Good day fellow Hiveans and other beasts!
A lot of water (and plastic!) has flown into the oceans since I last wrote something here but life has been busy with juggling work and small kids.
So what forced me to write a post? I recently stumbled upon some "Open House" posters when visiting a fair on the other side of town, in order to buy some special hot chilli jam and that sparked my interest. Often, during these open house events, you get access to places you normally don't or have to climb through a myriad of broken glass windows and rusty nails and risk being hunted.... and this, at my age..ugh.
So anyway, one of the open house events listed was a visit to the Stalker museum and the derelict Noblessner submarine factory. I guess everyone knows the movie Stalker these days - but for those who don't - it's kind of a cult classic by Andrei Tarkovsky, a Russian filmmaker, who was on the run from Russian authorities because of the backlash of his latest movie "Mirror". Tarkovsky was residing in Estonia and thus most of the movie, if not all, was filmed here as well. Those who live here, might find some nostalgia in spots that are almost unrecognizable today. Of course, what draws many to movies and games like this, are the views of derelict and destroyed industrial buildings, which perhaps tickles our senses somehow. The feeling of being alone in places that once were booming is something for sure.
But the main part of the event was the ship/submarine factory, which is owned by BLRT these days. BLRT is a large company focusing on a million things, including shipbuilding, metals and whatnots.
But during the tour, I managed to hear our guide mentioning that this might have been the last time anyone sees this building in this form ever, so I decided to record at least some photos of it on the chain. Property development is upon us all everywhere, the world becomes smaller and places to explore become lesser.
We gathered in front of the Stalker museum and it began to rain heavily, so there was a bunch of people all pushing into the small bunker-museum all at once. I asked for permission to take a few snaps from the museum and got it, but since it's not a good custom to share too much, I'll be posting only one or two teaser shots from the museum.
If you've not been there, but happen to visit the Noblessner area in Tallinn, I recommend you take a quick de-tour to visit this small bunker. There is not much except a few rooms, but for fans of the Stalker, it should be quite interesting with even an interactive attraction in one room.
Anyway, fast forward to the submarine factory. First thing I learned why the area is called Noblessner - the factory was founded by two blokes namely, Nobel and Lessner, and for the slower ones, they just added these two names together. Bet even some of you locals did not know that. I can't recall whether that was new to me or not because I tend to forget things like that quickly.
This is the building from outside, and to be honest, there are nooks and crannies to explore which we didn't have time to, because the tour only lasted for an hour and we were kicked out before we managed to climb to the attic area. We were last of the group anyway and due to our desire to explore we unfortunately lost some of the info the tour guide passed out.
I know I could have snapped some better quality photos if I didn't forget my heavy-duty flashlight in the car.
This is the main hall, which some of you certainly recognize from various photos circling the web. Oh and who is this handsome guy up there on the platform? Yes, it's me!
There were some other rooms around this main hall as well, but we were asked not to upload these photos because a sci-fi movie set was had been set up and in the middle of production. So to honour this request, just believe me, there were some cool sets.
Prepare for a myriad of photos of broken stuff, windows and old toilets.
This is the main hall from above, peeking out of the smashed window up there. Various interesting objects catch the eye, almost feeling like props from other scifi movies.
Here's your entry point if you want to explore on your own. While exploring the dark and derrlict spaces is always more pleasurable when alone or with a small group and flashlights, I'm not in the zone for it just yet, so I'll take what they give me for now.
A bottle of Stolitchnaya vodka. A must be at these kind of places. No derelict industrial site is complete without an empty bottle of Stolitchnaya.
An old notebook from 1989. I don't know what it says because my knowledge of bad russian handwriting is not what it used to be, but it seems like there are names, work hours and wages(in rubles).
A piano! Shut up, it's a motherfucking piano!
The tour is oven now, my friends, but from this photo from the other side of the building you can see that half of the building has been already renovated. The new pushing out the old. We sucked out the beer aroma from these used caskets and took our leave.
There you have it. Writing this post and going through the million photos that I took was decent time-hog, perhaps I'll do another one once I manage to grab some time. Take care!