The Cholera basin is the established name for the western harbour basin in front of the Market Square

Market Square, Helsinki

The Market Square is a central square in Helsinki, Finland, and one of the most famous market places and tourist attractions in the city....

 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

.

History

The harbour basins were built in the early 19th century. At that time, the Market Square area consisted of the muddy Kaupunginlahti bay. Its shores had many shore huts and small pier

Pier

A pier is a raised structure, including bridge and building supports and walkways, over water, typically supported by widely spread piles or pillars...

s. Where the edge of the Market Square is now was the Eteläinen Rantakatu street.

As the city developed, the harbour needed a continuous pier. The shore was low, and this allowed the shoreline to be moved outwards by filling the shore. The work took years. For small steam ships, rowing and sailing ships, three basins were built. At the northwestern corner was built the so-called Fish basin (Kala-allas). In the city documents, the name of the basin was Stadfiskarens båthamn, meaning city fishers' boat habour, Fiskarhamnen meaning fishers' harbour.

In 1893, a shipsman from Nauvo who had come to the herring market

Herring market

The herring market or herring fair is an annual event held in Helsinki, Finland, in October every year. During the herring market, many archipelagans arrive in the Eteläsatama harbour to sell fish and other archipelago products directly from their boats...

 died of cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 on his ship. Later it was found out that the excrement and vomit of the sick man had been dumped into the harbour basin. As a safety precaution, the herring ships were towed away from the harbour, and guards were briefly posted at the shore, because it was feared that the citizens might start to use the contaminated water. After the incident, the colloquial name of the basin was established as Kolerabassängen - the Cholera basin.

In the 19th century, the water in the Fisher's harbour and in the entire Eteläsatama

Eteläsatama

South Harbour is a bay and harbour area immediately next to the centre of the city of Helsinki, Finland. It is the largest passenger harbour in Finland, and 5.4 million passengers travel through it every year. The most of the harbour's traffic is to Stockholm, Sweden and Tallinn, Estonia, and...

 harbour was still contaminated by sewers. Rat

Rat

Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

s infested the harbour. On the northern shore of Katajanokka

Katajanokka

Katajanokka is a neighbourhood of Helsinki, Finland, with around 4000 inhabitants in 2005. The district is located adjacent to the immediate downtown area, though in the first major town plan for Helsinki from the mid-18th century, the area fell outside the fortifications planned to encircle the...

, there was a sewage pier, also bringing dirt and stench. The products of outdoor toilets were loaded onto barges there, where they were taken to the countryside to be used as manure

Manure

Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...

.

There were rumours in the city that in the night, the barges silently dump their cargo straight into the water. This was even claimed to be a stinking revolt against Governor General Nikolai Bobrikov's politics.

Trivia

Today, the Cholera basin is the traditional site of the Finnish unscientific society's Jaakko day stone throw. Since 1995, various objects have been thrown into the basin, including an iron, a deep frozen rock, a cosmic meteorite

Meteorite

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...

, a wooden cobble stone, a lava rock from Etna, half of a runestone, a rock from the Volga river and a blade sharpening stone.