Many papers have ran stories this winter about how one gentleman has been living in the house you're looking at for free for twelve years. The house is abandoned but protected. It is owned by the city but was in such poor condition that it could not be rented out until a squatter came along, fixed it, moved in and has been living in it while maintaining the property for twelve years. The city had a quiet arrangement with the squatter. He offered the city rent but the city declined. The house does not have running water but it does have a sewer and power. Now the property will be sold and it has to be vacated.
Pispala is an expensive district to build a house because of the spectacular views and the proximity of the city centre. It's also a very quiet area with a large area in a state of nature on the ridge to the east of it, in the middle of which the Pyynikki viewing tower is located. The residents of Pispala range from millionaires to people with low incomes despite the average being quite high. The local school is the only one in the city that offers Chinese as a foreign language starting in the third grade. Pispala is a traditional working class district. Back in the early days of industrial growth in Tampere, a tall ridge like Pispala was a difficult place to carry water to and thus an undesirable place to live in for the wealthy and the middle class. Today, preferences are the exact opposite.
Towards the south. This is the same image I took on Sunday but taken at an earlier hour today. A view to the southwest.
A view to the southeast. The district on the hill is part of Tahmela.
A view towards the northeast. The lake is Näsijärvi on the northern side of the ridge. The city centre and Pispala are on an isthmus the width of which is about 1-2 km.
This peculiar structure is a shot tower. Droplets of molten lead would be dropped from the tower into a water basin. The shots would be used as shotgun projectiles, ballast, radiation shielding or other purposes. It's no longer in use.
Here's a link to a video shot by reporters working for the regional newspaper Aamulehti while climbing to the room on top of the shot tower.
I went on to Santalahti boat harbour on the shore of Lake Näsijärvi. There was a large area being reclaimed from the lake for development. Tampere is a fast-growing city and the second largest urban area in the country. I took a few photos. Without a tripod it was difficult but I was hoping to find a level surface somewhere to put my camera on and use long exposure. I had limited success but the pictures I got show the potential of the area for photography.
ƒ/5.0 35.0 mm 0.5 6400
A view to the east-northeast. The district to the left of the tower is Lapinniemi where there is a spa, a boat harbor and a power plant next to it. It's a popular place to live in and the condos tend to be pricey. The tower is Näsinneula 168 m tall.
ƒ/7.1 55.0 mm 30 100
A view to the west-northwest. This is a long exposure with a 30 second exposure time. I managed to find a pillar of a kind that had flat horizontal plates between two vertical columns. I'm assuming the pillar-like structure was for holding up the overhead lines of the light rail line to be built on the shore. There were no sign of tracks being built anywhere, yet.