IMPERIAL SYMBOLS OF HELSINGFORS THROUGH THE EYES OF RUSSIAN SERVICEMEN: TURN OF THE 20 <sup>th</sup> CENTURY AND YEARS OF WORLD WAR I
The paper deals with the city space of Helsingfors (Helsinki), the capital of Grand Duchy of Finland, as one of the aspects of the reality common to Russian Army and Baltic Fleet servicemen at the End of 19 th - the Very Beginning of the 20 th Centuries and during the World War I. Investigation based on the principles of military anthropology throws light upon the factors which caused the specific way of perception of the “center” and “periphery” of Helsingfors by Russian soldiers, sailors and their officers. The city space and landscape was seen by them as a strange world far from Russian cultural context. Despite the State and Imperial semioticity of the capital of Finland the enlisted men, who have come from Russia, felt deeply the opposition between the “East” and the “West” on the level of perception of symbols.