Goodbye, Nightmares Part I

Welcome to a tiny village in Western Finland. If you’ve followed this blog closely, you will recognize the place.

This is the place, where my nightmares were made. A former abattoir in a village, where I used to live between ages 3 and 4. And the building, which basically is the reason why i started urbex.

The story can be read through the previous link, but I’ll give a quick recap to lazy browsers, who want to see the pics and not click on links.

I was 16, when I returned to the village after 10 years. I had an uneasy feeling all along, but when I saw this building in the darkness, I was frozen with fear. I spent a sleepless night wondering what had happened and found childhood memories from the place. It was probably abandoned already back then.

The story goes on here, but again I’ll give you a summary. I drove to this village several times and tried to enter the place, but was too afraid of it to even reach its grounds. My mental health deteriorated really quickly back then, and I started having nightmares about this place every night. Finally my friend had enough, gave me wine and drove me here. I ran inside in the middle of the night and found complete inner peace.

The following summer I told this story to my colleague, and she told me we should go in and photograph the place. That’s how my first ever exploration started. That was 11 years and 94 successfully entered buildings ago.

I made another brief visit in 2015 and again in 2020. Things had gone from bad to worse. The roof was collapsing, the municipality started to take action against the owner. I knew that the time of this place was running out, and I decided to come back once again and walk through the building the same routes I did the first time. I wanted to document the change, which had happened and leave my silent goodbyes to a location that has been so meaningful to me.

The time for the goodbyes has come. You can see the gallery from the first visit here. I will be walking the same path and linking to old pictures, so it will be easier for you to compare. There will be around 300 photos this time, so it’s going to be a long and comprehensive journey.

Like the previous time I would start at the back. It was a pretty dense jungle already back in 2010.

But 11 years ago you could still drive a car to the back yard. Now there was just a very narrow path.

Getting closer.

At this point I was wondering if I could actually reach the back door through all the burning nettles.

There is actually an entrance to the basement somewhere there.

And here we are. This is 2021, this is 2010. Since my previous visit the door has been bolted shut, which is a marvel.

A pretty similar view here.

As the door was shut, I had to climb in through the window. But it didn’t matter. This was the most important exploration for me in more than a decade.

Welcome to the place where my nightmares were made. For one last time.

Hanging By A Thread

I had spotted this house earlier while travelling by train. It is directly next to an old railway station, so I suspect, that it has originally been built for railroad workers. The boards in the windows indicated that life had left a while ago.

The windows, which weren’t boarded, were broken. Seems like a definite abandonment to me.

The stairs to the porch had collapsed, but the doors were ajar. I was already celebrating success.

But it was too early. The door inside from the cold porch was shut with a bolt.

There was a surprise on the porch, however.

I have to admit that I was startled, when faced with this guy. Luckily it didn’t look like too real.

From The Court To A Beach Holiday

My final location of the evening was a former holiday village near a large beach. It was originally built by the same company, which built the residential quarters to its workers. The aim of this place was to provide recreation to the same people.

According to media reports the place has been unused for years and has fallen into a bad shape. It is owned by the city, who back in 2021 was selling it with an auction.

Here is the main building. It has seen better days.

It looks abandoned, but it also looks intact.

There was no way in, but there were loads of mosquitos. I aborted the mission here.

The area was sold to a construction company, which plans to build a new, luxurious holiday village. So far they have managed to renovate the sauna by the sea.

1 Room & Former Kitchen

I was literally only returning to my car from the previous location, when I spotted something further of interest.

A small cottage with a hall, two rooms, no windows and open doors.

This was pretty much the sight inside. There was another room to the right, but it was empty, and the picture quality of shots taken there was pretty subpar. No need to publish them.

This makes me think about Wallace and Gromit on the moon.

The room seen from the other side. And the exploration is finished.

Someone here has lived in very primitive condition. A bed and a stove – thats about what there is and the rooms are so small, there wasn’t room for much else.

Paint For Sale

Moving on to the next building on the other side of the overgrown yard. It had had another wing right there, but that had been demolished between 2012 and 2015.

The building has been abandoned for a long time. Why they chose to tear down only one wing of it remains a mystery.

At first I thought it was just an ordinary grocery store. It wouldn’t have been a miracle.

The weak spot in the building’s protection.

There was even a basement. It was locked. And I don’t go to places like this anyway.

Many layers of wallpaper on the wall of the demolished wing.

The first look inside. Judging by the amount of shelves this has indeed been some kind of a store, but not a grocery store.

It is starting to look more and more like a hardware store.

Those look like paint samples. I wish I would have gotten better pictures, but evening was coming and things were getting darker.

More shelves and drawers. Those are definitely paint and varnish cans.

Modern heating methods never reached this store.

A small side room with more shelves and drawers.

The store seen from the other direction. The previous building I explored can be seen through the window.

I could only access the store part of the building. There were probably apartments at the back, but they had entrances of their own. The yard was so overgrown, that I couldn’t reach that area, so my exploration was here.

All in all this yard and its buildings remains quite a mystery to me.

A Collapsing Mystery

And so we are approaching the next location.

Which is the yellow building in the picture.

It had a very strange window layout indicating it was probably used for commerce or manufactoring of some sort.

It was also in a very bad condition and had partially collapsed.

I already knew by now that I had no business going upstairs.

But in we go anyway.

The entrance to the buidling was directly to this small room, which looked like a dressing room.

The building was a maze.

And the place was in a dreadful condition. This is the room directly below the collapsed part of the roof.

A fairly strange room with a large oven. I’m suspecting that this thing was a factory or a workshop of some kind.

There were a few other rooms downstairs. The funny thing was that I didn’t find any stairs. They had probably collapsed, too.

The neighbor’s lawn was well kept and they were very close. The risk of being spotted was real.

The room looks a bit like someone has lived there since the abandonment.

Even the floor has started to give in.

Very theoretical books about something and even in English. Not the first thing you’d expect to find here.

A yearbook from 1975. Coats of arms are actually close to my heart. They were the main reason I got the idea to visit all current and former municipalities as a kid, something, which I attempted to do in one summer the previous year.

The back of the building contained some storage space. It had received a new roof at some point and was possibly still in use.

But what puzzles me is, that I have no idea what this building has been. It is located next to an abandoned and partly demolished former hardware store. When writing this post I realized, that they were on the same lot.

So this place had something to do with the hardware store, but still remains a mystery to this day.

A Small Selection

While looking for something completely different, I spotted this small old grocery store hidden behind bushes.

An old coffee company ad was on the wall, but I was more interested in the store’s chain.

The T-markets were launched in the 1970’s and were rebranded as Spars way back in 1993. This means, that the place hasn’t served as a store since then. As it was a rather small building, it has probably been closed even before that.

There was still some stuff left inside, old furniture and big, plastic meat boxes. The store has probably been used as a storage since its closure.

A view from the back. There were only bushes, but no point of entry.

So I’m moving on.

A Silent Court

Next destination: a former residential area built for the workers of a nearby copper factory. I had heard of the place from a fellow urbexer. I wasn’t really sure of its exact location, nor did I know what I could expect.

Sounds like an adventure, right?

Wooden houses from the early post war period, all built along the same plans and windows boarded shut. This must be the place.

There had originally been around 20 houses in the area. During the years several were demolished to make way to the enlarging factory and its parking lot. Less than 10 were remaining. The last inhabitants had left in 2019.

The houses were originally built for four families but later converted to just two apartments, when living standards increased.

They were made up of two identical halves. There were even garages in each building.

The yards were overgrown.

The first few houses were painted red. Next there was a white one.

Same story and layout here.

There isn’t really much to say anymore. All houses had an identical layout, all were equally well closed down with no points of entry.

The next color was yellow. The houses seen in the distance are blocks of flats built for the workers of the same company. They are still in good shape and inhabited. They are also protected by the detail plan.

Oh, we have a new color. Not white, not yellow, yellowish.

The reason to the existance of this area was very near. That’s the factory, and it’s really that close. Actually this whole area with the wooden houses has been redesigned as an industrial zone for potential enlargement.

The garage doors were shut with large bolts. That’s quite rare.

Finally a window, which wasn’t boarded shut. The edges of the broken glass were so sharp, that I didn’t consider entering. I didn’t want to risk cuts.

The next color option. Is this brown or orange, I don’t know.

And there we have one grey with turquoise doors.

The orange house from the other side.

And the grey one. This one looks like it’s been abandoned for longer than the others. Just look at the roof.

The grey building also looks like it has been broken into. In the other buildings the doors were just closed and locked. Here it looks like they have been broken and shut with plywood.

Another red building.

Just the usual greetings. And the promise to die next, if I enter. If all these messages would be true, I’d have been dead numerous times.

Back around the grey one again.

There’s been a break in here, too, but they’ve just installed a new lock. No luck here either.

The previous house said I’ll die if I enter, this one says welcome. I don’t know what to believe in anymore.

But I had to start believing the fact that I couldn’t access any of the buildings this time. Better luck next time.

Almost Choo-chooed On The Way

Several of the locations I chose to visit during my road trip were places, which I had never visited. I had spotted them in news about abandoned buildings, construction projects and future demolitions.

But there were also several locations, which I had spotted during my extensive tour of Finland the previous summer. That time I had found no point of entry, so I chose to come back to see, if I was luckier this time.

And this time we’re approaching one of the latter kind of locations.

This of course is a former leather factory. Its story has been told earlier here. And it looks pretty much the same as it did that time around.

The property was surrounded by a fence and the gates were locked. As I don’t do break ins, I chose to go around the back to see, if there was a path.

A better view showing the largest part of the complex in full.

The building was located by a railroad. It was a very quiet strech of track, so I thought it was safe to follow the tracks around the building.

Reaching the back side. The fence here has taken a hit, but not a big enough hit.

This was when I heard a noise.

And surely enough there was a freight train approaching. It was travelling at a very slow speed, so I had plenty of time to step aside. But still the driver probably was wondering what the hell I was doing there.

A poor kid’s scoot. There were several houses on the lot. Most of them looked abandoned, but the most modern factory buildings looked like they were still in use.

I decided to leave and come back at a later date to have look at how things had developed.