Oulu Castle ( sv, Uleåborgs slott,The original 16th-century Swedish name contains the Swedish word for castle twice as both "borg" and "slott" mean castle. This is likely because the probable name "Uleåborg" (Oulu Castle) of the short-lived 14th-century castle was also established as the Swedish name of the near-by settlement and eventually that of the town of

Oulu Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after: ...

. Thus the word "slott" was added to the later castle's name to separate it from the settlement. fi, Oulun linna) was a late defense castle in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. It was built on an island in the delta of

Oulu River Oulujoki is a river in Oulu province, Finland. Its name in Finnish means literally "Oulu River" ( sv, Ule älv), originally in old Northern Ostrobothnian dialect literally "Flood River". Its origin is Oulujärvi and its watershed area covers ...

in 1590. The castle was mostly made of wood and earth walls. There probably was an earlier medieval castle on the same site latest by 1375. The Russian '' Sophia Chronicle'' has recorded that men from

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...

tried to conquer a new castle in the Oulu River delta in 1377 but were unsuccessful. Exhibition Castle Ruins Oulu 20210701 02

The present-day ruins on the Linnansaari island remain from an even later castle, which was built in 1605 by order of King Charles IX. The king's power of attorney of April 8, 1605, first orders the construction of

Kajaani Castle Kajaani Castle (Finnish: ''Kajaanin linna'', Swedish: ''Kajaneborg'', ''Kajaneborgs slott'', older spelling ''Cajanaborg'') was built on the Ämmäkoski island of the Kajaani River in the centre of Kajaani, Finland, in the 17th century. Today, on ...

and then orders the rebuilding of Oulu Castle. According to the order, the old wooden structures had to be demolished and a rampart with

fire shelter A fire shelter is a safety device of last resort used by wildland firefighters when trapped by wildfires. While such a shelter cannot withstand sustained contact with flames, it can protect a firefighter's life in a short-lived grass fire. Furtherm ...

s had to be built around the island. The castle was badly damaged in 1715, when Russian forces burned it during the

Great Northern War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedi ...

. Final destruction of the castle took place on July 31, 1793, at 10:45 p.m., when lightning set the other one of the

powder magazines Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition or other explosive material is stored. It is taken originally from the Arabic word "makhāzin" (مخازن), meaning 'storehouses', via Italian and Middle French. The term is als ...

on fire; as a result, the powder cellar exploded and destroyed the building almost completely. Tahtitorni Oulu 2006 04 02

Wooden constructions on the remaining powder magazine date from 1875 when the Oulu School of Sea Captains built their observatory on the site. The building was designed by architect Wolmar Westling. The building has been a cafeteria since 1912 with a small exhibition on the castle history.

References

External links

Oulu Castle history

Oulu Castle’s stone cellar - Visit Oulu
Castles in Finland

Castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

Buildings and structures in Oulu Koskikeskus {{Finland-castle-stub

See also

References

External links