Hansa (shopping centre)

Yliopistonkatu (Finnish: [ˈyliˌopistonˌkɑtu]; Swedish: Universitetsgatan; literally "University Street") is a 1,5-kilometer-long street located in the city center of Turku, Finland, running parallel to the Aura River, starting at Kutomonkatu and ending at Koulukatu. Since 2001, the part of Yliopistonkatu between Aurakatu and Humalistonkatu, which is about four hundred meters long, has been a pedestrian street. The area of the current pedestrian street has been Turku's Christmas street since 1948. The Turku Market Square is also located along Yliopistonkatu.Yliopistonkatu is one of the streets in the town plan designed by Carl Ludvig Engel after the Great Fire of Turku. The street was formerly known as the "Russian Church Street" (Venäjän Kirkkokatu) according to the Church of the Holy Martyr Empress Alexandra located along it. In February 1924, the street was named Yliopistonkatu in the building of the former Phoenix Hotel along it, which had been operating since 1922 at the University of Turku. Other options for the street were Kustaa Aadolfin katu and Vapaudenkatu, but Yliopistonkatu took the win. After the university moved to Yliopistonmäki (literally "University Hill") in 1955, initiatives have been taken by the Nomenclature Committee to transform Yliopistonkatu into Mannerheiminkatu, Leningradinkatu or Göteborginkatu. However, the name has remained the same.

Panimoravintola Koulu is a Finnish brewery restaurant in the city of Turku. Koulu (Finnish for "school") is the largest brewery restaurant in Finland and it is situated in a former Neo-Renaissance style school building from 1889 by architects L. I. Lindqvist and Bruno Granholm. The school to first occupy the building was "Svenska Fruntimmerskolan i Åbo", which was later renamed as the "Svenska flickskolan i Åbo" in 1916, again in 1955 when it became "Åbo svenska flicklyseum", until finally in 1966 the name was changed to "Cygnaeus skola". On 4 February 1940, during the Winter War, the school was hit by a Soviet incendiary bomb, which set fire to the roof and destroyed the assembly hall (now known as the Bellman assembly hall). One of the high points in the history of Koulu was the visit of Commander-in-Chief, Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim on 14 February 1941. The school was shut down in 1970. The restaurant was opened in 1998.The restaurant's Bellman assembly hall and cabinets Cygnaeus and Wecksell on the second floor seat altogether 700 people at most and they can be reserved for conferences and private parties. Koulu's Winehouse, History class, Beerhouse, the summer kiosk outside and the brewery are on the first floor.The brewery has four regularly produced beers and one cider. On top of which, the brewery also produces several (at least 12) special or seasonal brews throughout the year. All the beers are made under the regulations of the German purity law, the Reinheitsgebot from 1516. It allows only the use of water, malted barley, hops and yeast.

The Phoenix Hotel was a hotel located in Turku, Finland, on the edge of the Market Square along the street Kirkkokatu (now Yliopistonkatu), which operated from 1878 to 1922. The building was known as the Phoenix House even when it was the main building of the private University of Turku, founded in 1920. The Phoenix House was demolished in 1959.

Turku Market Hall is the second oldest market hall in Finland, and it was opened in 1896 in Turku.

Turku Orthodox Church or the Church of the Holy Martyr Empress Alexandra (Finnish: Turun ortodoksinen kirkko; Russian: Церковь в честь святой мученицы царицы Александры, Cerkov v čest' svjatoj mučenicy cariny Aleksandry; Swedish: Åbo ortodoxa kyrka) is the main church of the Turku Orthodox parish located at the northeast corner of the Turku Market Square along the Yliopistonkatu street in Turku, Finland. The church was built under plans drafted by architect Carl Ludvig Engel and was ordered by Nicholas I of Russia on 5 January 1838. Construction, which began in 1839, cost 67,886 rubles and was completed in 1845. The church was consecrated on 2 September 1845. The church was dedicated to Alexandra, the spouse of Diocletian who had publicly become Christianised and suffered a martyr's death on 23 April 303. The choice of patron saint may have been due to Nicholas I's wife's name, Aleksandra Feodorovna. Most of the icons of the iconostasis come from Valaam Monastery. The Turku Orthodox church cemetery and cemetery chapel are located in Vasaramäki and there are other parish sanctuaries in Rauma and Salo.

The 2017 Turku attack took place on 18 August 2017 at around 16:02–16:05 (UTC+3) when 10 people were stabbed in central Turku, Southwest Finland. Two women were killed in the attack and eight people sustained injuries. Police were informed at 16:02. Three minutes later the attacker, Abderrahman Bouanane, a Moroccan rejected asylum seeker, had been detained. At the time of his arrest, Bouanane was using the name Abderrahman Mechkah, which was later discovered to be a false identity. In June 2018, Bouanane was found guilty of two counts of murder with terrorist intent and eight counts of attempted murder with terrorist intent. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was the first time anybody had been sentenced for a terrorist crime in Finland. Bouanane reportedly identified as a soldier of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He had been radicalised three months before the stabbing took place. During the investigation, he was discovered possessing ISIS propaganda material and a video of him reciting a manifesto.

Turku ( TOOR-koo; Finnish: [ˈturku] (listen); Swedish: Åbo, Finland Swedish: [ˈoːbu] (listen); Latin: Aboa; Russian: Турку, formerly Або; Estonian: Turu) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (Varsinais-Suomi) and the former Turku and Pori Province (Turun ja Porin lääni; 1634–1997). The region was originally called Suomi (Finland), which later became the name for the whole country. As of 31 March 2021, the population of Turku was 194,244 making it the sixth largest city in Finland after Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa and Oulu. There were 281,108 inhabitants living in the Turku Central Locality, ranking it as the third largest urban area in Finland after the Capital Region area and Tampere Central Locality. The city is officially bilingual as 5.2 percent of its population identify Swedish as a mother-tongue.It is unknown when Turku gained city rights. The Pope Gregory IX first mentioned the town Aboa in his Bulla in 1229 and the year is now used as the foundation year of Turku. Turku is the oldest city in Finland, and served as the most important city of the eastern part of the Kingdom of Sweden (modern-day Finland). After the Finnish war, Finland became an autonomous grand duchy of the Russian Empire in 1809, and Turku was made the capital of the grand duchy. However, Turku lost its status as capital only after three years in 1812, when Tsar Alexander I of Russia decided to move the capital to Helsinki. It was only after the last great fire in 1827 that most governmental institutions were moved to Helsinki along with the Royal Academy of Turku (Turun Akatemia) founded in 1640, which then became the University of Helsinki, thus consolidating Helsinki's position as the new capital. Turku continued to be the most populous city in Finland until the end of the 1840s, and it remains the regional capital and an important business and cultural center and port. Because of its long history, it has been the site of many important events, and has extensively influenced Finnish history as the former capital city. Along with Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, Turku was designated the European Capital of Culture for 2011. In 1996, it was declared the "Christmas City" of Finland. Also, Turku has been officially declared the Food Capital of Finland, because it holds a number of Finland's oldest, highest quality restaurants alongside a historically famous fish market, held twice a year. Turku's canteen and café culture has often been compared to French food culture, which is why Turku has also been perceived as "Paris of Finland"; this is also the reason for the Swedish saying: "Varför Paris, vi har ju Åbo!" ("Why Paris, we have Turku!")Due to its location, Turku is a notable commercial and passenger seaport with over three million passengers traveling through the Port of Turku each year to Stockholm and Mariehamn.

The Åbo Bloodbath (Swedish: Åbo blodbad; Finnish: Turun verilöyly) of 10 November 1599 was a public execution in the town of Turku (Åbo), Finland, then part of the Kingdom of Sweden, in the context of the war against Sigismund. Sweden was by then in the final phase of a civil war, with one faction supporting King Sigismund III Vasa, who also was King and Grand Duke of Poland–Lithuania, and another faction supporting Duke Charles of Södermanland, the later Charles IX, Sigismund's paternal uncle. After winning the upper hand in the dispute, Charles crushed the last resistance to his rule, particularly in Finland, while Sigismund had already retreated to Poland. The forces opposing Charles in Finland were led by Arvid Stålarm and Axel Kurck (Kurk), who both became Charles's prisoners after the surrender of Åbo castle and further strongholds. Together with other prisoners, including two sons of Finland's previous commander, Clas (Klaus) Fleming, they were tried by a jury speedily assembled from Charles' followers, and sentenced to death. Fleming's sons and twelve others were then beheaded in Åbo's Town Hall Square, while Stålarm and Kurck were sent to Linköping where they were tried and condemned again along with other captured opposition leaders. However, Stålarm and Kurck also survived the subsequent Linköping Bloodbath.

The siege of Åbo (1563) was a siege of Åbo by the royal army under Eric XIV against his brother, John III, in 1563.

The Market Square (Finnish: Kauppatori, Swedish: Salutorget) is a city square in the city of Turku, in Finland. It is located in the city's VI District, and is generally considered the city's central square. It hosts a lively market on weekdays, and there are several cafés and restaurants on the square. The buildings around the Market Square are also part of the city's central business district. They include, for instance, the Hansa and Forum shopping centres, the Wiklund department store, an Orthodox church, a private medical clinic, and several instances of media such as an office of Finland's major newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, locally most significant newspaper Turun Sanomat and Yle.

Betel Church (Finnish: Turun Adventtiseurakunta Betel-kirkko, Swedish: Betel-kyrkan) is located in the VII District of Turku, Finland. It is a church of the Turku adventism parish. The jugend-style church was completed in 1906 under the plans of Frithiof Strandell. It was later renovated under the plans of Erik Bryggman in 1927 and has a functional bell tower, among others. The church is actually quite hidden from pedestrians. In recent years, there have been suggestions to open up a walkway from Yliopistonkatu to Puutarhakatu for pedestrians and allow them to better admire the church. The Betel Church is listed amongst the most noted buildings of the culture environment in Finland. In addition to regular services, the church has the vegetarian restaurant KASVIS-ravintola, serving a lunch buffet. The restaurant uses organic and locally grown produce and also has vegan options.

The Qwensel House is the oldest wooden house in Turku, Finland. It is bourgeois housing from the autarchic times that has survived in its entirety. The house was built approximately in the year 1700 in an area that was reserved for the nobility in the city plan made up by Peter Brahe in 1652. Today, the Qwensel House operates as the Turku Pharmacy Museum and café.