Kluuvi

Kluuvi (Template:Lang-sv) is the commercial centre of Helsinki, Finland, and a neighbourhood in the Vironniemi district of Helsinki. The Helsinki Central railway station, the Helsinki main post office, the Stockmann and Sokos department stores, the Kluuvi shopping centre and the main offices of Finnish banks are located in Kluuvi. Kluuvi includes the central campus of the University of Helsinki, the Ateneum art museum, and the movie theatres Maxim, Kinopalatsi and Bristol.

The neighbourhood is home to 23,000 jobs and several hundred inhabitants.

The official name of the neighbourhood is very seldom used in everyday speech, Helsinkians usually refer to the area as "the centre" (keskusta) or "the core centre" (ydinkeskusta).

History

The Finnish word kluuvi and the Swedish word glo mean a gloe lake - a bay that is closed up or closing up. The district was originally a bay in the Gulf of Finland, which eventually became swampy. The bay was filled in the middle of the 19th century. The odour of rotting seaweed and other plants can still be smelled near construction sites.

The Helsinki Metro construction found a kluuvi in the district, when it turned out the planned site for a metro tunnel was supposed to go didn't have a solid rock base. The soft ground had to be artificially frozen before it was possible to dig through it to construct a solid base for the metro track.

Kluuvi

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  Sanomatalo press building houses the editorial offices of several newspapers such as Helsingin Sanomat
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  The Stockmann department store with its Christmas decorations
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  Aleksanterinkatu Christmas lighting