The Russian era was the heyday of park design and gardening in Viapori. Towards the end of the 19th century in particular, the islands were graced with gardens, plantings, lines of trees and winding pathways. The largest of the parks founded in the Russian era was the Church Park, located on the highest knoll on the island of Iso-Mustasaari.

The park surrounding the church gradually took shape in the 1850s–1870s. Photo credits: Suomen ilmakuva

The Church Park was created when lilacs were planted around the church, consecrated in 1854. The former area with storages and wooden houses had to make way for the park. In the 1870s, the park was enlarged to extend to in front of the “Noah’s Ark”, a multi-floor building with quarters for the garrison dating back to the Swedish era. The park was given a fashionable geometric layout based on crossing and circular pathways. This layout was lost later. While the Church Park was open to the public, it was fenced. Typical of military churches, another fence was built around the church, made of cannon barrels and chains crossing each other. Cannon barrels built on stone foundations made the stakes of the fence, with the long, heavy chains providing the fencing.  The southern and western entrances were decorated by attaching gold-plated eagles to cannon barrels.

An aerial photo of Church Park, dating back to the beginning of the Finnish era. In the foreground, a barracks and boathouses destroyed by a fire in 1920 can be seen. Photo credits: KA

Lilacs and herb gardens

During the Russian era, an officers’ casino operated on the northern shore of the island of Iso-Mustasaari, and a park of its own was created for the casino. The Casino Park housed, among other things, a platform for a band and a bowling alley. Today, the Casino Park houses a memorial for the camp of prisoners of war stationed in Suomenlinna between 1918 and 1919.

On the island of Sususaari, the Russians refurbished the Piper’s Park, founded during the Swedish era. It was built to form a presentable landscape garden graced with flowerbeds planted in specific patterns, typical of the period. Furthermore, leading military persons established their own gardens, some of them containing pathways.

Lilacs in blossom in Piper’s Park. Since its foundation, the middle section of the park has housed a gazebo. The current café building was completed in the 1920s.  Photo credits: SLHK.

Viapori’s barren landscape was softened by avenues lined by lilacs in bloom. Furthermore, the islands housed patches for cultivation and herb gardens, providing ingredients for the kitchen.

An avenue lined with lilacs in Kustaanmiekka. Photo credits: HKM

Text: Netta Böök