Tikkurila (; ) is a district and major region of the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Vantaa Vantaa (; , ) is a city in Finland. It is located to the north of the capital, Helsinki, in southern Uusimaa. The population of Vantaa is approximately . It is the most populous municipality in Finland. Vantaa is part of the Helsinki Metropoli ...

, Finland. Located in the eastern half of the Helsinki conurbation, some north of the capital's downtown district, it is the administrative and commercial hub of Vantaa, although Myyrmäki is a rival commercial hub within the municipality. Tikkurila's most popular attraction is the science center Heureka. Tikkurila railway station is the busiest in Vantaa and third-busiest in Finland. As the nearest mainline station to

Helsinki Airport Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (, ) , or simply Helsinki Airport, is the main international airport serving Helsinki, the capital of Finland, as well as its surrounding Helsinki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the Uusimaa region in Finland. ...

(located from Tikkurila), it is served by all the high-speed

Pendolino Pendolino (from Italian language, Italian "pendulum", and ''-ino,'' a diminutive suffix) is an Italian family of high-speed tilting trains (and non-tilting) used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, the Czech Republic, ...

trains on the Helsinki to

Tampere Tampere is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Pirkanmaa. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Tampere is approximately , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately . It is the most populous mu ...

and

Lahti Lahti (; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Päijät-Häme. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Lahti is approximately , while the Lahti sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately . It is the mo ...

routes as well as other long-distance services. Some of the other communities surrounding Tikkurila are Jokiniemi, Simonkylä, Ruskeasanta, Hiekkaharju, and Puistola in the

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

municipality.

History

Tikkurila has been a marketplace since the 16th century, from which it has also received its name. ''Tikkuri'' is an old Finnish term referring to an amount of ten, used in

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

at the time. The road between

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

and

Vyborg Vyborg (; , ; , ; , ) is a town and the administrative center of Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of Vyborg Bay, northwest of St. Petersburg, east of the Finnish capital H ...

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents) is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

, ran through the area, though the area remained a sparsely populated piece of the Helsinki Parish until the late 1800s. In 1862, the railway between Helsinki and

Hämeenlinna Hämeenlinna (; ; ; or ''Croneburgum'') is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Kanta-Häme. It is located in the southern interior of the country and on the shores of Vanajavesi, Lake Vanajavesi. The population of Hämeenlinna is appr ...

was constructed, and one of its seven stations was built in Tikkurila, on its intersection with King's Road. The Swedish architect Carl Albert Edelfelt designed a

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...

styled station building, which (as of the 1970s) has since been adapted into the Vantaa City Museum. The railway brought industry into the area, including an

expeller pressing Expeller pressing (also called oil pressing) is a mechanical method for extracting oil from raw materials. The raw materials are squeezed under high pressure in a single step. When used for the extraction of food oils, typical raw materials ar ...

plant, which currently operates in the area as the paint manufacturer Tikkurila Oyj. The railway also induced population growth. In 1946, Tikkurila became the administrative hub of Vantaa (then known as ''Helsingin maalaiskunta'', ), after Malmi was transferred to Helsinki. Post-war population growth led to Tikkurila becoming the most populated area in Vantaa, though the Myyrmäki district and major region have both since become more populated than the Tikkurila equivalents. In 1960, a neofuturistic

swimming hall A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...

was completed in Tikkurila.

Culture

Finland's largest science center, Heureka, is located in Tikkurila. Opened in 1989, it is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

devoted to popularizing scientific information and to developing the methods used to teach science and scientific concepts. The hemispheric-shaped

planetarium A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is ...

primarily presents films dealing with

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

; until 2007, the theatre was called the Verne Theatre, and it ran super films and multimedia programmes made with special slide projectors that took advantage of the entire 500 m2 surface of the hemispheric screen. Vantaa City Museum is a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

located in the old station building of Tikkurila railway station. It is operated by the city with free admission, and conducts diverse research and mapping work in co-operation with other parties, for example in connection with the

archeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeolo ...

cultural history Cultural history records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) helped found cultural history ...

and

tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...

s of the urban area. It is used to host exhibitions publishing its own research and studies as well as other works related to the city's history. Tikkurila also hosts an annual

music festival A music festival is a festival, community event with music, performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock music, rock, blues, folk music, folk, jazz, classical music), nation ...

, Tikkurila Festivaali, from July to August.Tikkurila Festival
(in Finnish)

Services and facilities

Tikkurila is home to several services and facilities: * Helsinki Metropolia University Lummetie campus * Laurea University of Applied Sciences campus * National Bureau of Investigation headquarters * Shopping center Dixi at the railway station * Shopping center Tikkuri * Tikkurila Library, the main library of Vantaa * Tikkurila Upper Secondary school, the largest high school in Finland * Vantaa city hall

Transportation

Tikkurila railway station is the busiest

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

in Vantaa, and the third busiest in all of Finland (after Helsinki Central and

Pasila Pasila (; , ) is a part of Helsinki, Finland, that is both a central-northern Subdivisions of Helsinki, neighbourhood and district, bordering the areas of Alppila to the south, the Central Park (Keskuspuisto) to the west, and Vallila to the east ...

). Although the

is not located in the Tikkurila major region, Tikkurila railway station is the nearest mainline station to it, connected by the Ring Rail Line and buses. Tikkurila railway station connections include: * Mainline station long-distance trains to most Finnish cities and Russia * P-train to Helsinki * K- and N-trains to Helsinki and

Kerava Kerava (; ) is a town in Finland, located in the southern interior of the country. Kerava is situated in the centre of the Uusimaa region. The population of Kerava is approximately . It is the most populous Municipalities of Finland, municipality ...

* H-, R-, and T-trains to Helsinki and

Riihimäki Riihimäki (; ) is a town and municipality in the south of Finland, about north of Helsinki and southeast of Tampere. An important railway junction is located in Riihimäki, since railway tracks from Riihimäki lead to Helsinki, Tampere and La ...

* Z-train to

* I-train to

Tikkurila also acts as the central bus station of eastern Vantaa, with connections to Helsinki Airport and almost all residential areas. Buses from Tikkurila also go to Helsinki.

Ring III Kehä III (''"ring three"'', ''National road 50''; or or ; or ) is an important Highways in Finland, highway in Southern Finland. It is the outermost of the three beltways in Helsinki capital region, and the first one to be built. It lies ac ...

, which runs in the southern part of Tikkurila, is one of the most significant road connections in the area for car traffic.

References

External links