Helsinki - Senate Square

From the Market Square in Helsinki a street between the President's Palace and the Guard House leads into Aleksanterinkatu. Along this street to the left are numerous buildings recalling centuries of Finnish history.

Near the Finnish Literary Society building, on the right, is the Government Palace (Valtioneuvostonlinna), formerly the Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland. In the staircase hall (entrance from Senate Square) the Russian Governor-General, Nikolay Bobrikov, was assassinated by Eugen Schauman in 1904. On the left side of the street stands the bluish-gray Sederholm House, the oldest stone building in Helsinki.

The arm of the Baltic in Helsinki is crossed by the Pitkäsilta (Long Bridge), beyond which, after the Strand Inter-Continental Hotel (on right), is the district of Hakaniemi. Some 200m/220yd farther on is its market square, with a market hall only slightly inferior to the one in the city center.

At the end of Aleksanterinkatu in Helsinki, on the right, is the House of the Nobility. In Sweden the status of nobility was conferred by being "introduced" in the House of the Nobility, after which the coat of arms of the newly ennobled family was set up in the Knights' Hall. To the rear of the House of the Nobility, running parallel with Aleksanterinkatu, is Hallituskatu. Opposite it are the premises of the Finnish Literary Society (Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura).

On the north side of Helsinki's Senate Square a broad flight of steps leads up to the Lutheran Cathedral (Tuomiokirkko; St Nicholas's), standing 10m/33ft above the square on a granite crag. The Cathedral was begun in 1830 to the design of C. L. Engel and completed in 1852 in a different style. It contains statues of Luther, Melanchthon and the Finnish Reformer Mikael Agricola as well as a fine organ.