Helsinki → Rīga: the Gulf of Finland and home

St Petersburg THE CITY BEHIND THE DAM

Founded by Peter the Great in 1703 on the Neva delta as Russia’s window on the sea; the capital of the empire until 1918.

Kronstadt on Kotlin island has guarded the approach since 1704; its Naval Cathedral (1913) is the landmark from the sea, and the Kronstadt sea gauge is the zero of all heights in Russia.

The flood barrier across the Neva Bay, 25 km long and completed in 2011, carries the ring road and closes its gates against the surges the city suffered for three centuries.

The Tolbukhin lighthouse west of Kotlin marks the way in; the Neva’s bridges open at night for the ships.

Tallinn REVAL OF THE HANSE

The medieval Old Town on its limestone hill — walls, towers, Toompea castle — is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997); as Reval it was a Hanseatic city.

St Olaf’s spire, 124 m, was said to be the tallest building in the world in the 16th century; it is still the first thing seen from the sea.

The 1980 Olympic sailing regatta was held at Pirita; the Olympic sailing centre is the city’s marina to this day.

Helsinki lies 80 km across the Gulf; the ferries make the crossing in two hours.

Rīga HOME

Founded in 1201 by Bishop Albert at the Daugava’s mouth; the largest city of the Baltic states and one of the great ports of the Baltic for eight centuries.

The Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997), with Europe’s largest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings — some 800 — around it.

Daugavgrīva fortress and lighthouse guard the river mouth; the Rīga TV tower, 368.5 m, is the tallest tower in the European Union.

The start and the finish: the line off Daugavgrīva — the lap ends where it began.

Gogland (Suursaari) THE HIGH ISLAND

A rocky island in the middle of the Gulf of Finland, rising to about 175 m.

Two points of the Struve Geodetic Arc are on it — the 19th-century chain of survey points from Norway to the Black Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It was Finnish until 1940; it belongs to Russia now.

Pakri THE LIMESTONE CLIFF

The Pakri lighthouse (1889), about 52 m high, is the tallest in Estonia, on top of the North Estonian Klint.

The klint — a limestone escarpment — runs along the whole north coast of Estonia; here it falls straight into the sea.

Paldiski behind it was a Soviet training centre for nuclear submarine crews until 1994.

Kronstadt THE FORTRESS ISLAND

Kronstadt on Kotlin island was founded by Peter the Great in 1704 to close the sea road to his new capital; its forts stand in the water on both sides of the fairway.

The Naval Cathedral (1913), a copy of Hagia Sophia with a 70 m dome, is the landmark from the gulf; its floor is a mosaic of sea creatures.

The 25 km flood barrier from Kotlin to both shores closes against the surges that drowned St Petersburg 300 times; ships pass through its navigable gates.

Juminda THE NIGHT THE FLEET DIED

On 28 August 1941 the Soviet Baltic Fleet and some 200 ships evacuated Tallinn for Kronstadt through a German–Finnish minefield laid off Cape Juminda. In one night and a day 62 ships went down and about 15,000 people died — the worst disaster in the history of this sea.

Survivors clung to the mines' moorings; Finnish torpedo boats and German bombers attacked from the flanks. The wrecks lie in 30–80 m of water along the lane you are sailing.

A memorial of stones with ships' names stands on the cape above; every August boats come out to lay wreaths over the field.

Tytärsaari · Bolshoy Tyuters THE ISLAND OF MINES

Tytärsaari was a Finnish fishing island of 400 people until 1940, when it passed to the Soviet Union with the other outer islands after the Winter War; the islanders were resettled on the Finnish mainland and never returned.

Bolshoy Tyuters next to it is still littered with the German ammunition of 1944 — one of the most heavily mined pieces of ground in Europe, cleared only in the 2010s. Landing is forbidden.

Lavansaari · Moshchny A FINNISH ISLAND THAT BECAME A SOVIET BASE

Lavansaari had 1,300 Finnish inhabitants and a church; after 1940 it was a Soviet air and naval base, and in 1944 the Soviet landing forces against the German line started from here.

Today the island is a closed military zone of the Russian border guard; its Finnish graveyard is still there, and its Finnish name is still used on the Finnish side of the water.

Seiskari · Seskar THE PILOTS' ISLAND

Seiskari's Finnish pilots took ships up the gulf to Petrograd for two centuries; its lighthouse of 1858 is one of the oldest in the gulf. Ceded in 1940, the islanders settled near Kotka and Porvoo.

The Finnish–Russian sea border A LINE WITH A HARD HISTORY

The border runs across the gulf between Haapasaari and the outer islands: drawn in the Moscow peace of 1940, confirmed in 1947. Finland lost Viipuri, Karelia and the islands; 420,000 people moved west within weeks, and the state found every family a farm.

The Winter War began on 30 November 1939 on the gulf's shore and in the snow of Karelia; 105 days later the small army held, and the price was this line.

Hanko was leased to the Soviet Union in 1940 and fought over in 1941; Porkkala, west of Helsinki, was leased in 1944 for fifty years and given back in 1956 — Finnish trains crossed it with the shutters down, the 'longest tunnel in Finland'.

The buoys of the border are watched day and night; a yacht keeps well on its side, and the chart marks the limit in a thick purple line.

The great escape of 1944 ACROSS THE SEA IN ANYTHING THAT FLOATED

In September 1944, as the Soviet army came back into Estonia, some 70,000 Estonians fled across the Baltic to Sweden and Germany in fishing boats, yachts and overloaded steamers; thousands were lost in storms and to mines.

The refugees sailed from the west coast and the islands — Hiiumaa, Saaremaa, Pakri — mostly by night; Swedish fishermen and the islands of Gotland received them.

The communities they founded in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Toronto kept the language and the flag for fifty years, until the country was free again in 1991.