My wife got bored sitting at home yesterday. She asked that we go on a ride somewhere. We headed for a little former municipality called Artjärvi in the southeast corner of the region of Päijänne Tavastia. The population was about 1,400 in 2010 when it ceased to be an independent municipality. It's part of the small town of Orimattila to the west of it now.
Turns out the trip was a good exercise in photography under very challenging conditions. The family had near zero patience for my taking photos despite there being a few interesting opportunities to photograph the decay of rural areas pretty commonplace in this country as well. It was a bit cold and they wouldn't want to step out of the car. I had literally seconds to compose these shots while having to listen to complaining and whining at the same time.
Maybe I'll revisit the place alone some other time.
Abandoned barns like that were a common sight in this area. The largest village where the church is is about 25 km to the east of Orimattila, which in turn is about 20 km to the south of Lahti. There is much less decay in Orimattila than here and there seems to be somewhat more of it in Orimattila than in the city of Lahti itself, which in turn is not exactly a boom town itself.
We turned the car around quickly in the yard of this abandoned house.
Another building in the yard.
The carrion of a Volvo on its side in the yard. There were other dead Volvos around the house as well but I didn't get the opportunity to explore them.