Vyborg Tour in St. Petersburg, Russia
Vyborg is a town, situated on the Karelian, 130 kilometres to the northwest of St. Petersburg, 38 kilometres south from Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland. The area where Vyborg is located used to be a trading center on the Vuoksi River's western branch, which has dried up. The area was inhabited by the Karelians, a Finnish tribe which gradually came under the domination of Novgorod and Sweden. The first castle of Vyborg was founded in 1293 and it was fought over for decades between Sweden and the Republic of Novgorod. By the Treaty of Noteborg in 1323, Viborg was finally recognized as a part of Sweden. Vyborg remained in Swedish hands until its capture by Peter the Great in the Great Northern War in 1710. After the rest of Finland was ceded to Russia in 1809, Alexander I of Russia incorporated the town and its province into the newly-created Grand Duchy of Finland. In the course of the 19th century, the town developed as the center of administration and trade for the eastern part of Finland. The inauguration of the Saimaa Canal in 1856 benefited the local economy as it opened the vast waterways of Eastern Finland to the sea. Viipuri (its Finnish name) was never a major industrial center, and lacked large production facilities, but due to its location it served as a focal point of transports of all industries on the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia and South-Eastern Finland. It took until September 1944 for it to be finally transferred from the Karelo-Finnish SSR to Leningrad Oblast, and the name of the town was changed to Vyborg. Sights. Swedish built castle; The Round Tower and the Rathaus Tower; The Viipuri Library; Russian fortifications, completed by 1740; the monuments to Peter I (1910) and Torkel Knutsson; "Lenin house", where the Russian revolutionary prepared the Bolshevik revolution during his stay in Viipuri in September-October 1917; Sprawling along the heights adjacent to the Gulf of Finland is Mon Repos park, one of the most spacious English parks in Eastern Europe.
Vyborg Castle, Mon Repos Park