Facebook Finds Part II

Reaching the final hall. There were pretty good graffiti pieces everywhere.

And I mean everywhere.

Same room, other side.

The main switchboard. Or what remains of it.

At the end were stairs down a basement.

Another entrance – to an exhibition company. Whatever this is about, I don’t know. But apparently there has been another company functioning in the premises in addition to the tire company.

This is the way to the showers – and the sauna.

There was a corridor in the basement.

This is probably a staff room.

Another room. Purpose unknown.

Another room, purpose still unknown.

Purpose still unknown. Although it looks like somebody has lived here at some point.

It looks a bit like the room of an apartment hotel.

Moving back through the halls. The exploration is reaching the end.

That’s one big piece by Hende, who does quite good pieces, by the way.

Back outside. And at the back of the building.

A late 1990’s Scania has been abandoned here.

The cockpit of the Scania, and it looks familiar. Emek made models of trucks like this when I was a child. I had several of them. This is my first peek inside one of them in real life.

Another view from the back, which ironically was the front facing the main road.

Back on the front side and taken through the fence surrounding the area. There was quite a lot of abandoned equipment here.

Almost the same point of view. The leaf covers the face graffiti seen earlier.

Yeah, sure it was guarded. Judging by the amount of vandalism and graffiti, Securitas has really neglected its duties.

When writing this post I tried to find out everything possible about the building. According to old aerial photos it was built before 1977. And it was demolished in November 2024 to make way for a new building, which nowadays houses the repair shop of a nationwide car chain. Case closed.

Facebook Finds Part I

That spring somebody posted photos from a location to a Finnish urbex Facebook group. The place looked like some kind of a car maintenance company. By googling the name seen on the wall I could locate it to the vicinity of Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

Well, I no longer had a summer car. But luckily there’s a very extensive public transport network in the capital region.

So here we go. It was a company selling car tires. And apparently it sold tires large enough to fit heavy transports judging by the size of the doors.

It wasn’t exactly very difficult to get inside.

Recamic is a tire concept by Michelin for large cars such as buses and lorries.

The first hall was quickly seen. Moving on further.

This looks like some sort of a back room.

Receipts from 2009. The company later changed its name and entered receivership in April 2024.

A fax. A rare discovery nowadays.

The first hall was a total mess of nearly everything. Including Smurfs.

Moving on to the office block.

The store front.

Now wait a second…

Now this is hilarious. The graffiti portrays Kalervo Jankko, the owner of a concrete business from the legendary Finnish comedy show Kummeli. Jankko’s business fucks everything up, he gets complaints, accepts them, says ‘asia kunnossa’ (everything okay) and then after the call ends or the complainer leaves, thrashes his office. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

Moving on through the thrashed halls.

The cubicle with the smurfs is probably the toilets.

Umm.. is that a swing?

The front of another hall. Again it’s just a mess.

There was some very good graffiti and then there was this less good graffiti.

Another hall, the same story. Although this one looks like a storage room.

Moving on to the next hall.

The same hall seen towards the other direction.

Moving on to the cubicle with the Käärijä graffiti.

The insides had been thrashed completely.

Now this is a genious installation. Even the vandals have allowed the wheels to stay in their place.

Another post coming up.

Holy Ruins

Back in 2012 the Saint Nicholaus Orthodox Church started building a church, a congregation center and an apartment building in the Itäkeskus suburb of Helsinki. The church was supposed to be built in the classic way of Orthodox churches. This was their grand project.

Construction was halted in 2015 when the congregation ran out of money. The apartment building was 90 % complete, the congregation center was incomplete and the church construction hadn’t even started. Already back in the spring of 2021 the city realized that work had not progressed in years and started investigating.

The place had been on my list for years, but only now did I make my first attempt.

It wasn’t exactly difficult to find. I believe this wing to contain apartments.

Which would then make this the congregation center.

The only issue was to find a way to the lot.

The fences were more solid than the incomplete buildings.

Still nope.

Eventually there was a way through the back.

This is the assembly hall of the congregation center.

The apartments were indeed much readier.

Not sure how a lonely shoe has found its way even to this location. Next I am probably gonna find a can of pickled cucumber.

There wasn’t much to see here. Just concrete, tags and smashed but unused construction materials.

And a lift. It has probably been here for around 10 years.

Up we go.

Finnish for beginners. For some reason the notes in blue are in Italian.

Views from the balcony. The area is a total mess.

He looks dishonest.

More balcony views. They planned on a spacious assembly hall.

A corridor upstairs. The rooms were probably meant to become offices.

Inside the rooms.

A large piece covered one of the walls.

Back downstairs.

The apartment building. There was no entry here.

The city didn’t watch the area for long afterwards. The buildings were demolished in early 2025, and a new housing plan is being made for the lot.

The Lights Are On, But No One Seems Home

Welcome to another familiar location. This is a view I haven’t presented that often of it.

This one is probably more familiar looking. It’s the old school featured for the first time in 2022. A plan has been on for years to convert it into luxury apartments.

Nothing has happened so far.

The strange thing was, that both the front door and back door were open. We took a peek, but as the lights were on, there was still electricity in the building. And where there’s electricity, there might be alarms.

There were also all kinds of keys in the area.

And I mean all kinds of keys.

So close, but yet so far.

An Urban Trend Part II

After the kitchen of Old Jerusalem, it’s time to check the toilets of Old Jerusalem.

I found the kitchen more interesting, though.

A look back at the restaurant.

The menu. Let’s have a look!

I could have enjoyed several of these dishes. Looks tasty!

A back corridor.

The kitchen again.

And another corridor.

And this is what looks to be another restaurant.

Which might also have been a bar.

The windows have been blocked. It’s dark in here.

Behind the counter.

Another kitchen. And my date.

Moving on to the following business space.

It’s a bit unclear to me what this has been.

The space consisted of several rooms.

It looks a bit like this has been offices.

Moving towards the storefront. A lot of destruction here.

And this is the storefront. I believe, that this has possibly been the tiling company’s premises.

Taggers have found their way here.

Back outside. A realtor has occupied this area of the mall.

The final corner. There’s an open door, so I guess we exited through that.

Surveillance cameras my ass. If there really were some, would the place be in such a condition? I don’t think so.

The mall was demolished in 2025. It is currently waiting for new building development.

An Urban Trend Part I

As Helsinki greatly expanded since the early 1960’s, a lot of new suburbs were built. In their heart was usually a low, one storey mall, which would provide the local services. As Helsinki keeps on growing, the malls are facing big renovations and are considered inefficient buildings, a lot of them are being demolished and replaced with blocks of flats with business premises downstairs.

This was the fate with the mall in the Lehtisaari suburb. It was constructed in 1967 and abandoned in 2023. Since then it had sat vacant.

There it is. I received a tip about it from the father of my childhood friend and the director of my childhood daycare center when visiting them in my home town.

If I remember correctly, a tire store was located down here.

The walls now are full of graffiti.

Newer and taller structures seen in the background.

According to the father of my friend there should be a way in somewhere.

Well, technically that would be a way in.

But here I am not inside. This photo is taken through the broken window.

The other side of the same room.

Basement entrance.

The back side wasn’t very inviting. But it did make a great graffiti wall.

A loading dock at the back.

A squirrel? Or a kapybara?

Moving on to the next side of the building.

A company providing floor and wall tile services.

There we’ve had a sushi place

The central alley of the mall.

The tag about Palestine isn’t spot on. This restaurant was run by an Iraqi entrepreneur.

The final side of the mall. But wait a second.

Here we are inside Old Jerusalem.

White bricks and wood. The interior actually matches the 1960’s exterior pretty well.

The ceiling has come down.

The restaurant has been rather large.

And the walls inside really are made of stone.

Moving on to the kitchen.

Perhaps you’ll find out what kind of food this restaurant has served, but that will only happen in the next post.

The Summer Car Never Saw The Summer

A few days after the weekend trip I was on another date – with another girl. It was our first one, but she said she wanted to go out and look for abandoned houses.

Miraculously the car started on the first attempt, but fuel was low. Or I thought it was low, as the gauge wasn’t working. I had a notebook with kilometers and litres refuelled in the car.

Well, we did refuel. And after getting my last money’s worth of gas in its tank, the car gave up. I tried starting for 20 minutes. Nothing happened.

So I called my insurance company. Ever since my first summer car broke down, I’ve had an insurance, which includes towing.

They towed it to the nearest workshop, who got into examining. The starter was indeed broken. Should have fixed it in the beginning, as it wasn’t an expensive part.

The issue was, that the insurance company had towed it to the most expensive workshop in Espoo. They charged 200 euros for just finding the fault, a change of the starter would have been another 400 euros. A total of 600 euros for a 110 euro part to a 1200 euro car? No thanks.

I put the car up for sale, sold it with 120 euros to a polite young Romani the following day. Turns out he fixed it and put it up for sale for 1200 euros the following day.

At that time I thought this was a blessing. But as I had already decided to explore for one more summer, I bought all you can travel train tickets for five weeks. Little did I know, what was about to happen.

A Weekend Exploration Date Part VII

The final location on my list was an old elementary school for Swedish speaking kids. It was closed in 2022, when the kids moved to a larger school in the village.

It was abandoned for more than a year before somebody bought it. But that doesn’t mean anything really. Old schools owned by private persons sit abandoned all around the country.

There it is. What a little cutie. At this point we were still hopeful.

Here it looked even more hopeful. Although the light on top of the main entrance was on, the door was boarded shut.

But there was a van around the corner. The owner did use the building, so we left.

Three days on a roadtrip and not a single entry. The car’s starting problems were getting worse, too. It now took several minutes and several attempts to start.

I was exhausted, I was fed up. I swore to retire after the summer.

A Weekend Exploration Date Part VI

The following location. I discovered it way back in 2020, when I was on my first Tour De Finland. This is the first time that I photographed it, however.

There are two old large wooden buildings on the same lot. According to a sales brochure this one here is an old school from the 1920’s. It’s been abandoned for ages and has also been for sale for ages. There’s another building on the lot, which is probably the old staff apartment building.

This location followed the theme of the weekend. Absolutely no way in. Frustration was really growing.

A Weekend Exploration Date Part V

Next we went looking for mines. There were three former ones located in a small former municipality. The issue with the area is, that the ground is unstable and there have been several collapses. That’s why there also are several restricted areas.

The first mine was in operation between 1948 and 1961, and until the 1970’s it was used to enriching the ore of a nearby mine. The enrichment plant is the only remaining building left. It is in private ownership and in a very bad condition.

The second mine we visited was in operation between 1951 and 1954. According to aerial photos and sources on the internet, there were still several buildings remaining. The neighbors however showed too much interest towards us and we decided not to enter the area.

The third mine was in operation between 1758 and 1958.

The old mining tower. The buildings were beautifully restored and a fence with barbed wire surrounded the area.

It was now Sunday afternoon, and I still hadn’t managed to enter a single location.