New Cityscapes Shot Yesterday + Local History

I took these when my daughter and I had some errands to run yesterday.

Mornings really are darker now.

The trees are also more barren than just a few weeks ago. According to the weather forecast, the balmy weather of early autumn will be over next week. I'm going to have to put my summer uniform (shorts+t-shirt) back the closet and change into my winter uniform (jeans+t-shirt+sweater+jacket of some sort).

This one was taken in the afternoon.

As was this one.

That on must have been built in the late 1990's or the early 2000's.

That's a tunnel dug through a rocky hill on the east side of the city center.

On the other side of it there is a district built in the 1950's. The property lots tend to be much larger than those created in later decades.

These houses are of a post-war Swedish model many of which were donated by Sweden right after the war. The houses have a living floor with 2-3 bedrooms and a basement. One district of the city is even called Västerås after a town in Sweden.

This street is Karjalankatu. Before the city of Viipuri which was the second largest city in the country was lost to the Soviet Union for the second and the final time in August 1944, it was completely evacuated. The population moved to other localities around the country. Many ended up in Lahti and the region of Päijänne Tavastia. Many of the most influential merchants and entrepreneurs are descendants of the migrants from Viipuri. An entire village in the lost parts of the Karelian region that is now located in the municipality of Orimattila called Kirvu just south of Lahti migrated as a whole. The community continued life in the rebuilt village named after the old one. I've met middle-aged people who speak the local dialect like most people here but who have retained the ability to speak the dialect spoken by their parents who were migrants from the lost parts of Karelia.

The region of Karelia wasn't completely lost. Its capital since 1944, Lappeenranta, turned into a border town. Lappeenranta University of Technology has a filial in Lahti. The university has expanded considerably in recent years. The local polytechnic was bought by it and the university is now called Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology. There are plans to create an undergraduate degree programme as a joint venture with Hebei University of Technology. 350 Chinese engineering students will begin their studies in English language the degree programmes of energy technology and software engineering starting from September 2021. As a go (weiqi in Chinese) player I'm excited by the arrival of hundreds of Chinese engineering students to the city every each.

A television crime series in the Nordic noir genre about a violent crime unit called Bordertown was on between 2016 and 2020.

Had to drop by the city hospital because of my daughter's ongoing orthodontic treatment, which by the way, is paid for by tax payers and not through a voluntary health insurance.

This is a community college.