is part of the artillery magazine built at the same time as the Suomenlinna fortress. Also a copy of the western officers' barracks was built on the eastern side of the barracks according to Engel's original plan.