Alexander Stubb — politician with roots in the Russian Empire
Alexander Stubb was born Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb in Helsinki on 1 April 1968 and grew up in a bilingual family in the Lehtisaari district. His father, Göran Stubb, a Swedish-speaker, became one of the best-known figures in Finnish ice hockey, entering the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000 and later directing the NHL's European scouting. His mother, Christel, née Setälä (1943–2008), was a Finnish-speaker. He spoke both languages at home.
His connection with the Russian Empire runs through the century in which Finland was part of it. From 1809 to 1917 Finland was a Grand Duchy within the empire, with the emperor as its grand duke. Both of his paternal grandparents were born in that period in Viipuri, known in Russian as Vyborg, the principal city of eastern Finland: Volmar Stubb in 1898 and Marita Breitenstein in 1911. The Stubb family had come there from Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia; an ancestor, Jukka Stubb, born in 1838, left Ähtävä for Riihimäki to work on the railways. A relative and full namesake, Alexander Stubb, developed the Stubb fishing lure in Viipuri.
Sources differ on where his father was born in 1935. Several accounts give Viipuri; others give Käkisalmi, on Lake Ladoga. Either way he was born in independent Finland, and either way his birthplace is now in Russia: both towns were ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940 and, after the Continuation War, again in 1944, and are today Vyborg and Priozersk in the Leningrad Region.
On his mother's side, his grandfather Kai Setälä was born in Pori in 1913, also under the empire, and became a professor at the University of Helsinki. Kai Setälä was a great-nephew of the linguist E. N. Setälä, who chaired the Senate of Finland and was one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence of December 1917.
Stubb won a golf scholarship to study in the United States and continued his education in France, at the College of Europe in Bruges and at the London School of Economics, where he took a doctorate. He sat in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2008 and was then Finland's foreign minister, minister for European affairs and foreign trade, prime minister in 2014–2015 and finance minister. He later served as a vice-president of the European Investment Bank and directed the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute in Florence. On 1 March 2024 he became the thirteenth President of Finland. He is married to Suzanne Innes-Stubb, and they have two children.
Tracing the roots — Viipuri / Vyborg (now Russia)
His paternal grandparents were born in Viipuri (Vyborg) in 1898 and 1911, when Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. His father was born in 1935 in Viipuri or Käkisalmi — sources differ — both towns that are now in Russia.
Paternal grandparents Volmar Stubb (b. 1898) and Marita Breitenstein (b. 1911) were born in Viipuri (Vyborg) in the Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire; maternal grandfather Kai Setälä was born in Pori in 1913. His father was born in 1935 in Viipuri or Käkisalmi (sources differ), both now in Russia.
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Viipuri / Vyborg (now Russia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.