Tour Report: Paint Factory R.

It was the final spot of our first tour of 2017 together with our dear friend Nordgriller Urbex. And it was one of those locations where you really had no choice but to park right in front of the location and walk right in. It worked nicely.
The location was an industrial ruin right in the middle of a suburban residential area. This suburban residential area literally had no public parking space except one possibility that happened to be right across the street from the desired spot. So we parked there.
There was a fence around the whole premises, but there also was an opening in the main gate - it hadn't been closed properly or it had been opened. But there was an easy way in.
It was a winter afternoon and the sunlight started to fade, so we concentrated our efforts on the ground level rooms first, worked our way up to the upper floors - as far as they were accessible - and saved the basement for last.
Being located in a residential area, many teenagers have left their mark on the location, but there were still some nice photos to shoot and even some machinery to be found.
When the sun was almost gone, we left the place - but not without being annoyed by some teenangers that called themselves "Youtubers" and whose kind is clearly the reason that last I heard there was no more possibility to get in after too many teenangers were making loud noises in that nasty-looking ruin that looks bad in the neighborhood...


To find out more about the history of this nice suburban factory and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Slaughterhouse H.

This was a nice one. Not in the sense that it was a particularly spectacular abandoned industrial spot, but in terms of people I've met in locations it was pretty cool.
But I'll start frm the beginning...
In late March of last year, my parents called me to tell me that they were going to the city of H. where they were going to meet with the people at whose house I've spent my exchange student year in the U.S. more than 25 years ago. They were attending a conference there and had told my parents who then told me.
My mother told me at which hotel they were going to stay, and when I saw that there were at least two nice spots really close to this particular hotel, I asked them if I could join them, and so I booked a room at the hotel, and about three weeks later, I was there.
The first location I visited was an abandoned slaughterhouse. Since it was really close to the hotel, I scouted the place the first night after we'd arrived late. To my surprise, there wasn't even a gate, only concrete blocks that prevented cars from driving onto the premises. That was easy.
I took a little stroll towards one of the buildings, but I didn't have my camera with me, and I noticed that there were LED lights in some of the buildings. But there were no people, no party or anything. It looked cool, but it was also a bit weird.

The next day, I left the hotel after breakfast and went back to the slaughterhouse and in the way I'd found the night before.
The place itself was really run down. Lots of vandalism, plenty of graffiti and numerous fires have left their mark on a once really beautiful place.
A few times I tought that I was hearing something or seeing someone disappear into one of the buildings, but there was a group of geocaching people around, so I thought it was them.
Then I met the guy.
I'm not sure if he is an artist or a homless person. Maybe both. I don't know if he lives there or just comes there whenever he likes. But he also has a profound knowledge of some other lost places in the area as I've learned...
Anyway, he stumbled onto me and we talked for a little while.
He was the one putting up the LED lights with solar batteries on all of the buildings. "It looks much better than fire, don't you think?", he said.
He also puts paint over ugly graffiti and set up some more or less artistic installations in some of the buildings. In any case, he was a very interesting person and I am glad to have met him - and not just because he gave me some good hints for my next location...


To find out more about the history of this industrial ruin and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.

Foundry P. [Revisit]

Only about a week after we had returned from our Easter tour, Freddy from Nordgriller Urbex and I went on our next short tour.
We had only planned a couple of nearby locations, so we didn't have to meet up too early and had time for a coffee or two before we left for our first spot of the day, an abandoned foundry.
Freddy hadn't visited the old foundry yet, and I was inclined to go for a revisit since the first time I was there, was a relatively short visit and I had to leave because it was getting dark.
It was already April, so the sun was up a little higher when we parked the car and took the same way that I had taken almost three months earlier.
The "old" entrance was still there, so the way in was easy.
We took our time, even checked out the completely empty office building, and when we were finally about to leave, a guy drove onto the yard and got out of the car. He asked us what we were doing, and we told him that we had gotten in through the hole in the fence to take photos.
Surprisingly enough, he reacted very friendly and said that taking photos was totally alright but that he hated sprayers and vandals.
We said thanks and goodbye and then we left - this time though the open gate :)


To find out more about the history of this industrial ruin and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.

Foundry P.

This was one of my rare solo tours. I had seen photos of this place online and since it is in my state, it couldn't be far. I just had to find out where it was...
So I asked a couple of people until I got the final hint to pinpoint the location.
It's actually really not that far form my home, only about 80 kilometers and you can get there by train! Well, the location is not far from the train station anyway.
So I packed my gear one Sunday morning in January, walked to the train station in my hometown and took the train South.
After the train had arrived at my station, I walked for about fifteen minutes until I got to the perimeter of the spot. The fence facing the street didn't have any holes in it, and there were children playing on the nearby halfpipe, so I decided to walk along the railroad tracks to find an access point on the far side of the premises. It's always a little risky to be walking along active railroad tracks, not only because of the trains passing you at high speeds, but also because the engineers do call the railroad police when they see you. But I figured that this was a Sunday, so the risk of getting caught was pretty low.
So I walked along the tracks until I found an opening in the fence and slipped through. I was in.
The place was really quiet. This is one thing I really like about locations during winter - the cold air seems to block sounds, and since it had even been snowing a little, it seemed even more quiet.
Unfortunately, I had gotten up a little too late, so there wasn't a lot of time before it got too dark for decent photos and I left.
I did come back about ten weeks later with a friend for a revisit and managed to get the photos I'd missed the first time, though.


To find out more about the history of this industrial ruin and to check out all the photos from this spot, click the button below.

Alternative Spot: Construction Company N.

The second spot that Freddy and I had in mind for our two-day tour of Eastern Germany was an old cooling tower.
Situated right in the middle of an industrial area of a large East German town, it looked acessible on all photos that I had managed to find. So we thought, we'd give it a try.
We drove some time to get there, and once we got to the city limits, our mood started to dcline. The city itels looked so dreary and depressing, it started to have an effect on us. The rainy December weather added to the already sad atmosphere, when we got out of the car to find a way into the object.
There was no chance. We must have sneaked around the cooling tower on all sides for more than an hour when we decided to call it a day with this location. There were fences everywhere, as well as active industrial areas aound the cooling tower.
So we went for the next best thing - an abandoned building across the street.
This location was also very sad, actually. Not for the history, but for the fact that due to its relative boredom and its state of vandalism only added to our overall "sadness".
This whole experience was so influential that Freddy and I still have a little trauma from visiting this city.
It's called the "Neubrandenburg-Trauma".


To find out more about the history of this dreadful place and to check out all the photos from this ugly spot, click the button below.

Brick Factory G.

The weekend after my tour to the Soviet airfield, my wife and I went on a two-day tour to Eastern Germany together with our friend Nordgriller Urbex. We had called a long-time friend who lives in the area if we could sleep at her place for a night and she had no objections. She then asked if her neighbor next door could join us for the tour. Her neighbor is a nice young lady from Russia (or Ukraine, I'm not really sure) who as we learned later that first day, can really drink a lot.
Anyway, the first spot we had chosen was an abandoned brick factory that we had passed on the way to other spots in the area (passed it in the way where you know it is there, and you're driving past it by just about three kilometers and you would like to stop but can't because you're on the way to another place, but you still want to stop and at least check it out...you get the idea), and this time we had this as our primary location for the day.
We got to the place,parked the car almost next to it. There was a free place that was used by truckers to rest and we just parked next to it. Our "guest" came a bit later, and we started exploring right away.
The way in was really easy, and it didn't seem like this particular spot was particularly well secured or looked after. The area is pretty large, but not really spectacular. The buildings have been vandallized aplenty and mostly been stripped down by copper thieves.
We did a thorough exploration though and managed to find some nice photos to shoot.
The real highlight for me was finding the little old locomotive. It's been really cool to find it almost completely untouched by vandals or other people.

When we were done and wanted to start to the next location, our guest split and went back home - only to be back later for food and drinks. But that's a story for another time (maybe). Here are the photos from the brick factory.


To find out more about the history of this industrial ruin and to check out all the photos from this spot, click the button below.