Hanko City Hall was completed in September 1926. The building was designed by Armas Lindgren and Bertel Liljequist. Activities in the town hall were lively. There were concerts, plays, dance performances and lectures. Of course, there was also an entire city administration building. In 1941, a continuation war broke out, and Russian troops blew up the town hall as they retreated from the city in December. The current town hall was completed in 1951.
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The Tvärminne Zoological Station was founded by Johan Axel Palmén, Professor of Zoology, in 1902. His goal was to establish a marine field station in an area with a diverse environment and thus good opportunities for research. After his death, the position was transferred as a will to the University of Helsinki in 1919.
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The oldest surviving crane in Hanko Harbor was commissioned in July 1911. Ransomes & Rapier Ltd in London delivered the parts and the engineering firm Zitting & co from Helsinki assembled it. The crane was renovated in 2020.
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The Statue of Liberty was erected in 1921 to commemorate the German landing on April 3, 1918. Ab Granit was responsible for the design work and the sculpture was designed by sculptor Bertel Nilsson. The Statue of Liberty has been controversial since the wars; it was demolished by the council during the lease period and re-erected in 1943. In 1946 the statue was demolished again, but since 1960 the statue has been as it is today with the text “For Our Freedom”.
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Hanko was the most important Departure City for migrants at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. About 250,000 Finns went through the port of Hanko in search of new life. Accommodation capacity in Hanko has always been a problem, and in the early 20th century, there were particularly many immigrants in Hanko who stayed here for a night or two before continuing their journey through England to the United States. The Finnish Steamship Company, which was responsible for the migrants' journey from Finland, decided to build a migrant hotel on the Boulevard in 1902.
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On the dark and rainy evening of October 1957, the motor ship Asa Finn, which was sailing in coal cargo, got lost on the fairway west of Hanko and crashed into the rocks. The mainings of the passing ships rocked the ship and Asa Finn began to fill with water. Captain August Route drove the ship to the nearest shoal where it sank between Lilla and Södra Klippingen. Asa Finn was just one of the names of the ship. During the Prohibition Act, the ship chartered relief for the thirsty from the southern neighbor and it was known by the nickname Pirtu-Veera. The ship was built in 1918 in Norköping, Sweden and was baptized in Wera.
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The steamship Express has a legendary place in Finnish history. The Express was built at Oskarshamn Shipyard in Sweden in 1877, and the ship was ordered by the Finnish company Finska Transito Ångbåts. It was 42.4 m long, 6.9 m wide and 3.5 m deep, with a top speed of 10.7 knots on a 400-horsepower engine. In open water, the journey from Hanko to Stockholm took 17 hours.
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Three nautical miles from the tip of the park cliffs to the east is Sandskär Island. On the quiet summer days of the mid-1920s, the voice of the famous singer Helge Lindberg was far from there. During the summer, he rehearsed 8 concert programs on his own island and gave another hundred concerts across Europe each year. The family's actual hometown was Vienna.
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Poppy Day is celebrated every year on July 27th. It has been celebrated in Hanko since the early days of spa culture, in the late 19th century. Here you can find more information about the history of Poppy Day in Hanko.
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