månadsarkiv: april 2025

Library of the Week (17): Vyborg Library

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While looking for something else I found these pictures of when I visited Vyborg in 2013. I went there on a group trip with Östra Finlands nation (my student nation’s friend nation in Helsinki) since their old province was the easternmost parts of Finland, including Viipuri – Finland’s second city until they lost it in 1944. I could go on (oh I really could) about how fascinating the city and its history is, but I will instead focus on the most important part – the Vyborg Library.

Vyborg Library

Vyborg Library designed by Alvar Aalto. Ninaraas, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The reason I’m resorting to an image from the commons is that the library was being renovated when I was in Vyborg. And with the current political situation it’s unlikely I will be able to visit the library anytime soon. Very sad, as I’m very fond of Alvar Aalto’s library architecture. The light!

Library Vyborg Library
Place Vyborg, Russia
Coordinates 60.709006, 28.747302

So, when I was there, this is what I could see of the library:

Not post card worthy I’m afraid, but I’m still glad I went there and had a look, and I can say I’ve been there and made my best effort to see it. The restoration was a join project between Russia and Finland, just like the restoration of Saimaa canal (that was also the route we took – from Lappeenranta to Vyborg). While I recognise that the international name is the Russian Vyborg (far be it from to cross UNGEGN) it does hurt not to use Viipuri (or the Swedish Viborg).

I think I mentioned this in the Lappeenranta post a few months back: their local history museum was surprisingly focussed on telling the story of Viipuri, the capital of Karelia, and was dominated by a large model of Viipuri, with a main piece obviously being the famous castle depicted below. The emotional connection to Viipuri, and how hard the loss was, is very apparent in Finland.

Vyborg Castle

Vyborg Castle.

A Finnish speaking student nation in Helsinki (in contrast with the previously mentioned Östra Finlands nation, that is Swedish speaking), Wiipurilainen osakunta, celebrates the Viborg Bang (that’s a Wikipedia translation, in Swedish it’s Viborgska smällen and Finnish Viipurin pamaus) on 30 November every year to commemorate when Knut Posse blew up the castle to defeat the Russians in 1495. It’s a good party! The bang is also included in the Carta Marina.

Another fascinating thing in Vyborg was the sudden appearance of the Uppsala skyline on a public transportation bus! My V-Dala librarian colleage Nina instantly recognised it as the look of the old city buses in Uppsala.

Uppsala silhouette in Vyborg

Uppsala silhouette in Vyborg

I’ve done some research on this and it turns out these old buses were gifted from Uppsala to Vyborg some time in the 1990s, and apparently they never repainted them. A nice surprise and a piece of home in a faraway foreign city. But then again, Vyborg has historically been a very cosmopolitan city. Kieli vieras taikka tuttu, as it goes in the classic song Sellanen ol’ Viipuri.

It’s one of my favourite songs, and an absolute banger to do at a karaoke bar when there are older Finnish people present (sorry but young people are clueless – I’m an old soul). I’m quite partial to this chaotic rendition, but below I’ve embedded a cleaner recording, hehe:

Yes, ok, so not much library content here – for obvious reasons. But please enjoy these pictures of the library auditorium from the 1930s and 2014 respectively. Just look at the Stool 60s lined up!!! If you don’t feel anything in your heart when you see that, I’m afraid you neither have a heart nor an appreciation of art.

(Links to the auditorium pictures because I can’t seem to put them in the gallery image texts: 1930s and 2014.)

Library of the Week (15): Turku Main Library

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Wow, last month was crazy busy, hence no library updates. This week will be a brief update, featuring my first visit to my current library: Turku Main Library. The pictures are from the first time I visited the library in 2014 (!) and this is probably fairly obvious from how young and promising I look. ^_^

Library Turku Main Library
Place Turku, Finland
Coordinates 60.450490, 22.271143

The library is part of a region wide collaboration, the Vaski libraries (short for Varsinais-Suomen kirjastot – the libraries of Varsinais-Suomi, biblioteken i Egentliga Finland), so this is my go to webpage for my everyday public library needs. My typical library user behaviour consists of borrowing books, cds, and sheet music, meeting up with a book club, using a study space on the 2nd floor, and from time to time booking the sewing machine, laser cutter, and t-shirt printing press. That probably tells you more about me than the library, but at least I’ve mentioned the library’s role as a meeting place, maker space, and provider of various collections.

Karolina in Turku Main Library 2014

Me in Turku Main Library 2014. They no longer have these chairs. :( I no longer have the purple Docs. :/ I still have the dress but it’s falling to pieces. :)

The library is split into two main parts, the old and the new building. The old building dates back to 1903 and was modelled after the House of Nobility in Stockholm. This is very obvious if you look at the two buildings. Obviously the public library is the nobler house of the two (this pun works poorly in Swedish), because public libraries are palaces for the people. The new building was built in 2007, so only seven years old when I visited. These old pictures do not do the light in the building justice – it’s incredibly spacious and the lighting is excellent even in the winter (very much the opposite of the lightning situation in the Lappeenranta library I wrote about a few weeks ago). I could pop down today and take new pictures, I suppose, but I like the retro feeling of these images.

While the new building hosts non-fiction and children’s literature (and lecture spaces etc etc), the old building hosts fiction, music, and nowadays also a makerspace (I don’t think it was there in 2014). I don’t seem to have a lot of pictures from the old library, a shame since the old building also is a perfect example of excellent library architecture (of its time). Very much Carnegie vibes.

The biggest surprise was the Morrissey record exhibition on the 2nd floor in the old building. Looking back at the dates I’ve realised that the exhibition probably was on because of the release of World Peace Is None of Your Business on 15 July 2014 (my photographs are dated 12 July 2014 – thank you, dependable metadata!). This excellent album is by the way available in the library’s collection – significant because of the Harvest Records controversy surrounding the album meaning it was rather quickly quite hard to get hold of.  Who to trust for cultural needs when capitalism fails you? Yes, that’s right, public libraries.