HOW THE VISIT OF SWEDISH ROYALS MADE SMALL TOWN LOVIISA COME ALIVE AGAIN, IF ONLY FOR A DAY

“One would guess there would be more people in the square,” said a local woman in her 60s to a man staring at the Town Hall Square on Thursday afternoon in the city center of the southern small town of Loviisa.

“I am sure, there will be more,” the man said.

The clock was about quarter to one, the weather was warm, and the sun was peeking from behind thin clouds.

About half an hour later, masses started swarming into the area covered with squared stones, or setts, where the police were observing from the corners.

The nearby parking lots were empty for security reasons, but the cars that were parked within walking distance from the Town Hall Square would have had a hard time carrying the hundreds of people that seemed to appear from nowhere. There’s no functional public transport system in Loviisa—buses pass by now and then; sometimes not at all.

Maybe the people crawled out of some secret tunnels, I thought, some subterranean passageways used for religious practice … an unbeknownst underbelly only locals can navigate? To gnaw into the flesh of the matter, I later read a 400-page history book of the town’s past (Loviisan kaupungin historia 1745-1995 – Olle Sirén), but it had no mention of an invisible city, or catacombs, for that matter.

But never mind that … some of the crowd consisted of students from kindergarten to high school and some of the schools—Finnish and Swedish—were located within about half a kilometer from the square, so it made sense they were there. While the pupils enjoyed a day off school, in contrast, many adults were stuck in the city’s few workplaces.

“I am sure there will be a lot of pensioners. Loviisa is full of them,” a local called “Blinky” said on the phone. He was cooped up for the workday in a factory. I called Blinky through our mutual contact, another Loviisian called “Deadeye” Dan. He, too, was stuck and had a day job.

By half past one, it was clear that many people who had come to witness this once-in-a-lifetime event were above 60 years of age.

Many were very familiar, others fanatical, with the life of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden.

A man in his mid-60s Pekka Linnainmaa who traveled 165 kilometers from Pälkäne near Tampere in central Finland to Loviisa—whom I saw waving the Finnish and Swedish flag in the crowd and who was being interviewed by a small-town journalist— said that “I am a royalist in my mind. I am a fan of the royal leadership!”

Another out-of-towner who was happy to introduce her hobby in a local paper included Sinikka Haaksiluoto from Vantaa. She described herself as a “super-royalist.” She had just arrived from the 50th jubilee of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden that took place a week ago in Stockholm.

“I felt a bit ashamed to be asking for a vacation again!” she was quoted laughing.

When the royal convoy arrived around 13:40, people seemed scared to breathe.

A black car arrived in front of the Town Hall. Prince Daniel exited from the back door facing the public. Crown Princess Victoria came out from the opposite side, and it seemed that she was more interested in greeting the crowd than in any official handshakes with the city officials.

At this point, most of the crowd was quiet, but when a moment later the royal couple appeared on the balcony of the Town Hall, a male voice in the crowd began screaming “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

The ice was broken. Now at least half of the crowd joined the cheering.

Princess Victoria placed her palms on her chest as a sign of gratitude and then opened them as if taking the long-live-the-king appreciation into her heart.

Victoria was wearing a burgundy ensemble; Daniel a blue-gray suit. The Princess had swept her hair in a neat bun. The Prince’s shiny, short hair was parted at the side, and he looked curious with his oval glasses.

After more waving and smiling, the royals exited the building and, as it was revealed in newspapers earlier, began their stroll toward the Old Town.

The city gave the crowd clear instructions if they attempted to follow the royal couple: to avoid congestion, they should choose to stand in one of three locations: the Town Hall Square, the Old Shore, or the Queen’s Shore.

Following the royal entourage would not be possible.

The town of Loviisa, firstly known as Degerby, was originally founded by the Swedish government in 1745 as a fortified town, when at the end of the Russo-Swedish War, Sweden ceded to Russia its eastern areas, including the fortress of Olavinlinna and the cities of Lappeenranta and Hamina.

Thus, a multi-span fortress was built at the bottom of the Gulf of Loviisa to guard the coast against the Russians in case they attempted another invasion.

However, the soil by the Loviisa River proved too soft, leading to the abandonment of the fortress plans. The bastion walls of Ungern and Rosen, rising among rampant weeds, and the Svartholm fortress in the Gulf of Loviisa are all that remain of the fortifications in Loviisa.

None of them played a significant role in the wars that followed nearly two hundred years later, but Finland gained its independence from Sweden and later from Russia through the power of sisu.

Later, Ungern became a rustic camping site in the 1990s. Svartholm, which attracted 16,500 visits in 2021—about 1,500 more people than the town’s current population—is considered the sister fortress of Suomenlinna. In comparison, Suomenlinna, its “big sister,” draws a million visitors annually in Helsinki.

The visit of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel carried a touch of history.

Loviisa, after all, was named after Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (Loviisa Ulrika), the Queen of Sweden from 1751 to 1771. When King Adolf Frederick of Sweden visited the sea fortress Svartholm with his spouse in 1752, their royal sloop ran aground near an island called Dunkahäll. The stone where the sloop got stuck was later named “The King’s Rock.”

Upon finally arriving in Svartholm, the King was not entirely satisfied with the quality of the bricks used in some constructions. However, the area’s military significance impressed him, and he referred to the city as “the Key of Finland.” After that, it was clear the city would be named after his Queen, Loviisa.

Later, the King died tragically by choking on 14 Shrove buns after a heavy meal, but his followers, according to the history book, visited Loviisa at least ten times.

A hundred years later, Loviisa developed a rich cultural life, especially in music, during the spa period from 1880 to 1917. Today, festivals and concerts are rare, except in the summer when local entrepreneurs, through their connections, bring jazz groups and others to the Old Shore. Particularly at the Ship Bridge, old red salt sheds embellish the view, and visitors can reportedly enjoy a quality meal.

The spa burned down in 1936, 28 years after the casino built by famous Finnish architect Lars Sonck in 1899. Both buildings had survived the city’s burning in 1855, which destroyed almost a hundred wooden residential buildings. Subsequently, the Town Hall and the area around the city center were rebuilt with stone.

These events are major turning points in Loviisa’s history. In the years to come—except for citizens opening their doors to strangers in their old wooden homes during a summer mass event—nothing has been done to reimagine the culture-rich glory days of the small town.

Today, Loviisa is famous for its nuclear power plant and its Soviet-designed reactors that began operating in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many locals fondly remember the construction period of the ’70s. “It brought hundreds of jobs to the area,” said a man nearing 80. “In fact, many children conceived back then are today’s engineers!”

Outsiders who visited the city were sometimes unsure of what to think about the Nuclear Town. Deadeye Dan still remembered being harassed 20 years ago by a national radio journalist from the capital region. In an interview, the reporter repeatedly asked, “How does it feel to live next to a nuclear plant?” Dan, whom I once saw empty the pool table in eight consecutive games of nine-ball while shouting, “I am the King of pool!” this time had nothing to say.

In his mind, if the nuclear core suddenly melted down, the radio journalist would be just as doomed, as would the rest of the country—including the neighbors.

Mayor Jan D. Oker-Blom of Loviisa, who conceived the visit of the Swedish royals, took hurried steps in a dark suit next to the Crown Princess, chatting casually in the Old Town. He revealed in an earlier interview that it took two years of strategy, relationships and perseverance to make the visit happen. “A diligent correspondence with the Swedish court for almost two years,” according to the Mayor, “helped the cause for sure.”

Initially, Oker-Blom had hoped for Victoria to attend the opening of the Housing Fair in July, but it didn’t fit the Princess’s schedule. Blinky remembered hearing that the event attracted around 107,000 visitors. “50,000 of them had never visited Loviisa,” he recalled.

“You have such a beautiful city!” Princess Victoria exclaimed while walking on the cobblestones of Sepänkuja (Blacksmith Alley) amidst the old wooden houses from the 18th and 19th centuries. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people lined the small sand alleys in honor of the Prince and Princess, waving Finnish and Swedish flags, united by smiles and sincere joy. The whole sight was surreal.

Some in the crowd were descendants of Finnish war children who found sanctuary in Sweden in the 1940s when Russian planes flew overhead to the sound of constant air raid sirens. Crown Princess Victoria paused her stroll to listen to some of these stories.

The tales echoed the times when the famous Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck, whose works can be admired in Finland’s largest art museum, Ateneum, and were recently displayed in London, resided in Loviisa in 1941 during her final years. The 79-year-old artist sought peace but found herself spending time in the cellar of the elderly home as Russian bombs wreaked havoc from the sky.

Asmall town like Loviisa, which for much of its history had a population under 10,000, may not offer much to its residents these days beyond a few services and peace and quiet. It’s a place where tourists seeking a Hilton find Zilton, a hotel with nine rooms and a small nightclub playing yesterday’s hits. Yet, for many who “want to be left alone,” this is sometimes enough. “It’s nice to visit Helsinki,” said a local man with family and children. “But it annoys me to think about living in the middle of nowhere when driving through a snowstorm to take my children to the nearest hospital, about 40 kilometers away in Porvoo.”

Loviisa, like many small towns, suffers from municipal mergers where basic needs are centralized in the nearest larger town while the population “grows” by including scarcely inhabited bordering villages within about 20 kilometers, hoping to receive more government support.

Therefore, marketing tricks or not, the royal visit was much needed and appreciated by the town’s residents. Due to the Housing Fair in the summer, where modern detached houses were built by the sea, and one even floats on the water, the nearby area named Kuningattarenranta (The Queen’s Shore) offers a vast oak forest for forest bathing, and Loviisa has been featured in the news across the country more often than usual.

So, when Crown Princess Victoria concluded her speech at the inauguration ceremony at The Queen’s Shore, where she arrived with her Prince, saying, “this place can give you a sense of harmony between nature and freedom, between history and the future, and that here you will feel the closeness between our countries,” and then unveiled the nameplate for Victorianaukio (Victoria’s Square), followed by applause and fanfare, it felt as if we had time-traveled back to the 18th century. With a twist.

When the Princess and the Prince left the town, not a soul passed through the Town Hall Square in the afternoon, and the iron barricades used to control the crowd were the only reminders that Loviisa was lively, if only for a moment.

It was eerily quiet again.