Welcome to Museum Road! Welcome to Museum Road! This road, stretching from Hamina’s Tallinmäki neighbourhood to Virojoki, is just over 35 kilometres long, which makes it the longest museum road in Finland. The road runs through countryside and forests. Of the idyllic seaside villages by the road Mäntlahti has been chosen once and Klamila already twice as the Village of the Year in Kymenlaakso.
Colourful history of a thousand years
The road is part of King’s Road, which connected the administrative centres Turku and Vyborg in medieval Finland. The road is also called the Old Vyborg Road or the Great Coastal Road.
In some places, the history of the road stretches as far as the 9th century. The road has been used as a public road since the 15th century, and in the 17th century it became an important part of a post route between Stockholm, the Baltic countries and Russia. In the 18th century, the road gradually became the most important land connection in the Nordic countries.
Museum Road passes by several historical locations between Tallinmäki and Virojoki. In Ravijoki, the road crosses the Salpa Line, a fortification line built in the 1940s, stretching from the Gulf of Finland all the way to Lapland. The history of Harju estate in Ravijoki – today an educational institute – stretches to the 18th century and the times of Russian empress Catherine the Great.
In Virolahti, the road passes the Pyterlahti quarry. From here, tons of rapakivi granite were shipped to St. Petersburg as Tsar Peter the Great was building his new capital. The Alexander Column at St. Petersburg’s Palace Square – the largest monolith in the world – is from Pyterlahti, as well as 48 pillars in St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Quarrying of stone ended as the First World War began.
Museum Road today
The road was re-aligned in the 1850s, and as cars became more common since the 1930s, car traffic requirements have formed the road. Despite the re-alignments Museum Road is still quite similar to what it was in the 18th century, and you can even see a few hundred meters of the original road alignment on Uuno Klamin tie in the Klamila village. Hilly and curvy, the road is especially popular among motorcyclists. The road was given a museum road status in 1982.
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