AUTUMN 2002

- Skatanniemi is part of the outer defensive line of the sea front. It's also the only part of the sea front which can be reach quite easily as it's located on land.

- Still even when it's the easiest place to visit from the sea front, it's located in a really isolated place. You can't reach it with bus or a subway, the closest bus will drop you off kilometers away from this place and even then it's hard to know which road to take as there are dirt roads going all over the place. So you'll need some other means of transportation.

- This was an interesting place to photograph as the indoor area was quite big. Entrance hall, five rooms and corridors going to every room and there were two of these similar sections, built to be an exact copy of each others. 

- There also was one room that I couldn't enter, because the entrance had collapsed and mud had filled the doorway. This gun site is in a good condition. The government has collected iron out from this place also, but the walls and ceiling are still intact. Only the rubble is filling the floor.

- The view to the sea is absolutely great and at the time when the battery was operational, there were no trees hindering the view to the open sea. Today, the trees block most of the view. Most likely the construction of the Skatanniemi battery was started in 1916.

SUMMER 2005

- Nearly three years have passed since I visited Skatanniemi battery last time with a camera. I've stop by since that, just to see the place, but never really looked the place thoroughly since the Autumn of 2002. Not much has changed in three years, the water is still slowly dropping from the ceiling making the only noise inside the battery corridors and forming a massive rust dripstones. If possible, there seemed to be a lot less garbage now, but still it seems that some people are pouring their garbage's into the battery. What worries me, is that the new Aurinkolahti residential area is really really close to the Skatanniemi battery, too close I think. The battery has stand here in it's own peace for a long time, not suffering any serious damage from people, but things will surely and sadly change, when thousands of people will move to the Aurinkolahti area... 

- The Skatanniemi battery was armed with four 152mm cannons. The bases where the cannons were located can be still seen on the ground. There's some conflicting information whether the battery was never equipped with the 152mm cannons. Some sources say, that the cannons were never installed, but were left to lie to the shoreline, as the Finnish civil war started. Some sources on the other hand, just mentions the armament of the battery being four 152mm cannons. In any case, the bases and the battery appears to be completed in time, it's just a question mark if they had the time to install the cannons.

- Through these hatches, soldiers would give ammunitions to be fired with the cannon. Greatly build, but useless as the only kind of action this battery saw, was practice.

- This time I didn't have to crawl into anything, the door was open and welcoming me in. But there were troubles here also. This is the first one of those indoor areas and this one I was able to photograph while being here for the first time, but when I entered to the second indoor area and stopped, I started to hear a noise. Clear scratching noise coming from some room. While I stood still the noise stopped, but immediately when I moved my feet the noise started again. Then I stopped again and the noise stopped. When I waved my flashlight the noise started again. Ok, this was enough. I didn't want no wild cat or whatever jumping into my face. I got some backup few days later and then I did enter into the second area and took pictures. This time there was no sound coming from the corridors or rooms. Whatever was there, had left...