Have you noticed, that it has been several posts since my previous successful exploration? Well, I have and there are two reasons for it. The first one is, that this area of the country is pretty prosperous and tightly inhabited. There are far less abandoned buildings than in the Northern and Eastern parts of Finland.
The second reason is, that my summer holiday was coming to an end, and I was busy collecting all the municipalities of Finland in one summer – my original goal for the road trip.
While roaming around the town where I was born, I started wondering, why I had explored so little there during my youth despite knowing so many locations. The reason was, that I was a bit afraid of them – and breaking the rules as a teenager. And many locations were lost because of that.
But then I remembered one location, which had been abandoned for as long as I could remember. I thought it would be an easy one.
And no, I’m not talking about the abandoned Transporter.
That over there is a former dockyard – or what remains of it. It was founded in 1903 by a local company, which went bankrupt in 1935. The technology giant Wärtsilä took over its properties and ran the dockyard until 1983. After that the area was rented by a construction company, which went bankrupt in the great recession in 1994. After that there hasn’t been much going on in the area.
More has been going on in city planning. They made a few different detail plans to the area, but all greatly divided the public and none were finished. In 2018-2020 most of the buildings in the area were demolished apart from the old shipbuilding hall from the 1940’s, which stands in the background.
A better look at the building, which fascinated me in my childhood when I used to bath in the sea at the beach right next to it.
I thought this would be a simple case, but it seems that security had been tightened at the same time as the buildings were demolished. And yet another time I had to return empty handed.