Urban Exploration: An Abandoned Paper Mill
The target of this UE Sunday was and old paper mill that was abandoned in 2006. The mill had been operational for almost 110 years, from 1897 to 2006.
On the way the weather was beautiful – the sky was full of enormous cumulus clouds, everything was fresh and green. I stopped on the way to buy some smoked salmon and ham from a small roadside shop. When speeding on the sunny highway, blasting Soul Captain Band and Skream I had this nice feeling that all is good in the world.
When I arrived to the site, there was a distant rumble of thunder and half of the sky was sunny, half of it covered with clouds. If I had arrived an hour or so earlier, I would have probably caught the place in a very beautiful light, but now the cloudy weather won.
It’s always nice to get reminders that you aren’t physically in as sucky shape as you think. Good to know that in spite of the 15 kg extra I lug around as fat, a 2,5 meter high fence is not that big an obstacle.
UPDATE: I just got a very nice and friendly call from the people responsible for the area, who asked me to pull down the photos. A shame, but what can you do. They might pop back up later, but it remains to be seen.
UPDATE 2: Now that the building is torn down, I made the decision to put the pictures back up – see the full photoset here.
Adventures in Marine Archaeology – Kustavi/Isoluoto
The the beginning of April Susi, Hakkis and I went to help a marine archaeologist buddy to look for the remains of a major sea battle that took place in 1808 between Russia and Sweden. On 30.8.1808 35 Swedish ships and 24 Russian ships spent the day shooting at each other with cannons. The Swedish forces won the battle and spent the next couple of weeks destroying the sunken Russian ships by basically dropping stones on them.
In the 60’s divers found one of the wrecks, but didn’t record the location properly, so it’s still lost. In the 70’s a bunch of… well, morons found a bunch of cannon balls and decided to bring more than 130 of them to the surface just for shits and giggles, without thinking what they should do with them. The cannon balls were stored in an earthen cellar of a local church for a year before the museum was informed, during which they turned into a pile of rust.
Information about the sea battle (in Finnish): www.palvanmeritaistelu.fi/historiaa/isoluodon-taistelu/
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UE Easter: Railroad tunnel, rescue personnel training ground and abandoned villas
My plan was to check out an abandoned medical center, but I couldn’t figure out how to get in. Instead I went driving around looking for targets.
I checked out a railroad tunnel near where I used to live, a training ground for rescue personnel and an abandoned lot, before going to see one of the better known UE spots of Helsinki.
Kruunuvuori is a rocky hillside next to the sea. In the beginning of 1900’s several villas were built there for the rich elite. During and after the world wars the villas had several owners, until they were left vacant and abandoned. The area is really beautiful and it’s a wonder no-one has built anything in there.
This trip took place in Easter Sunday, the nature was still mostly dead after the winter and the sky was cloudy. The atmosphere in Kruunuvuori was something special – all those abandoned buildings, which you could almost see as they used to be, if you squinted just right…
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