EARLY AUTUMN OF 2004

 - The narrow and old Finnish country roads are really the best places to make some discoveries for a nice photographing places. The roadsides are full of abandoned farmhouses, barns and other miscellaneous structures...like this quite big abandoned factory...

- I noticed this factory, while heading towards Mikkeli and to the non-commissioned officer school. Anyone who is familiar with geography may ask that what the hell you were doing in Hirvihaara if you were going to Mikkeli, there's the freeway you know? Yes there is, with nothing to see, except cars after cars. But the small roads contains a lot to see, this place being just one example.

- Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the history of this place and I cannot even start to guess what was manufactured here. What ever the history is, one thing is sure, it's a long one. The long history of this place, can be clearly seen from the architecture of this place. They don't build factories like this anymore, actually I doubt that they didn't build factories like this fifty to sixty years ago even. When looking at the place from outside, the architecture clearly brings association with the numerous industrial buildings in downtown Tampere and in other old Finnish industrial towns. It's just that if I start to claim this factory being very very old, then the next question arises, that what was the factory doing here sixty years ago, in the middle of nowhere, as Hirvihaara even today, is really in the middle of nowhere and you can very easily drive by the village, without ever knowing of being in Hirvihaara.

- Whatever the history is, the factory is in a decent condition. There has been a devastating fire, which has destroyed the upper floors from the middle part of the factory and climbing to the second or even third floor, carries certain risks. But other than that no vandals and almost no graffiti, which is explained by the remote location of this place, there's just not that many people around. Unfortunately almost all of the machines and evidences of what was produced here, has been either taken away or stolen. So the interiors doesn't help as much as the architecture, to guess how old this place is.

- One evidence from the old architecture, I got from the millions of bits of glass, that was covering the floors, after the numerous windows have been broken. Finally the thing that I've feared happened. I did check the floor that it's okay to kneel to take a picture, but apparently, I should have carried a broom with me to dust the floor, as I didn't notice one piece of glass, which made a nasty stabbing wound to my knee. Thankfully it wasn't a drug syringe...

LATE AUTUMN OF 2004

- That was the way it was before and now it goes like this...

- After a month since I visited this place, I happened to see a TV program, which featured this factory and several other abandoned factories in Finland. The TV program also was able to reveal something about the history of this place. The building has been constructed in the thirties and it was a matchbox factory and operated all the way to the nineties, when the fire which can be seen in the pictures, forced to close down the whole factory. Perhaps the fire wasn't the only reason, but the demand for matches had come down already and the fire was just the final thing, that closed the last matchbox factory in Finland.

- Now the last operational matchbox factory, just rots there under the mercy of weather...

- The factory contained several of these kind of halls, which clearly have been some kind of assembly halls. To my surprise, I was able to walk freely through the factory, as none of the heavy doors were locked or blocked in anyway.

- That silo, most likely has been installed after the factory was build, it just doesn't fit to the architecture of this place. It contains wood chips, which were burned in the ovens, which would then warm the factory, as warm as you can get a factory, build from bricks without any insulation layers.