Fire Abo (Turku)

The largest fire in the history of the northern countries raged in Abo on September 4-5, 1827 and destroyed more than three-quarters of the city. Without a home left 11,000 inhabitants. There were about two hundred injured, 27 people were killed. The fire killed more than 2.5 thousand buildings, including classrooms, a library, collections and archives of the only university in Finland of that period - the Royal Academy of Abo . A small part has survived - what was taken from the library outside the city. Almost all written sources of the Middle Ages of Finland were destroyed - there were about 300 of them left. The representative of the Finnish government, the famous architect Karl Ludwig Engel, wrote to his friend Herlich:

“ For Finland, the deaths of numerous archives, and with them all manuscripts reflecting the ancient history of the country ... can no longer be compensated for ... The Academy, destroyed in flames with all its scientific collections, libraries, mathematical tools, cabinets of nature and ancient coins and other numerous collections, will interrupt all scientific research . ” ^[1] .

One of the few areas of Turku that survived the fire has now been turned into the Luostarinmäki Handicraft Museum , which shows about three dozen original artisan houses of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Engel was responsible for rebuilding the burnt Turku, while he was guided by fire principles that protected the city from the spread of fires outside the quarter ^[2]