Military bunker, Tampere, Finland

Visited 1.6.2014 by skkye. The road to this old military bunker goes through a beautiful forest. I remember seeing two gorgeous black woodpeckers playing together before we went into the bunker. My friend had been there before and he said usually the door is strictly closed but on that day we were lucky and it was magically opened.

The contrast between the sunny forest full of birdsong and the cold, wet and pitch-dark bunker was huge. The voice of our steps echoed from the stone walls when we walked deep inside the bunker. Every now and then we met a doorway with a heavy bomb shelter door and stepped in. I couldn't help thinking about someone walking silently behind us and locking all the iron doors. We didn't know if there was any other way out, our cell phones didn't work underground and there was no point to shout for help. I felt restless and uneasy - the bunker is so unnatural place for human being.
   I was also concerned about breathing. What if there wasn't enough oxygen or some poisonous gas was leaking from somewhere? I tried my best to relax and concentrate taking photos but at some point it was just too much for me and I kind of freaked out. "I can't breath, here is no oxygen, we have to go out!" Going outside and seeing sunlight made me feel better and after many deep breaths we retried exploring the whole bunker. I'm happy about our persistence since the most interesting finds were in the end of the bunker. There was for example postcards from radio stations all over the world, over twenty years old poster of generals and a secret passage outdoors.

Abandoned mining island (Part 7), Tammisaari, Finland

This is my last post from a quieted mining island. Even now, when I'm writing this post at home and listening to some melancholic music, the photos and memories from there are giving me shivers. I'm thinking about the soundscape of the island - how in the beginning it was very silent, then suddenly full of explosions and mining sounds. When the mine was closed and the military started practising, the island became filled with gunshots and other sounds of war. Today the circle of sounds is closed and the island is silent again excluding occasional voices of birds and other nature. I wonder how the next phase of sounds will be.

Last buildings we explored were full of marks of military practise. Some of the walls were decorated with bullet holes and some had been eaten by explosives. Walking on the floors with sneakers was like a Russian roulette - we tried our best to avoid hidden holes, rusty nails and other traps. Almost every other step glass from the broken windows was screeching under my feet.

It was beautiful to see how nature was slowly taking over old buildings. Little tree seeds had miraculously grown through the floors and formed a touching garden in the middle of a barbed wire and sandbags. There was an abandoned swallow nest in a hole of the wall and moss blankets on the rooftops. I found a collection of flat stones on the window sill and got lost in wondering who had made it and when. For me it was a warm greeting from an inscrutable past. 

Abandoned mining island (Part 6), Tammisaari, Finland

These are my last photos from this magnificent adventure island. I hope some day we will get a chance to go back and explore the rest!