I've found a ghost town...

It sounded almost impossible that a city like Helsinki could have as well its own ghost town. Well, more than a ghost town I would call it a ghost quarter.

I am talking about the area of Kruunuvuori, of which, so far, I entirely ignored its existence.

Indeed, this is not the place a touristic agency would like to show to the people coming to visit Finland, so as I arrived here (many years ago) the place wasn't ever mentioned. To be honest, I believe that there are even a few people who have been born in Helsinki which are aware of the existence of this place.

So, a bit of story to understand it. Kruunuvuori was built originally between the 19th and 20th century, and at those times all the areas outside the city center were nothing else but fields or forests.

Due to the beauty of the area, people started to build their residential villas, where to enjoy the rural life and get a spot of paradise.

Between the 1926-60 the place was one of the most wanted locations for wealthy people where to build their villas, but things started to decline already from the fifties when an ambitious businessman got the idea to convert the place into an urban area where he intended to build housings for more than just a small elite.

He then bought the place, but he never got the permission to put into practice his plan. At this point, the area remained neglected and forgotten.

What is left now is a place full of memories of a glorious past, and beautiful villas destined to decay with the time.

Nature is slowly taking over the place and vandals complete the destruction that has already reached the levels beyond which those houses cannot be repaired anymore.

Perhaps, the best thing to do would be to return the whole area to nature, tearing down those villas and restore the woods as they were before the first building was erected.

It is sad to say that it would have been a lovely place where to live, even only for a few houses. It would be good to understand that those buildings can be saved, and someone would take care of them.

I really cannot imagine leaving such amazing villas to rot and decay this way, I feel like a personal struggling with the history of those buildings, of the ghosts still living there. I feel sad for those walls which have seen love, hate, tears, and joy, and now there is just a slow but certain death.

Everything has a beginning, and everything has an end. Nothing is forever, and in this cycle of life, death and rebirth, I feel inspired to reconsider also my own life. 

So this time, with a little melancholy in my voice, I wish you all a very happy weekend. Stay tuned for other stories from The Wandering Writer.