How many of you own a bicycle? It's the perfect vehicle to get around in spring and summer. You can cover much more dictance and move around faster than on foot, while at the same time getting into some cool places where you definitely can't get with a car.
Parks, forests, nooks behind warehouses - everything is a go with a bike. I'm of belief that you don't need an expensive one either, just some gears and a saddle.
So bicycle it is. Tires checked and water bottle filled with tap water (none of that sports drink nonsense for me). It's a bit chilly still, just 12 degrees Celsius, but in the sun and without wind... there are almost summer temperatures.
It's a work day, but I've already managed to put out some fires, visit the necessary places and made some money on the market. I'll be damned if I don't dedicate some quality free time to myself.
So where to ride? It feels like I've already been everywhere around these parts, although I've been living here for just a year. No worries, I'll check some new nooks and crannies as well as visit some old faves.
Heading towards the bog, but before reaching the bog trails, I dodge the road and check behind a warehouse and am instantly greeted by some urban graffiti.
Nice! I wish more graffiti artists would draw rather than scribble. There's something satisfying discovering a beaut of a wall art in midst of a myriad of random scribbles. Also, who doesn't love a feisty mushroom, eh?
Not heading there today
I decide to skip the bog today and instead bike through the residential area, where private residences meet apartment buildings meet warehouses. Oh, and the old STD clinic stands right there between the pines and has an abandoned look, but one door still creaks as some people move around.
The housing around this area really varies. There is some kind of a workshop, right next to a recently built apartment building, which in turn is situated right next to a long abandoned grocery store. Oh and there's a tall chimney. Alas, it seems gated and guarded, so no climbing chimneys today.
The long abandoned grocery store
As I bike along, I realize that there is almost no-one around. Just a few streets before, there were people doing yardwork, talking with their neighbours outside their gates, doing whatever people do. But it seems I have reached the area with older and larger houses, with big yards, less cars, less people. Feels like older and richer people live here. Or maybe they were rich once, maybe it was an elite neighbourhood, where houses still had large yards.
There's not a soul in sight, not in front, neither behind me.
Enough of this part of the neighbourhood. My left knee is starting to ache from all this biking. I've gained a few kilograms recently and somewhat sedentary lifestyle has me exercising a few times a week, but I often don't stretch enough or roll my hamstrings. You always roll your hamstrings and stretch after doing bridges or otherwise working on your glutes or suffer the consequences!
I cross the main road and end up in a different neighbourhood. There's the massage parlor, where we with @raili got a couples roll massage. Roll massage is where you literally get beaten up with large wooden sticks take various poses on a machine that rips and tears on your muscles. Getting beaten up by a machine while holding a plank will make you forget that you're a man in his prime and makes you want to whine like a baby.
I turn away from the main road to reach the abandoned hospital. This used to be a place where they treated tuberculosis. Here, in this part of the town, there are many old buildings used for treating various lung diseases - pines and clean air describe our part of town and what's better for lung diseases than clean air and peace?
Not sure about this 100%, but there have been many plans to repurpose these buildings into apartment complexes. Some of the old patients, who had stayed here, said that this shouldn't be done, because of the bad aura inside these walls. Many people apparently came here to die and one could feel death lingering around them when they walked in the hospital yards.
These days are far behind us, for the random traveller these buildings are nothing more than boarded up behemoths, looking to be explored. There are a few entry points here and there, but there's talk of motion detectors that are hard to spot.
People who live nearby now come to hang out on the ramp, there's someone sitting on the stairs in the sun and reading a book at the moment even. How can you read a book in the sun, won't your eyes start to hurt?
Moving on through the small forest, there are a bunch of sidebuildings.... I can only imagine one being a morgue ages ago. Now they look like a part of the forest.
There's a random set of stairs in the middle of the forest.... and a swing.
Coming to a small building, I see someone has cracked the sawdust plate that was used to cover a window. Hmm, perhaps I can check it out... there's not many people around, there's a bunch of drunks near the random set of stairs, but they are far away, there's a family with a child, I can hear them talking, but no-one is paying attention to me.
I'd better hide my bike in the bushes. There, done!
Invisible. You cannot see my bike, it's hidden so well
Crap, the window is iron barred and I'm too fat to squeeze through! Nevermind, I'll just grab a photo from the darkness. Let's just hope that I don't drop my phone in there...
Seems empty, nothing of real interest. Checking out the other main building right next to this one.
One can see multiple cameras here, at least 3 on this side, and 2 of them are moving cameras. What are they protecting here so much that these other buildings lack?
I guess I am done with this place here. Getting on my bike and riding towards the train station. I pass the legendary Kivimäe Sauna, which is now, like many other historic buildings, repurposed into an apartment complex.
Kivimäe Sauna was famous all over the country, where people would come to hang out with others, discuss politics and spend quality time. It's not like there weren't any other public saunas in the city, but this was the place to be. Elites, regular people, everyone wanted to be here - there were long lines of people outside waiting their turn on a Sunday, so many guys made it their routine to meet up here on workdays even. Of course, that was also ages ago, in the days of oppression and occupation, when there was much to talk about. Estonian people these days are not very social (except me of course).
The legendary Kivimäe Sauna, now repurposed as an apartment complex. They seem to have stayed true to the architecture
I drive by some old garages on my way back home. Believe it or not, some of the garage boxes are still in use and some even have been rebuilt and renewed. And here I was thinking some things just must go away.
