Like I said earlier, the city has a large amount of old, valuable villas without use. It also places strict restrictions on their future use, which makes finding buyers or tenants hard . Well, it also has more valuable properties looking for new use.
Such as this mansion.
The wooden building is a mansion from the early 19th century. It hasn’t been used in many years, but a light is still on on the porch.
The yellow building is a 19th century dance pavillion built by the mansion’s Russian owner. Back in the days the mansion was famous for its lavish garden parties.
As you can see, it has started raining sleet. This adventure is not going according to plan.
The pavillion originally only had one floor, but it was expanded with another early in the 20th century.
The city has been looking for a new use to the mansion and pavillion at least since 2017, but no viable plans have emerged. They put the property for sale in 2022. In 2023 the anarchists already featured in another story appeared, and occupied the mansion. This time they left on their own.
But the property is still looking for a new use.
This reminds me of something I see a lot here in Vermont. There is an old farmhouse and big red barn next to the grocery store here in Vermont. It makes me really sad that they just sit there abandoned, especially when it’s obviously convenient to shopping… So many farms are parceled out to commercial interests and then the residential part just goes to ruin. It’s really saddening.
It really is. Luckily this old mansion is safe. One of the photos shows, that a light is on. The buildings still have running electricity and heating on. There have even been plans for new use, but so far nothing reasonable has come up, which would preserve the valuable area and allow a big enough new building for it to be profitable.