in 1550, swedish king gustav vasa commanded people to build a new city and move there. his idea was to build a new place to trade, which would be more popular than tallinn. the idea did not work well, and many people returned from helsinki to their homes. later sweden built the fortress suomenlinna in helsinki. after russia had taken finland from sweden in several wars, they started developing helsinki. helsinki became the capital of autonomous province of finland. when finland became independent in 1917, helsinki stayed as the capital city.