This site located at the city area of Kuopio, the capitol city of Savo region in east Finland is known with many names. For the people who worked there, it's probably Sasmo-Levy OY or Särkilahden vaneritehdas. For local graffiti writers it is Sasmox, which actually is a name loaned from the company that originates from this factory and which operates some few hundred meters off the place. Then again, at the gates there's an aged sign, which tells the place belongs to Saastamoinen OY. Inside we found some papers with references to Paloheimo OY being the last operating owner of the factory.

It seems that this plywood and chipwood mill complex was one of the sufferers of the economic depression in the beginning of 1990's. The firm that owned the place after shutdown had gone bankcrupt, and surprise, they didn't have much interest in keeping their already aged and decommissioned real estates in very good shape. The factory was abandoned for years, everybody went vandalizing, painting and burning it, until 1998 when the land was bought by the city of Kuopio. They've fixed places so that it's not all that simple to enter the buildings. Before this, the chipboardmill had already vanished to give way to new Junttan machine factory.

In 2001, they were about to demolish the bleaky factory located on a very good piece of land, despite the fact that it would cost very much to tear the huge place down and clean up all the soil around it. Liku usually, some peeps didn't like the idea of removing historical relics of the city, so the demolition was stopped right after it had begun. The Pro faneeritehdas movement has made so much noise of the subject, that even the national tv-channels made some reports of it, which then gave us a hint to there and check. In summer 2002 someone started a fire at the place, again. Late in 2002 we were informed that the place's demolition would progress again. So the place you see in these pictures doesn't probably exist any longer.

What comes to the factory itself, the place is huge and unbelievably bad-conditioned considering it was in operation just ten years earlier. Windows are boarded, doors locked and so on, but as we know vandals and writers as well as explorers WILL go anywhere that's abandoned. So did we. From both in and outside, the building isn't really something that could be called beautiful or nice, but appealing it indeed is.