So the Makasiinit burned today.

I took the bus to the city center. When approaching the terminal, smoke was observed. It was briefly debated whether driving there would be safe, but it was pointed out that the smoke was going to the other direction than where the bus was going.

As expected, it turned out that the old railroad storage buildings were on fire.

There was almost no wind, but the wind that was there appeared to be blowing the smoke away from the side I was on, so I figured it was reasonably safe to stick around for a couple minutes.

There’s also video.

You can also download the video file. To see the video in Safari, you need to install XiphQT.

You can also download the video file.

I left quickly—just in case.

At this time, the cause of the fire is not known, but everyone seems to be assuming that the anarchists who started fires at the same location on the First of May are the culprits and this is an arson. The buildings were scheduled for demolition on Monday. Now even parts that were supposed to be preserved were burned.

If the anarchists are behind this, they aren’t acting in a particularly rational way. They get publicity which is why I’m a bit ambivalent about publishing this material, but I guess this is news anyway. It seems likely that this incident will be used as a pretext for increasing internal espionage. Is that what the anarchists want? (Cue the usual conspiracy theory here.)