location house of the estates
___MASK27___ is ___MASK10___ ' s second - largest city after Moscow , with five million inhabitants in 2012 , and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea . It is politically incorporated as a federal subject ( a federal city ). Situated on the Neva River , at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea , it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May . In 1914 , the name was changed from ___MASK27___ to Petrograd , in 1924 to Leningrad , and in 1991 back to ___MASK27___ . Between 1713  1728 and 1732  1918 , ___MASK27___ was the imperial capital of ___MASK10___ . In 1918 , the central government bodies moved to Moscow . Riksdag of the Estates ( formally : ; informally : ) was the name used for the Estates of ___MASK54___ when they were assembled . Until its dissolution in 1866 , the institution was the highest authority in ___MASK54___ next to the king . It was a Diet made up of the Four Estates , which historically were the lines of division in Swedish society : ___MASK14___ Cathedral is the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran cathedral of the Diocese of ___MASK14___ , located in the neighborhood of ___MASK98___ in the centre of ___MASK14___ , Finland . The church was originally built from 1830 - 1852 as a tribute to the Grand Duke of Finland , Tsar Nicholas I of Russia . It was also known as St Nicholas ' Church until the independence of Finland in 1917 . ___MASK98___ is a neighbourhood of Helsinki , the capital of Finland . An earl is a member of the nobility . The title is Anglo - Saxon in origin , akin to the Scandinavian form jarl , and meant " chieftain ", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king ' s stead . In ___MASK40___ , it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced by duke (" hertig "/" hertug "/" hertog "). In later medieval Britain , it became the equivalent of the continental count ( in England in the earlier period , it was more akin to a duke ; in Scotland it assimilated the concept of mormaer ). However , earlier in ___MASK40___ , " jarl " could also mean a sovereign prince . For example , the rulers of several of the petty kingdoms of Norway had the title of " jarl " and in many cases they had no less power than their neighbours who had the title of king . Alternative names for the " Earl / Count " rank in the nobility structure are used in other countries , such as Hakushaku during the Japanese Imperial era . ___MASK14___ is the capital and largest city of Finland . It is in the region of Uusimaa , in southern Finland , on the shore of the Gulf of Finland . ___MASK14___ has a population of , an urban population of 1 , 214 , 210 , and a metropolitan population of over 1 . 4 million , making it the most populous municipality and urban area in Finland . ___MASK14___ is located some north of Tallinn , Estonia , east of Stockholm , Sweden , and west of Saint Petersburg , Russia . ___MASK14___ has close historical connections with these three cities . The Gulf of ___MASK17___ is the easternmost arm of the ___MASK58___ . It extends between ___MASK17___ ( to the north ) and ___MASK20___ ( to the south ) all the way to Saint Petersburg in ___MASK10___ , where the river Neva drains into it . Other major cities around the gulf include ___MASK14___ and Tallinn . The eastern parts of the Gulf of ___MASK17___ belong to ___MASK10___ , and some of ___MASK10___ ' s most important oil harbours are located farthest in , near Saint Petersburg ( including Primorsk ). As the seaway to Saint Petersburg , the Gulf of ___MASK17___ has been and continues to be of considerable strategic importance to ___MASK10___ . Some of the environmental problems affecting the ___MASK58___ are at their most pronounced in the shallow gulf . Nicholas I ( ) was the Emperor of ___MASK10___ from 1825 until 1855 . He was also the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland . He is best known as a political conservative whose reign was marked by geographical expansion , repression of dissent , economic stagnation , poor administrative policies , a corrupt bureaucracy , and frequent wars that culminated in ___MASK10___ ' s disastrous defeat in the Crimean War of 1853 - 56 . His biographer Nicholas V . Riasanovsky says that Nicholas displayed determination , singleness of purpose , and an iron will , along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to very hard work . He saw himself as a soldier  a junior officer totally consumed by spit and polish . A handsome man , he was highly nervous and aggressive . Trained as an engineer , he was a stickler for minute detail . In his public persona , says Riasanovsky , " Nicholas I came to represent autocracy personified : infinitely majestic , determined and powerful , hard as stone , and relentless as fate ." His reign had an ideology called " Official Nationality " that was proclaimed officially in 1833 . It was a reactionary policy based on orthodoxy in religion , autocracy in government , and Russian nationalism . He was the younger brother of his predecessor , Alexander I . Nicholas inherited his brother ' s throne despite the failed Decembrist revolt against him and went on to become the most reactionary of all Russian leaders . His aggressive foreign policy involved many expensive wars , having a disastrous effect on the empire ' s finances . A cathedral ( French : " cathédrale " from Latin : " cathedra ", " seat " from the Greek " kathédra " (  ), seat , bench , from " kata " " down " + " hedra " seat , base , chair ) is a Christian church which contains the seat of a bishop , thus serving as the ___MASK72___ church of a diocese , conference , or episcopate . The counterpart term for such a church in German is " Dom " from Latin " domus ecclesiae " or " domus episcopalis "; also Italian Duomo , Dutch " Domkerk " and cognates in many other European languages . Churches with the function of " cathedral " are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy , such as the Roman Catholic , Anglican , Orthodox , and some Lutheran and Methodist churches . Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appear in Italy , Gaul , Spain and North Africa in the 4th century , but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century , by which time they had developed architectural forms , institutional structures and legal identities distinct from ___MASK48___ churches , monastic churches and episcopal residences . The Grand Duchy of ___MASK17___ (, , ) was the predecessor state of modern ___MASK17___ . It existed between 1809 and 1917 as an autonomous part of the ___MASK91___ and was ruled by the Russian Emperor as Grand Duke . Uusimaa or Nyland ( both names mean  new land ) is a region in ___MASK17___ . It borders the regions Southwest ___MASK17___ , Tavastia Proper , Päijänne Tavastia and Kymenlaakso . ___MASK17___  s capital ___MASK14___ ( its largest city ) and its second largest city Espoo are both located centrally in Uusimaa , making it by far the most populous region . ___MASK70___ ( or ) is the capital and largest city of Estonia . It is situated on the northern coast of the country , on the shore of the Gulf of Finland , south of ___MASK14___ , east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg . From the 13th century until 1918 ( and briefly during the Nazi occupation of Estonia from 1941 to 1944 ), the city was known as Reval . ___MASK70___ occupies an area of and has a population of 443 , 894 . Approximately 32 % of Estonia ' s total population lives in ___MASK70___ . The House of the Estates ( Finnish : Säätytalo , Swedish : Ständerhuset ) is a historical building in ___MASK14___ , Finland . It is located opposite of the Bank of Finland building , immediately northeast of ___MASK14___ Cathedral . From 1891 , when it was built , it housed the three commoner estates of the four estates of the realm of Finland ( see Diet of Finland ) ; there is a separate House of Nobility . The estates were superseded at the 1906 parliamentary reform by the foundation of the unicameral parliament of Finland . The parliament settled elsewhere , leaving Säätytalo for secondary usage . Today the House of the Estates houses sporadic governmental meetings . It is also the established location for official coalition talks after general elections and for the sessions of High Court of Impeachment . In addition , the house is used by scientific and scholarly organizations for meetings . The building is owned by the Republic of Finland through Senate Properties . The ___MASK35___ of ___MASK17___ is the ___MASK72___ bank of ___MASK17___ . It is the fourth oldest ___MASK72___ bank in the world . ___MASK10___ ( from the  Rus '), also officially known as the Russian Federation , is a country in Eurasia . At , ___MASK10___ is the largest country in the world by surface area , covering more than one - eighth of the ___MASK8___ ' s inhabited land area , and the ninth most populous , with over 140 million people at the end of March 2016 . The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the eastern , about 77 % of the population live in ___MASK60___ . ___MASK10___ ' s capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world , other major urban centers include Saint Petersburg , Novosibirsk , Yekaterinburg , Nizhny Novgorod and Samara . The estates of the realm were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom ( Christian ___MASK3___ ) from the medieval period to early modern ___MASK3___ . Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed and evolved over time . A ___MASK72___ bank , reserve bank , or monetary authority is an institution that manages a state ' s currency , money supply , and interest rates . ___MASK72___ banks also usually oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries . In contrast to a commercial bank , a ___MASK72___ bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base in the state , and usually also prints the national currency , which usually serves as the state ' s legal tender . The Eduskunta ( or , or ) is the parliament of ___MASK17___ . The unicameral parliament has 200 members and normally meets in the ___MASK24___ in ___MASK14___ . However , during the 2015  2017 renovation of the ___MASK24___ , the parliament temporary meets in the nearby Sibelius Academy . The latest election to the parliament took place on April 19 , 2015 . The Diocese of ___MASK14___ is a diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland , and the seat of the Bishop of ___MASK14___ . Its cathedral is ___MASK14___ Cathedral . The Sibelius Academy is part of the University of the Arts ___MASK14___ and a university - level music school which operates in ___MASK14___ and Kuopio , Finland . It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki . The Academy is the only music university in Finland . It is among the biggest European music universities with roughly 1 , 700 enrolled students . ___MASK17___ , officially the Republic of ___MASK17___ , is a sovereign state in ___MASK90___ . A peninsula with the Gulf of ___MASK17___ to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west , the country has land borders with Sweden to the northwest , ___MASK9___ to the north , and ___MASK10___ to the east . Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of ___MASK17___ . ___MASK17___ is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia , which also includes ___MASK40___ . ___MASK17___ ' s population is 5 . 5 million ( 2014 ), staying roughly on the same level over the past two decades . The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region . In terms of area , it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union . Early modern ___MASK3___ is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution , roughly the late 15th century to the late 18th century . Historians variously mark the beginning of the early modern period with the invention of moveable type printing in the 1450s , the Fall of ___MASK1___ in 1453 , the end of the Wars of the Roses in 1487 , the beginning of the High Renaissance in Italy in the 1490s , the end of the " Reconquista " and subsequent voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492 , or the start of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 . The precise dates of its end point also vary and are usually linked with either the start of the French Revolution in 1789 or with the more vaguely defined beginning of the Industrial Revolution in late 18th century Britain . The Diet of ___MASK17___ ( Finnish " Suomen maapäivät ", later " valtiopäivät "; Swedish " Finlands Lantdagar "), was the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of ___MASK17___ from 1809 to 1906 and the recipient of the powers of the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates . The term " valtiopäivät " today means an annual session of the Parliament of ___MASK17___ , the Swedish " Riksdagen " being the name for both the Parliament and its sessions . ___MASK69___ ( or ) is the capital of Sweden and the most populous city in the Nordic countries ; 932 , 917 people live in the municipality , approximately 1 . 5 million in the urban area , and 2 . 3 million in the metropolitan area . The city is spread across 14 islands on the coast in the southeast of Sweden at the mouth of Lake Mälaren , by the ___MASK69___ archipelago and the Baltic Sea . The area has been settled since the Stone Age , in the 6th millennium BC , and was founded as a city in 1252 by a Swedish statesman Birger Jarl . It is also the capital of ___MASK69___ County . ___MASK54___ , officially the Kingdom of ___MASK54___ ( Swedish : ), is a Scandinavian country in ___MASK90___ . It borders ___MASK9___ to the west and Finland to the east , and is connected to ___MASK76___ in the southwest by a bridge - tunnel across the Öresund . At , ___MASK54___ is the third - largest country in the European Union by area , with a total population of 10 . 0 million . ___MASK54___ consequently has a low population density of , with the highest concentration in the southern half of the country . Approximately 85 % of the population lives in urban areas .