Bedtime Facts (181/365)

Lahti is known for its radio history, winter sports and furniture industry

When the Finnish Broadcasting Company was looking for a place for the first radio station outside of the capital city in the 1920's, Lahti was chosen because of its convenient location with respect to the most densely populated areas of the country. The highest point of the First Salpauselkä chain of ridges, Tiirismaa happens to be about 10 km west of Lahti. There is a television and radio mast today. The first two radio masts were built in the immediate vicinity of the city on a hill.

The radio masts from the north photographed over Lake Pikku-Vesijärvi

I have shown the ski jumping hills and the ski stadium in my previous post. The existence of the stadium is also an accident of geography. The First Salpauselkä chain of gravel and moraine ridges is about 500 km long and it was formed when the last ice age was ending. The retreating ice would sometimes stop for a few hundred years during which time the melting ice would cause gravel to accumulate and form a chain of ridges. One of the historical roads from Turku in the southwest corner of the country to Viipuri in the southeast of the country was built along the ridges probably because they were less susceptible to frost heave in the spring. Water permeates the gravel. Also, the ridge formations caused lakes to form on their northern side and because people used boats a lot to get around in past centuries, settlements formed along the ridges. For example, the capital of the historical province of Häme, the castle of which I made a post about yesterday is on a chain of ridges along which one of the roads from Turku to Viipuri runs and also along the waterway (a system of lakes and rivers) connecting it with Pori on the western coast.

Because of the geographical factors mentioned above, furniture industry developed in Lahti. Timber was easy to transport to Lahti from the central parts of the country via Lake Päijänne and Lake Vesijärvi. In 1869, the construction of the Riihimäki-Lahti section of the Helsinki - St. Petersburg railway was completed. The two large furniture manufacturing companies, Asko and Isku were founded in the first two decades of the 20th century.

A map of the Salpausselkä Ridge Systems

Image Credit

Yet another consequence of local geography was that breweries were founded in Lahti. The local water quality is superb because of the gravel and moraine ridges. The water is very clean and rich in minerals and thus tasty. The biggest brewery in Lahti is the Hartwall Brewery a few kilometres out side the centre cornered by the Helsinki- St. Petersburg railway and the E4 motorway running north to south. There is also a large malthouse, Viking Malt, that large quantities of malt or export and domestic consumption.