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Lappeenranta

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Template:Infobox Finnish municipality

Lappeenranta (Template:Lang-sv; Template:Lang-ru) is a city and municipality situated on the shore of the lake Saimaa in South-Eastern Finland, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Russian border. It belongs to the region of South Karelia. With approximately Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". inhabitants (Error: Invalid time.) Lappeenranta is the Template:Infobox Finnish Municipality/population count sequenceth largest city in Finland.[1] The neighboring municipality of Joutseno was consolidated with Lappeenranta on January 1, 2009, and the neighboring municipality of Ylämaa on January 1, 2010. Lappeenranta is known as an international university city in Finland with Lappeenranta University of Technology and Saimaa University of Applied Sciences which together have approximately 13,000 students from 68 countries. Lappeenranta is also a commercial centre of South-East Finland and the meeting point of the EU and Russia, 215 km from both Helsinki and St. Petersburg. Location on the southern shore of Lake Saimaa makes the city the region’s centre for tourism. Lappeenranta is second most visited city in Finland after Helsinki and it competes with Helsinki for the largest share of tax-free sales in Finland. Lappeenranta is a model for renewable energies and a clean living environment. Lappeenranta was the only Finnish city among the 14 finalists in the international Earth Hour City Challenge 2014, organized by WWF.

History

Lappeenranta was originally formed around a headland pointing to lake Saimaa. In the 16th century, the market place moved from Lappee's old centre Kauskila to the current fortress headland. The first mention of Lapwes, as it was called, is in a privilege charter from 1542 that subjugated the market place under Viborg's authority.

The town was chartered in 1649 by Queen Christina of Sweden, legitimizing the trade in the then popular marketplace of Lapvesi. However, the parliamentary privilege charter and the coat of arms were attested in 1652 after the town layout by Erik Aspegren was affirmed. At the time, Lappeenranta was an important port for tar.

Between 1721 and 1743, Lappeenranta was the capital of Kymmenegård and Savonlinna province.

In 1741, the battle of Villmanstrand was fought between the Swedish and Russian armies in the Russo-Swedish War of 1741–1743. The battle ended in a Russian victory. The town was pillaged, wooden structures including the provincial chancellery were burnt and the ecclesiastical archives damaged.

The municipalities of Lappee and Lauritsala were annexed to Lappeenranta in 1967. Nuijamaa joined in 1989. During the financial downturn of 2009 and 2010, Joutseno and Ylämaa respectively merged into Lappeenranta.

Name

The name Lappeenranta consists of the genitive of Lappee and the appellative ranta which means "shore". The history of Lappeenranta includes the rural municipality of Lappee and the hundred Lapvesi. The Swedish name Villmanstrand contains the words vildman meaning "wildman" and strand also meaning "shore". The wildman is depicted on Lappeenranta's coat of arms.

Education

Lappeenranta has numerous schools at almost all levels of education, including the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, located in a shared Skinnarila campus of around 8000 students, the Army Academy (branch of the Finnish Defence Forces), South Karelia Vocational College and South Karelia Adult Education Centre.

Transport

Lappeenranta is connected to neighbouring cities and municipalities by road, with railways heading north and south from the city. Lappeenranta is located 215 km from Helsinki and 195 km from St. Petersburg. There are multiple daily trains around Finland from the center and to Russia from Vainikkala station. Express train connections: to Helsinki in about 2 hours, and to St. Petersburg in about 1.5 hours on the new Allegro train.

During the summer, when Lake Saimaa and Saimaa Canal are accessible by water, there is a connection by ship from Lappeenranta to Vyborg, Russia. Visa-free canal cruises to Vyborg and St. Petersburg are very popular among all nationalities.

There is an international airport in Lappeenranta. There are flights between Lappeenranta and Bergamo–Milan, Italy and Girona-Barcelona, Spain but from 2015 summer time only. Lappeenranta Airport was for a year Finland's fastest growing international airport with 364% growth in passenger numbers in 2010 when Ryanair started using it, but it declines later.

Economy

The city's main employers are the City of Lappeenranta, UPM-Kymmene, South Karelia Central Hospital, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Paroc, Nordkalk, VR Group, Fazer, The Armed Forces and Outotec.[2]

Sports

Finland-Norway at the 2004 Women's World Championships

Lappeenranta has multiple sports teams playing in top levels of Finnish sports leagues.

SaiPa is an Ice hockey team playing in the highest level in Finland, SM-liiga. SaiPa was fourth in the national Ice hockey league in the season of 2013-2014. 2014 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship - Tournament was played Kisapuisto Ice Hall, Lappeenranta & Imatra Ice Hall during April 17 – 27, 2014. United States won the tournament, Czech Republic was second and Canada was the third.

Namika Lappeenranta is a basketball team playing in the highest level in Korisliiga and have won two championships in 2005 and 2006.

NST plays floorball in the Salibandyliiga and Rajaritarit is an American Football team in the Vaahteraliiga.

Lappeenrannan Veiterä, or just Veiterä, plays in Bandyliiga and has been Finnish champions four times. They have been the champions for women and for girls born in 1995 and 1998.[3] The city hosted the first ever Women's Bandy World Championship in 2004 and in 2014 the tournament returns to Lappeenranta.[4]

In women's sports Catz Lappeenranta plays basketball and Pesä Ysit plays Finnish baseball, both in the top leagues of the nation. Catz has won Finnish national basketball championship four times in a row.

Notable people

Tourism

Autumn in Lappeenranta

Lappeenranta is known as a summer city, mostly due to its closeness to the Lake Saimaa. Europe’s 4th largest lake. The eponymous GoSaimaa (www.gosaimaa.com) provides all the touristic activities in the area. In addition, its inland location means that summers tend to be warmer and winters colder than along the coastal areas.

Lappeenranta does have a healthy winter tourism industry. Various cabins around Lake Saimaa, as well as numerous snowmobiles, Nordic skating, floating in the river, reindeer rides, paragliding, skiing and sledding tracks draw a fair number of winter visitors.

The proximity of the Russian border is increasingly visible in the number of Russian tourists visiting the city. In fact, Lappeenranta is closer (195 km or 121 miles) to Saint Petersburg than Helsinki, the capital of Finland (220 km or 140 miles). The presence of Russian tourists is noticeable by the many Russian registered cars on the streets and the use of Cyrillic letters in signs of some shops. [citation needed]

Places and events

  • The old fortress, with a number of museums, cafés and the oldest Russian Orthodox church in Finland. [citation needed]
  • St. Mary's Church of Lappee, an 18th-century wooden church in the center of the city.
  • The harbour area, with cruises to Vyborg and the nearby Saimaa Canal.
  • The central market place, where you can enjoy the local specialities, such as meat pies known as "Atomi" (atom) or "Vety" (hydrogen).
  • The Night of The Fortess, a two-day cultural festival held in early August.
  • The Lappeenranta Ballet Gala in late August.[5]
  • The annual Lappeenranta National Singing Contest.
  • The biggest sand castle in Finland is built next to Port of Lappeenranta every summer.[6]
  • There are two private cinema theatres in Lappeenranta: Kino-Aula and Nuijamies.
  • Major league home games in ice-hockey (SaiPa), basketball (Namika Lappeenranta) and other sports.
  • The IHHF World Championship Under 18, 2014
  • Unlimited Racing Event, 27 and 29.6.2014

Twin towns – Sister cities

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Finland

Lappeenranta is twinned with:[7]

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference population_count was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Statistics. (In Finnish) The city of Lappeenranta, Retrieved 13 January 2011.
  3. ^ Kampparit new Finnish Champions in bandy
  4. ^ Bandy World Championship for Women 2014
  5. ^ Lappeenranta Ballet Gala. The city of Lappeenranta, Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  6. ^ Sandcastle Lappeenranta. The official homepage of the Lappeenranta sandcastle, Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  7. ^ "Twin cities". Retrieved 29 April 2014.
  8. ^ "Twin Cities". Rakvere. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  9. ^ "Schwäbisch Hall and its twin towns". Stadt Schwäbisch Hall. Retrieved 2013-07-26.
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