peace

The history of the city of Kotka - that we now reside - includes an interesting phase of being the border town of Swedish and Russian empires before the independent state of Finland, in the midst of 18th century's battles over the control of the baltic seas.

Sweden had lost the area to the russian empire in 1743 but attacked russian twice during the century, and the latest battle grew to be the largest naval battle in the Baltic sea ever with nearly 500 ships and 30 000 men. Finally in 1790 the empires settled for peace.

These events brought about the Russian empire fortify the area as part of the defensive line of the capital St. Petersburg, and they built up a vast chain of fortresses around the today's Kotka. The area lost it's strategic importance as the Russian conquered the entire finland in 1809; but then, decades later in Crimean war in 1855, the British-French army destroyed the majority of the buildings.

Today some of the ruins are being renovated and open for tourists to witness. We took a boat this week and head to one of those, fort elisabeth located off the Kotka downtown. Here's some pics.

Notice the facinating resemblance between the cannon in the picture from wikipedia, and the ones the boys play around.