Russia

In the academic world, Finland boasts a high level of expertise in all things Russian. Over the past decade, musicologists too have begun to show an increasing interest in our eastern neighbour and above all in its history.

The founding of the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 meant the birth of a new orientation, a source of innovative ideas and of growth potential for the Finns. Building materials and labour were imported for the new metropolis from neighbouring Finland right from the early stages, and many of the city's bridges and palaces rest on Finnish granite.

Before the great October Revolution in 1917, the cultural contacts between Helsinki and St. Petersburg were amazingly strong and lively. St. Petersburg was the political and, above all, cultural capital of the Russian Empire, to which Finland also belonged.