Kluuvi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kluuvi (Swedish: Gloet) is the commercial centre of Helsinki, Finland, and a district in the Vironniemi area of Helsinki. The Helsinki Central railway station, the Helsinki main post office, the Stockmann and Sokos department stores, the Kluuvi shopping centre and the main offices of Finnish banks are located in Kluuvi. From a cultural aspect, Kluuvi includes the central campus of the University of Helsinki, the Ateneum art museum and the movie theatres Maxim, Kinopalatsi and Bristol.

The district has 23,000 jobs and a couple hundred inhabitants.

The Finnish word kluuvi means a bay that is growing closed. The district was originally a bay in the Gulf of Finland, growing closed with swamps. The odour of rotting seaweed and other plants can still be smelled in construction sites. The Kluuvi bay was filled in the end of the 19th century.

The Helsinki Metro construction found a kluuvi in practice in the district, when the place where the metro tunnel was supposed to go didn't have a solid rock base after all.