Varissuo

Varissuo (Finnish; Kråkkärret in Swedish) is a district and the largest suburb of the city of Turku, in Finland. It is located seven kilometres to the east of the city centre, and is the easternmost major suburb of Turku, bordering on the neighbouring city of Kaarina. Varissuo has 9,000 inhabitants, about 32 per cent of whom are foreign immigrants. It is thus the second largest district of Turku, after Runosmäki. The name consists of the words varis meaning crow and suo meaning marsh.

Varissuo's population is currently decreasing at an annual rate of 1.23%. 15.72% of the district's population are under 15 years old, while 12.56% are over 65. The district's linguistic makeup is 74.33% Finnish, 1.82% Swedish, and 23.86% other, reflecting the suburb's wide cultural variety.

The suburb was constructed from scratch on an area of previously uninhabited wetland (suo in Finnish) starting in the mid-1970s as migration from rural areas to the city increased heavily in volume. Since then, the city's policy of placing many refugees and unemployed people in certain few districts has led to Varissuo, together with Lauste and Halinen, attaining a somewhat bad reputation.

Varissuo has possibly the best services of all suburbs of Turku - it has, among other things, several schools, a library, an underground ice arena and many other sports facilities, a Lutheran church, a health centre, a post office and a social security (KELA) office. In addition, the Itäkeskus shopping centre is located in Varissuo, as well as a University of Turku teacher training school (Turun normaalikoulu) and Turku International School. As many other parts of Turku, Varissuo also has excellent public transport connections, with frequent bus links to the city centre as well as other nearby districts and cities.

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