Puijo Tower

The Puijo tower is a 75 metre high observation tower in Kuopio, Eastern Finland. The tower has a revolving restaurant with 100 seats, which has worked flawlessly since its opening in 1963. It was the first tower with a revolving restaurant in the Nordic countries. The restaurant was an inspiration to Erkki Lindfors, the mayor of Tampere, who got the idea to build a similar one in his home town, resulting in the Näsinneula tower, which opened in 1971. The current Puijo tower has been visited by over 5.5 million tourists.

The current tower is the third overall. When it was completed in 1963 the second was dismantled (it was built in 1906 (see the Finnish- and German-language Wikipedia articles on Puijo and the Puijo tower)). The first tower was built in 1856. On the western side of the tower there are three ski jumping hills. An FIS Ski Jumping World Cup event is held yearly in Puijo along with many smaller events. The event is hosted by a local ski jumping club, Puijon Hiihtoseura. Most of the Puijo hills area is preserved as a nature park in which there are excellent hiking and skiing routes that are popular with the inhabitants of Kuopio.