Raid Squad Tampere: 03.2007

20.3.07

13.3.07

History and the original use of this complex are pretty much in the dark, at least for me. An educated guess would be, that it has been an seed grain station for legendary Finnish agricultural company 'Hankkija'. Anyhow, in I went.

The visit to building's celler was an nervwrecking experience. Lovering down two storeys through those ice covered stairs in complete darkness would have been bad enough without massive hangover alone. The following shot from the dark from the basement. Nothing much there, just few fire extinguishers and some heavier machinery. (which of I didn't get an proper shot cause of the complete darkness)

In the upper stories most of the machinery and other stuff seemed to be pretty much intact. Not that there would have been much of anything at all. Alltogether, it seems that in these smaller, rustic, cities sites like this seem to stay in better condition. (e.g. Kuivalahen saha) Probably the youth of countryside are more stand-up citisen than those in big cities. More likely, there just aren't any.

-T

Notice the mandatory 'conveyor-picture'.

11.3.07

Kokemäki

An silo thingy in Kokemäki. Proper update to come this week.

-T

7.3.07

Grodék, Poland

Last saturday I got the opportunity to join the boys and girl from Opuszczone for a trip to an abandoned Soviet village in Grodék. You could call it a ghost town even. Grodék was a Soviet armybase from WW II to the early nineties. During this time some 5000 troops were living in Grodék. After Soviet Union collapsed the troops left leaving the base empty. Now Grodék is inhabited by one family who are taking down other buildings except for their own for firewood. Some of the apartment buildings still had windows and they were even for sale. When the town was inhabited it consisted of little more than ten apartment blocks, a school, cinema, hospital etc. Unbelievable to see.
Thanks for Travis, Chris, Marek & Aga for taking me here with you!
Pictures, people:

Everything possible was stolen from the buildings on the outskirts of the town.

3 years ago this bulding had walls and a roof...

View to the main street. The silence of this city is amazing.

More apartment blocks.

Phew.

A little bit of modern decorations also.

The spring is here.

I went for a walk by myself in the town and on the way back I met these guys. You could say I was a little worried, but as it turns out the lads were filming a short movie in Grodék. Luckily.

Older decorations. I'm a big fan of Soviet realism.

Cut the sword of capitalism...

That's how you make Duracell bunnies: give them coffee

The music class in the school

Nice paintings on the wall. I bet it sucked to live in this room.

Curtains were gone.

Local boy was more than interested in what we were doing. Specially I was interesting since I didn't speak Polish.

Soviet bunker, Poland

During the trip to Grodék we also stopped to an abandoned Soviet bunker in between Poznan and Grodék. The bunker was built by the Germans in the WW II and after the war it was used by the Soviet troops to get rid of old ammunation and explosives. The bunker contained hundreds of meters of dark tunnels full of writings on the walls, lots of bats and sand. A very interesting place indeed. Here are some photos for you to see...