Seili

We visited Seili island today. Weather was perfect for a boat trip, it was a hot and sunny day. It took 30 minutes for the ferry m/s Östern to drive from Nauvo to Seili. 

In 1619, when King Gustaf II Adolf of Sweden ordered a leper hospital to be built to Seili island. At the time, Finland was a part of the Swedish Empire. Seili was chosen for its location along the ship route berween Turku and Stockholm. The island also had sheltered anchorages and a sandy ridge where to set up a burial ground.

A small wooden church from the Hospital of St. George in Turku was transferred to the lepers´ island in 1624. The church was completed in the summer of 1733. The picture is from the church. The unique peculiarity of the church is a massive wooden fence which isolated the lepers from the rest of the church-goers. In the case of Seili, the rest of the church assemblage consisted mainly of patients of the mental hospital and the nursing staff. It was weird, sad feeling inside the church.

The hospital housed 28 to 60 leper sufferers at a time, the total number amounting to at least 663. Many were brought to the island by force, because being committed to the hospital meant isolation from the rest of the world and inmates could never leave once they had entered. The patients had to bring along 20 Thalers of money and the planks for their coffin. The last leper on Seili passed away in 1785. The asylum continued to run until 1962 exclusively for female mental patients for the last 70 years.

After the Seili mental asylum was closed in 1962, buildings were taken over by the Archipelago Research Institute, Centre for Environmental Research of the University of Turku.


+23°C, sunny