Saimaa Canal - a short history
By Leena Härkönen
The 16th century: A plan is drawn up by Erik Turesson Bielke, the commander of the Olavinlinna and Vyborg castles, to link the Saimaa waterway with the sea.
1607-1608: Admiral Bengt Juusten attempts to dig a canal on the orders of King
Charles IX of Sweden. A channel about half a kilometre long was dug.
1638: Regent Peter Brahe proposes that the canal project be resumed. The proposal never came to fruition.
1844-1856: The first Saimaa Canal was dug on orders of Tsar Nicholas I The canal, about 60 kilometres long, had 28 locks. At the opening ceremony in Vyborg the celebrations were so intense that a fire broke out in a tower of the city's castle. The vessels travelling along the canal were either barges or small steam-powered vessels. Tugboats also pulled scows loaded with timber. Passengers were taken between Vyborg and Lappeenranta, and on shorter routes. The canal helped turn Vyborg into Finland's largest city of commerce.
The late 19th century: The Saimaa Canal underwent repairs and expansions, but this was not enough to accommodate the massive surge in traffic in the early 20th century. The greatest problem was the slow operation of the locks.
The 1920s: The old canal was in poor shape and congested. In 1926 a million tonnes of freight were transported on it.
1927: Extensive rebuilding started. Locks were modernised and some of the bends were straightened out. The work was still going on when the Winter War broke out in 1939. During the war, the Finns used the canal as a tank barrier.
In the summer of 1940 there was no traffic in the canal. The peace treaty cut the Saimaa Canal in half. The Soviet Union did not use its part of the canal, and left it to deteriorate.
1941: Finns started repairing the canal after regaining control of it during the Continuation War.
1944: After the Continuation War the canal was cut off again. In the 1940s and 1950s Finland held talks with the Soviet Union on the right to use the part of the canal that was now in Soviet hands.
1962: Under a 50-year lease agreement, the Soviet Union leased the canal to Finland from 1963.
1964-1968: The third construction of the canal begins. The route of the canal on the Soviet side followed the old one, but on the Finnish side the canal was almost completely rebuilt. Finland paid the costs.
1968: In August President Urho Kekkonen cut the ribbon spanning the canal at Mustola. The Finnish side of the canal is 23.3 kilometres long, and on the Russian side it is 19.6 kilometres. There are eight locks, and the difference in elevation from Lake Saimaa to the Gulf of Finland is an average 75.7 metres.
1976: The first visa-free cruises to Vyborg began, and up to 30,000 passengers per season availed themselves of the opportunity. In 2002 Russia started requiring visas of all passengers, sharply reducing the popularity of Saimaa Canal cruises.
2001: Goods transport on the Saimaa Canal exceeded two million tonnes for the first time.
2004: Goods transport exceeded 2.4 million tonnes.
Summer of 2006: There were 12,500 cruise passengers. Goods traffic is not expected to exceed 1.2 million tonnes. The number of pleasure boats using the canal is also decreasing. An increasing proportion of the pleasure boaters are Russian.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.9.2006
More on this subject:
 Saimaa Canal: political symbol for 150 years
LEENA HÄRKÖNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
leena.harkonen@hs.fi
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