Mikkeli (Finland)

Quite often I come to the Finnish city of Mikkeli. Apart from her culture, I have always been interested in the history of this old city. And now, after I have learned the key milestones of the centuries-long history of Mikkeli, my love for this city grew even stronger.

Mikkeli (the Swedish and the Russian name of the city before 1917 – Sankt Michel), is an administrative centre in the Province of Southern Savonia, Eastern Finland.

Mikkeli (Sankt Michel) when translated from Finnish means the city of Saint Archangel Michael.

The city is located on the shore of the most scenic Finnish lake called Saimaa. The distance from Mikkeli to Helsinki is 228 kilometres, to Saint Petersburg – 320 kilometres.

In 1270, Mikkeli settlement was a pogost¹ belonging to Novgorod.

¹Pogost — was an administrative and territorial unit in Rus. Originally, the administrative and territorial division in Rus was introduced by Princess Olga, who divided the Novgorod lands into pogosts, establishing their due taxes; thus, pogost was identified as a place where the Prince and his men stayed while gathering taxes (tribute) – pogostje (it was a guesthouse of sorts, so pogost is derived from the words gost (guest), pogostit’ (to guest – that is, to make a short visit), and gostinitsa (hotel)).

The earliest mention of settlement Mikkeli is contained in the Peace Treaty of Oreshek of 1323, according to which the province of Savo (Savolax) was ceded to the Swedish crown.

Mikkeli as a town appeared on the scene in the wake of the Russo-Swedish War of 1809, when Finland was joined to Russia as the Grand Duchy of Finland. It was granted city rights on March 7 of 1838, by the decree of Emperor Nicholas I. In the Russian Empire the city was the centre of the Sankt Mikkeli Governorate. In 1897, Mikkeli became part of the Finnish Eastern Governorate.

In 1918, during the Civil War, the headquarters of the White Army were established in Mikkeli.

During the World War II, in the building of a secondary school in Mikkeli, the General Headquarters of the Finnish Army was located under the command of Carl Mannerheim. Because of this, the city was heavily bombed, but it was quickly restored, since at that time there were no tall buildings there.

At the present moment, more than 48 thousand people live in Mikkeli and its surrounding area; 34 thousand of them live in the city.