This
National Park was established in 1982
(6 sq.km) and covers the outer group of islands along
the easternmost part of Finland’s south coast. (Pyhtää,
Kotka, Vehkalahti and Virolahti.) Most of the islands and
skerries are treeless, and their steep rocky shores often harbour colonies of
seabirds. The 20 largest islands are covered by sparse low pine forest. The only
sheltered boat harbour of the national park is on the island of Ulko-Tammio.
Information point at Haapasaari. On the island of Kaunissaari there is a camp
site, private accommodation and a restaurant.
The park comprises the outer archipelago of Finland's easternmost
coastal municipalities. The hundred or so islands and islets making up this
archipelago lie haphazardly here and there across a 60 km wide marine belt, far
from the mainland and inhabited islands.
Eastern Gulf of Finland National Park forms part
of one of the most important protected area networks incorporated in the Baltic
convention. Its surface area is expanding. The cluster of protected areas would
be supplemented by the future Gulf of Finland National Park planned for directly
across the frontier.
Many of the islands, which are treeless and
rocky, have the sheer-sided form typical to the south coast. Bedrock planed down
by the ice ages and the sea consists of coarse grained brown 'rapakivi' granite,
which has broken up into large boulders. In the gaps between these dense
thickets have grown up. In some places sea and ice have formed piles of shingle
and gravelly soil, which in the flatter places are a blaze of yellow blossoms in
early summer. Here large colonies of Arctic terns also frequently nest.
The usual flora on the forested islands is a
low,
sparse Scots pine stand, with reindeer lichen and junipers holding on to cracks
in the rock. On larger islands like Ulko-Tammio there are surprisingly luxuriant
southern type herb-rich forests. Of these islands the most lush is Ristisaari,
where the people from 
Kaunissaari
used to graze their cattle. It has ash groves, flowering meadows and bottom
meadows along the shore.
In contrast to the rocky islands there is
two-kilometre long Pitkäviiri, an elongated esker that has risen from the sea.
Its sandy beaches and extensive shallows have long been the sun-drenched
destination of day-trippers in summer and trout fishers in autumn.
Above all, the park is renowned for its
seabirds.
Even the most demanding bird species of the open sea, like the guillemot, black
guillemot, and lesser black-backed gull, find peace to nest on islets that are
out of bounds to human visitors for part of the summer. In terms of numbers the
Baltic's most common species, the eider, occurs here only in low numbers, owing
to the lack of its most important food, the common mussel. Another almost
ubiquitous organism, bladder-wrack, lives here at the edge of its range.
Ornithologists are in their element at the end of May, when hundreds of
thousands of arctic waterfowl and waders fill the sky as they journey to their
northern breeding grounds. Ice floes in the eastern Gulf of Finland form the
most important breeding area for seals.
Since time immemorial the national park has been
an important fishing place. There are old fishing villages, with a unique
architectural style, on Haapasaari, Kaunissaari and
Tammio. On islands within
the national park, too, there are main relics of human activity down the ages:
fishing, farming in the outer archipelago, navigation, and war at sea.
A cluster of islands are prohibited to visitors
for nature protection reasons, either during the nesting season or throughout
the year. Movement by foreigners in military
areas is also limited by regulations.
The border
zone with Russia imposes its own restrictions.
