Suomenlinna Museum

This guide to the Suomenlinna Museum follows Augustin Ehrensvard, the Swedish military engineer who arrived on these islands in 1748 to build a sea fortress against the Russian navy and spent the rest of his life expanding it, dying in 1772 with the work unfinished. It traces what happened to his body afterward, from a Helsinki churchyard to a monument King Gustav the Third himself sketched, finished by Ehrensvard's own son and sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel over eleven years. Look closely at the bronze fittings on the tomb before you move on.