Ehrensvärd Society

The Ehrensvärd Society: background and activity

The Ehrensvärd Society was found in 1921 to inform the public about Suomenlinna fortress and its history. In order to attain its ideal goal, the Ehrensvärd Society maintains the Ehrensvärd Museum, the guided tours of Suomenlinna, publishes literature, develops tourist services and arranges an adventurous tour for children based on historical facts. The Society has produced the wide-screen presentation ”Suomenlinna Experience”, which tells about the history of the fortress.

The Ehrensvärd Society found the Ehrensvärd Museum in the 1930's and maintains it still. The museum collections have been increased by acquisitions from the Swedish and Russian time-eras in the fortress' history. The Ehrensvärd Museum has always been free of charge for school groups.

In order to finance its activities the Ehrensvärd Society maintains Café Piper, the Museum Shop and the Artillery Bay Kiosk.

The Ehrensvärd Society has answered for the guide activity at Suomenlinna since 1963, educated and authorized skilled guides and offered tourist information. In the education of the guides the Ehrensvärd Society has used the best specialists.

The Ehrensvärd Society organizes regular guided tours from 1st of June to end of August in Finnish, English and Swedish and in the wintertime in English. The Society also organizes guided tours by reservation in 16 different languages for approx. 1000 groups a year, from which approx. 200 are school groups. School groups from the 5th and 6th grades of the elementary school in Helsinki has been granted the year 2007 financial support from the Helsinki city local education department for educational program at Suomenlinna.

The adventurous tour for children, ”The Quest of the Lost Crown” was introduced in 1998. More than 70 000 people have participated in the tour and in 2007 the tour celebrates its 10th summer. To celebrate this a new tour ”The Secret of the Enchanted Vault” will be introduced.