Karlskrona is a locality and the seat of Karlskrona Municipality, Blekinge County, Sweden with 66,675 inhabitants in 2018. It is also the capital of Blekinge County. Karlskrona is known as Sweden’s only baroque city and is host to Sweden’s only remaining naval base and the headquarters of the Swedish Coast Guard.
Culture and heritages
The most important day in Karlskrona is the day before midsummer’s eve. On that day a big fair takes place and attracts tens of thousands to visit Karlskrona. The fair is called Lövmarknaden (The Leaf Fair) and is very popular among the locals.
The main square of Karlskrona is the biggest in Scandinavia.
Every year in late July/early August a popular festival called The Sail takes place in the harbor of Karlskrona. Usually it is a place where families go to have something to eat and drink, and perhaps watch the sailing boats lined up at the pier. During the sail, the seascouts of Karlskrona will row a boat carrying torches along the docks while playing the national anthems for the visiting ships.
Lately The Sail has been replaced with a festival called Skärgårdsfest.
The old architecture together with the naval installations comprise the major tourist attractions of Karlskrona. The city has a pleasant atmosphere and is one of the highlights of south-east Sweden.
Architectural Heritage
When the city was founded in 1680, it was primarily thought of as a military city, with many defenses and fortifications exploiting the particular topography of the city. Some fortifications were located on the main island (Trossö) such as the Bastion Aurora, built at the beginning of the 18th century,[10] but much of it was located on the nearby islands (Ljungskär, Mjölnareholmen, Godnatt, Koholmen and Kurrholmen) or more distant, such as the islands closing the bay, with in particular the important fortress of Kungsholmen and its circular port.
But the civil part of the city was also carefully planned. It has a rectangular grid plan, with however some diagonal streets, created because of the relief of the city center. Nicodème Tessin l’Ancien was responsible for the design of the buildings, and he gave the city a very uniform baroque style.
The central building of the city is the Fredrikskyrkan church, built in the 1690s, On the main square, which is also the highest point of the island. Several other churches are located in the city, such as the Church of the Holy Trinity, built for the Germans of the city in 1709, ou encore Amiralitetskyrkan, consacrée en 1685.
In front of the Amiralitetskyrkan church is the statue of Rosenbom, made famous by the children’s book of Selma Lagerlöf, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, in which the statue tells the story of the c. Near the church is also the Admiralstorn Tower, dating from 1699, originally used to indicate the time for the shipyard workers but used since 1909 as the church tower The ma is seen holding some text in Swedish. The English translation of that text is “I humbly beg of you, even though my voice may be weak, come and put a penny in but first lift my hat. Blessed are those that care for the poor.” which is the last sentence in the bible. Nearby, there is paper with the translation of that text, the translated languages are English, German, Polish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish. The English translation is written by Gorge Hopkins.
Finally, the city has some more recent buildings, such as the model room, having hosted between 1780 and 1920 models of boats, Now transferred to the Marine Museum, or the town hall built after the fire of 1790. Finally, the county building (Länsresidenset) built between 1909 and 1911.
Museums
The most visited museum of the city is the Naval Museum, with around 250 000 visitors a year. About half of those visitors are Swedish, the other half from other countries. The Naval Museum is Sweden’s national museum for the history of the Swedish Navy. Along with exhibitions, the museum contains object collections, a drawings archive, photographic archive and a library. The museum is also involved in research.
The present museum building on Stumholmen in Karlskrona was opened in 1997 by the present king Carl XVI Gustaf. Before that the museum lay in the former cadet barracks in the naval harbour, Örlogshamnen, and until 1963 was known as the Shipyard Museum (Varvsmuseet).
The museum is based on the “model room” created in 1752 by Adolphe-Frédéric of Sweden, in which several boat models were stored in order to test different types of structures. Nowadays, these models still form the core of the museum’s collection, but the museum also traces the history of the Royal Swedish Navy.
The city is also home to the Blekinge Museum, with 82,443 visitors in 2008.
Economy
Some of the biggest employers in Karlskrona are Telenor, Ericsson and Roxtec. The city has an overall strong presence in information technology based industries.
Transport
The city is positioned at the south east corner of Sweden with excellent connections to the other side of the Baltic Sea. There is a ferry line to Gdynia in Poland transporting both goods and passengers provided by the ferry operator Stena Line.
Most of the islands of Karlskrona are connected by roads. One of the bigger populated Islands Aspö is connected with a small road ferry. Boats also travel between the archipelago’s various islands during the summer months.
Education
The city is the main campus of Blekinge tekniska högskola, an Institute of Technology founded in 1989, which is one of the few högskolor (university colleges) in Sweden with the right to issue a doctorate, thus having a status quite similar to that of a real university. The institute employs about 600 people and hosts about 8,000 students.
