Eliel Square

Vltava is the largest Czech restaurant in Finland, located in central Helsinki. It was opened in spring 2005 to a Jugend architecture building protected by the Finnish National Board of Antiquities, located on the Elielinaukio square, between the Helsinki Central railway station and the main building of the Finnish post office. The name of the restaurant comes from the Vltava river (Moldau in German), running through Prague and the Czech Republic. The restaurant is owned by HOK-Elanto.

Library 10 (Finnish: Kirjasto 10; Swedish: Bibliotek 10) was a music and information technology space for the Helsinki City Library system from 2005 to 2018 in the Postitalo building in the center of Helsinki. When it closed on 30 September 2018, Library 10's services were transferred to the new Helsinki Central Library Oodi, which opened on 5 December 2018.Library 10 had the largest collection of music in the Helsinki City Library system, including recordings, sheet music and books inherited from the Music Station (Finnish: Musiikkiasemalta), which previously been maintained at the main City Library in Pasila. Its IT functions, as well as the collections of comics, film books, and travel guides, were inherited from the library's Kirjakaapeli experimental office.In 2008, Library 10 had some 600,000 visitors, mostly male and mostly between the ages of 19 and 35. About 20 percent of Library 10's 800 m2 (8,600 sq ft) of floor space was devoted to physical collections versus 80 percent to people. Of this area, 56 m2 (600 sq ft) was devoted to 12 m2 (130 sq ft) suites for audio editing, video editing, recording, and listening, along with a 20 m2 (220 sq ft) meeting room. An additional 25 m2 (270 sq ft) stage/performance space was also available, doubling as reading space with chairs and tables when events were not occurring. Beyond its public space, Library 10 had an additional 170 m2 (1,800 sq ft) of administrative and storage space.The library regularly hosted events, such as exhibitions, concerts, panels, and presentations. Library 10 was also known for its other innovative projects, including a public 3D printer. Operating as a makerspace, Library 10 included not just recording equipment and 3D printers, but also classes training people to use them.

The Central Railway Station metro station (Finnish: Rautatientorin metroasema, Swedish: Järnvägstorgets metrostation) is a station on the Helsinki Metro. The entrance is located in the Asematunneli main hall, which has an exit to the Helsinki Central Railway Station. It is among the only Helsinki Metro stations whose names are announced in English, in addition to Finnish and Swedish. As one of the original metro stations, Central Railway Station was opened on 1 July 1982 and was designed by Rolf Björkstam, Erkki Heino, and Eero Kostiainen. It is located 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) from Kamppi metro station, and 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi) from University of Helsinki metro station. The station is situated at a depth of 27 metres (89 ft) below ground level and 22 metres (72 ft) below sea level. On 8 November 2009 a water main burst, flooding and causing significant damage to the underground station complex. On February 15, 2010 the station reopened for public use.

Sanomatalo (Swedish: Sanomahuset) is a commercial and office building in central Helsinki, Finland, to the north of Postitalo and the Helsinki Central railway station and to the south of the Helsinki Music Centre. It has twelve floors of which three are underground. The building was designed by professor Jan Söderlund and architect Antti-Matti Siikala and it was completed in 1999. It was the first "glassy" building in Helsinki, and environmentalists protested against the glass walls because they might cause bird deaths. There have also been protests against the building because it had two additional floors built contrary to the zoning plan.Sanoma sold the building in 2014 to a German building fund for a sum of 176 million Euro and remained in the building as a tenant.The offices of Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat, Taloussanomat, Radio Rock, Radio Suomipop, Loop, Helmiradio, HitMix, and Me Naiset Radio are located in open offices at the top floors of the building. The two lower floors are commercial and exhibition spaces: they include for example an R-kioski branch. The building also has a blood donation point of the Finnish Red Cross. The addresses of the building are Töölönlahdenkatu 2, Alvar Aallon kuja 2, and Postikuja 2.

Helsinki Central Station (Finnish: Helsingin päärautatieasema, Swedish: Helsingfors centralstation) (HEC) is the main station for commuter rail and long-distance trains departing from Helsinki, Finland. The station is used by approximately 400,000 people per day, of which about 200,000 are passengers. It serves as the terminus for all trains in the Helsinki commuter rail network, as well as for all Helsinki-bound long-distance trains in Finland. The Rautatientori (Central Railway Station) metro station is located in the same building. The station building was designed by Eliel Saarinen and inaugurated in 1919. Helsinki Central was chosen as one of the world's most beautiful railway stations by BBC in 2013.

On 4 January 2010 at the Helsinki Central Station, four empty passenger carriages overran the buffers of platform 13. The carriages had broken free of their train during a shunting manoeuvre and ran under gravity down the gentle hill from Linnunlaulu before being diverting into an empty platform and impacting the buffers at 20–30 kilometres per hour.The eight-carriage train arriving from the depot had been due to form the 08:12 departure running from Helsinki to Kajaani, through central Finland via Lahti and Kuopio. The formation which broke away consisted of three double-decker "Intercity 2" carriages, followed by a single-decker restaurant car. The runaway carriages were quickly detected and deliberately routed into one of the shorter commuter platforms (fitted with large concrete barriers beyond the buffers) in order to minimise damage to the main station area. Passengers aboard an adjacent commuter train waiting to depart were ordered to leave their train and run away from the area and announcements were made over the station's loudspeaker system. The first carriage of the four runaway cars mounted the concrete barrier. Members of the public in an Ernst & Young office beyond the end of the platform and those in the Holiday Inn hotel above the platforms all escaped without injury. The first carriage then struck the hotel's conference room, causing extensive damage to the room. The conductor aboard the train as it came in sustained light injuries to their arm, with nobody else injured.Services had resumed—at a reduced level by the afternoon—following repairs to damage to the overhead line. The Finnish Accident Investigation Board announced that they would proceed with an investigation into why the brakes had not automatically applied. A restaurant car and one of the passenger carriages were towed to the depot by a diesel locomotive during the course of the night, after which the front carriage was partially dragged back out of the hotel building. The building that had taken the force of the crash was deemed to be structurally sound.On 18 January 2010 the Finnish Accident Investigation Board made available their interim report which concluded that the incident had been caused by a combination of bad weather and then human error. Initially, snow and ice had caused the front carriages to detach from the rest of the train; followed by the guard having released the brakes manually—not realizing that the two halves of the train were no longer coupled.

Helsinki ( HEL-sink-ee or (listen) hel-SINK-ee; Finnish: [ˈhelsiŋki] (listen); Swedish: Helsingfors, Finland Swedish: [helsiŋˈforsː] (listen); Latin: Helsingia) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 658,864. The city's urban area has a population of 1,268,296, making it by far the most populous urban area in Finland as well as the country's most important center for politics, education, finance, culture, and research; while Tampere in the Pirkanmaa region, located 179 kilometres (111 mi) to the north from Helsinki, is the second largest urban area in Finland. Helsinki is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 km (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties with these three cities. Together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen (and surrounding commuter towns, including the eastern neighboring municipality of Sipoo), Helsinki forms the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which has a population of over 1.5 million. Often considered to be Finland's only metropolis, it is the world's northernmost metro area with over one million people as well as the northernmost capital of an EU member state. After Copenhagen and Stockholm, Helsinki is the third largest municipality in the Nordic countries. Finnish and Swedish are both official languages. The city is served by the international Helsinki Airport, located in the neighboring city of Vantaa, with frequent service to many destinations in Europe and Asia. Helsinki was the World Design Capital for 2012, the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics, and the host of the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. Helsinki has one of the world's highest standards of urban living. In 2011, the British magazine Monocle ranked Helsinki the world's most liveable city in its liveable cities index. In the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2016 liveability survey, Helsinki was ranked ninth among 140 cities. In July 2021, the American magazine Time ranked Helsinki one of the greatest places in the world in 2021 as a city that "can grow into a sprouting cultural nest in the future," and which has already been known in the world as an environmental pioneer. An international Cities of Choice survey conducted in 2021 by the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and the BCG Henderson Institute raised Helsinki the third best city in the world to live, with London and New York City ranking the first and the second. Also, together with Rovaniemi in the Lapland region, Helsinki is one of Finland's most significant tourist cities in terms of foreign tourism.

The Helsinki urban area (Finnish: Helsingin keskustaajama, Swedish: Helsingfors centraltätort), is the largest taajama in Finland. It's located in the Uusimaa region in Finland and has about 1.23 million inhabitants as of 2019.The urban area includes, among other areas, the city of Helsinki as well as the cities of Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, and it is also connected to the towns of Kerava and Järvenpää, which form their own urban areas.

Kaisantunneli (Swedish: Kajsatunneln) is a tunnel for bicycle and pedestrian use in central Helsinki, Finland, serving as the main east–west cycling thoroughfare in the city centre. The tunnel is located directly underneath the Central Station, and joins the city's eastern and western cycling routes, cutting previous travel distance around the station by up to 600 metres (2,000 ft) and avoiding several sets of traffic lights, as well as removing much of the cycle traffic from the busy Kaivokatu street. Its western end connects directly to the Baana cycle path. The width of the tunnel is split roughly 50:50 between pedestrian and cycling lanes. The tunnel allows direct access to the station platforms, and connects with the separate pedestrian-only tunnel under the station. Additional cycle park for 900 bikes, as well as bike servicing facilities, will be opened in the tunnel later. Construction of the tunnel began in spring 2021 and was expected to be complete in autumn 2023, but in the end the tunnel opened to the public on 4 May 2024. The construction was especially challenging, on account of some old masonry and timber support structures underpinning the station, which were only discovered after construction had already begun. The construction cost c. EUR 33m, with the final figure exceeding the budget by some EUR 10m. The tunnel is expected to be used by up to 10,000 cyclists daily.

The Student Union of the University of Helsinki (Finnish: Helsingin yliopiston ylioppilaskunta, HYY, Swedish: Studentkåren vid Helsingfors universitet, HUS) was founded in 1868. It currently has 32,000 members and is one of the world's richest student organizations, with assets of several hundred million euros. Among other things, it owns a good deal of property in the city centre of Helsinki. The union has been at the centre of student politics from the 19th-century nationalist movements, through the actions of the New Left in the 1960s, up to the present. Its governing assembly consists of parties which are connected to faculty organisations, the Student Nations, and the mainstream political parties. In May 2019, HYY's finance board (talousjohtokunta) removed Hapsu ry, the university branch of the Finns Party’s youth organization Finns Party Youth, from its register because Hapsu ry had expressed the opinion that "European nations are white, so it is only natural and healthy that whiteness is dominant in European scientific communities".

The New Student House (Finnish: Uusi ylioppilastalo, colloquially Uusi, "the new one"; Swedish: Nya studenthuset), originally named Osakuntatalo ("the House of the Nations"), is the current student house of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki, located in central Helsinki, Finland, at Mannerheimintie 5, right next to the Old Student House. It is part of the Kaivopiha building complex owned by the student union. The new student house houses the central office of the student union, the Ylioppilaslehti office, and premises for many nations and student organisations; part of the building has also been leased for third-party business and office use. The new student house was completed in 1910, and was designed by architects Armas Lindgren and Wivi Lönn. From 1924-1968 it contained the Hotel Hansa. The building used to be called Osakuntatalo and was mainly used by the student nations at the university. Five of the fifteen nations at the University of Helsinki still work in the building: the Finnish-speaking Eteläsuomalainen osakunta, Savolainen osakunta and Varsinaissuomalainen osakunta along with the Swedish-speaking Åbo Nation and Östra Finlands Nation. The A side of the new student house, and part of the B side, remains only in the use of student activities. The third student house of the student union was inaugurated in November 2008 in Leppäsuo near Domus Academica. The structure is currently being remodeled, along with the historic Hotel Seurahuone. Both are owned by the HYY Group, the business arm of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki. The structures are being combined into a single luxury hotel, to be called the Grand Hansa Hotel. It will open in 2022, managed by The Unbound Collection division of Hyatt.

Asematunneli (Swedish: Stationstunneln) is an underground shopping center connecting the Helsinki Central railway station and City-Center in downtown Helsinki, Finland. The area also has a ticket sales area for the Rautatientori metro station and connections to the nearby Forum shopping mall as well as Stockmann and Sokos department stores. The shops and supermarkets in Asematunneli are licensed to stay open longer than normal as well as during the national holidays, making the shopping center an important location for last minute and emergency shopping for the people of the greater Helsinki area. Kamppi Center and the bottom floor of Sähkötalo across Fredrikinkatu can also be accessed via tunnels by going through the Forum shopping mall first. The interconnecting areas provide for convenient movement across a wide area of central Helsinki, and allow pedestrians to escape the rain, snow, and cold weather that dominate much of the Finnish calendar. Asematunneli was built by digging up Kaivokatu and pouring concrete canopies for the tunnels in 1966–1967.