They say, that Finland is the land of a thousand lakes. They also say, that Finland is the land of a thousand associations.
This one here is the former headquarters of the local voluntary fire brigade of Tuomarila, Espoo. Voluntary fire brigades are quite literally what the name says they are. They volunteer to put out fires. They often had large association houses back in the days. They served as party venues, gig venues and such as this one, local movie theaters.
The building in question was completed in 1959. It was considered a local landmark. A very traditional old fashioned movie theater was in operation there until 2011.
Since 2012 the building had been nearly empty. It had since been sold to a construction company to be demolished to make way for new apartments. As you can see, demolition wasn’t that far away. Even fences had been brought to the location.
The reason for the sale was, that the voluntary fire bregade could no longer sustain the upkeep of the building. They had even collected donations for the heating of the building before it was abandoned in the 2010’s.
As the construction business in Finland hit a massive recession back in 2022 everything seemed to be on hold.
Meanwhile the building was attracting all kinds of uninvited visitors – urban explorers such as me and vandals unlike me.
So let’s go have a closer look. According to the sign, a camera store has last occupied this section of the building.
And here we have an example of more or less modern computing.
And so I am inside. This space was last occupied by a kiosk, which was one of the last tenants of the building. It was still there in 2012.
Shelves inside the old kiosk space.
The instructions for selling beer.
A view outside.
All the windows to the door to the kiosk were broken.
Next door was a sports store, which at least at some point was specialized in bikes. It was still there at least in 2009.
It was by far the largest store in the building.
Another door with a load of tags.
The space occupied by the sports store had probably consisted of several smaller businesses back in the days.
Now it was empty walls and old tires.
A corridor leading to the back door.
This looks like a storage room.
Another view towards the front of the building. And this was where I was stuck for a long time. A car drove up to the yard of the building, a grey Toyota Avensis. It stood there for a long time, the driver exited and it sounded like he entered the building and exited, several times. I didn’t move until the car was gone.
And after it was gone, I started finding my way out through the sports store. After that I left, quickly.
One final photo taken through the upstairs window, which was in a too difficult place for me to climb in through.
After a few more adventures I got home and started transferring photos. That was when there was a breaking news alert. This very building was on fire and was burning to the ground. I contacted the authorities and reported the grey Avensis.
But it turned out, that they were innocent after all. There was a wave of arsons around Espoo at that time, and the suspects in this case were local youths around 12 years of age. As they were that young, they couldn’t be charged.
The ruins of these business premises still stand to this day. But this was the closest ever call I have recorded: four hours from my exploration to the complete destruction of the building.