This here is a former elementary school of a small, rural town. Apparently designed by architect Eino Pitkänen, who is famous for designing half of the town of Kajaani, and completed in 1949. School use ended in 2011 and all other use in 2021.

The story is again familiar. The local activists want to preserve the school and give it protection status, the town opposes because of the building’s bad condition.

The school is not on the list of buildings to be demolished but the mayor has stated in 2021, that it will be demolished. There is no official decision about it.

The local activists made a petition to have the building protected by law. It didn’t go through so the building is waiting.

Let me get this straight: Demolishing this beauty would be sheer idiocracy.

The front of the previous classroom.

The back room yet again.

And the following classroom.

The classrooms were small. But the school wasn’t big either, though.

Yet another standard classroom with a couple of cupboards and a sink.

The side stairway at the back of the school.

Reaching the top now.

And here we go, the third floor corridor.

The same brick walls are visible here. The roof has been leaking quite a lot.

Welcome to another classroom. As usual with the top floors in abandoned buildings, the damage to the paint is much worse here than downstairs.

The blackboard seems to have ended up there. But what has been on the back wall?

One more classroom. The radiators seem to have been removed every here and there, it seems.

And the back of the following classroom. I still wonder, what has been hanging on the walls.

The coat racks in the corridor were probably as old as the school. I’ve seen similar in my childhood. And in many other abandoned public buildings.

The following classroom.

And the back of it. Again strange screws on the wall without much explanation.

A lost cupboard and a couple of removed radiators.

A small attic room at the back of the corridor.

An old map holder, it seems.

And so I’ve reached the top of the main stairway.

Heading back in the third floor corridor.

And back in the side stairway, which I entered through.

This is the only thing that’s left to say. Another big catch completed.

The ground floor has now almost been explored. The main entrance is down to the right and this is the main stairway. But I’m not going up just yet.

Because I’ve just found the girls’ dressing room. I wonder, what has happened there near the floor.

Again it seems like somebody has removed all the pipes.

The girls’ shower. Like I’ve said so many times before, this was the place of my dreams in secondary school.

Below the gym was a largish classroom. I already know what this has been, but let’s confirm it from the text on the door.

That’s right, the woodworking classroom. I wonder, why they’ve had to place no smoking signs on all doors. Who was smoking here back in 2009?

It was a large classroom for this school. But not large for a woodworking class.

On the board were the usual decorations. But why does this make someone unhappy?

Looking back towards the corridor I came through. The plumbing has been completely destroyed.

The main entrance seen in full.

And finally moving up from the ground floor.

That looks like pupil made art.

And here we have my favorite place of every old school: the gym.

The nets are for protecting the windows from ball hits.

There was no real scene, just a curtain separating it from the rest of the space. The curtain could be pulled to the side to allow for basketball and other sports. I call this the optimization of space.

At the back of the gym next to the stairway was a storage for chairs.

I could go up the stairs, but not just yet. It’s time to explore the second floor of the building.

There was a corridor with the brick wall left clean: an interesting architectural feature.

The first standard classroom of the school with the usual greetings on the wall.

And the blackboard of the same classroom with some tags dating back to the 2010’s. Vandals have been roaming here for long.

Moving further along the corridor.

And entering classroom number two, I guess.

There was a door at the back of the classroom.

There was a narrow storage room there. These were common in old schools like this.

Rooms like this were where study materials were stored in.

I guess we’re getting down to the reality of ordinary school life now.

And yet again a familiar location. This is a former village school, which I found in 2021 when it was getting dark and I was busy trying to make it to another location. I visited this place for the first time very late in the night in 2022 when in a hurry. Back then there was no entry.

But after driving an hour or two from the old hospital, getting a good rest next to a lake I approached the place for a second attempt.

It seemed as if nothing had changed.

Even the old and strangely low canopy was still there.

The main entrance was locked. The gym wing can be seen behind it.

But the side door was open. This was entry number 45 that summer and number nine of what I consider big catches. My big catch percentage was actually quite high.

The teachers’ study was right next to the entrance. I believe, that this entrance was solely permitted for them, although it was on the opposite side of the yard from their apartment building, which was still in use.

The traditional buzzer.

Empty rooms here. The teachers have cleaned after themselves.

The crack on the wall seems to reach deeper than the paint.

A small peek behind the door revealed another exit and a cupboard – or probably a toilet.

The main space of the teachers featured a small kitchen.

The closed door is the main switchboard. The open one after that is a dressing room.

Then we have a cleaning closet. And the kitchen.

I think this place could use a plumber.

Entering the kitchen. There’s still a lot of equipment left.

The corridor ends at the main entrance.

And this is the canteen.

Are those electric wires?

Tasty memories from school years? Somehow my memories of school food really aren’t that tasty.

But I do remember the plastic plates of the primary school in the 1990’s. This school was closed in 2009, but it seems, that traditions have lived on.

The principals of fresh milk from the local dairy company. If I’m not incorrect, it has ceased to use that name back in 1991. Things didn’t change much in this school after that, it seems.

A view towards the kitchen through the counter. There’s another exit there. That’s the pair of the other side exit seen in the first picture, which leads to the teachers’ study.

A closer look at the plates on the counter. The juice has been canned in 2013 and expired in 2014, so either it is of the owner’s or vandals have been roaming here for almost 10 years.

A small bathroom. It starts to look like somebody has stolen the pipes.

A dressing room! Let’s see, if this is interesting or not.

Oh, the boys’ dressing room. Not interesting at all, I’ve spent enough time in those. Let’s see, if there’s something more interesting around.