In south Helsinki, west beach of the Laajasalo island stands a steep hill Kruunuvuori. The place is ideal for refreshment use. It offers view to the sea and central city. There's also a small pond in the old naturally beautiful woods. A great place to build some classy cottages. But today the place is more a Valley of sorrow, like a reporter of the premier capitol newspaper put it in his article. Here's why.

The houses were built around 1900. For the first twenty years they were owned by Finnish elite, then sold to a German Commercial Counsellor. After WW2 the ownership of the houses was given to Soviet Union, a winner country. Ten years later, in a changed political situation, a Finnish Honorary Mining Counsellor bought the lands and rented the houses mostly for people working in his companies. Bureaucratic impediments prevented him from executing his construction plans at the area and eventually the villas were left without use. Nowadays most of them are collapsed, or are about to. Vandals have found the place, and time without caretaking and fixing the places has taken it's toll. The houses are still marked in the precise Helsinki city map, but most of them have to be considered as ruins today.