The Kreenholm factory in Narva was not just a factory – it was a world of its own. The industrial giant on the banks of the Narva River employed thousands of people and shaped the identity of the region for more than a century. This microcosm encompassed modern industrial technology as well as strict working and living conditions, international capital and the joys and stresses of everyday life for local people.

The future of Kreenholm is now in Swedish hands, with the site owned by Narva Gate OÜ, a company set up in 2007 by two leading Scandinavian investment groups, Gabrielsson Invest AB and CA Fastigheter AB.  Their activities in Estonia focus on strategic investments with the potential to shape urban space and support regional development.

Kreenholm is also seen as an opportunity – not just in the restoration of the industrial sprawl of the past, but in its meaningful development through culture, enterprise and community life. In this way, the story of Kreenholm continues through a shared Nordic-Estonian vision.

Tim Bird's photographic exhibition invites visitors to step into Kreenholm's layered historical space and to look at it with a new perspective – not only as a grand building of the past, but as a story that spans borders and eras. Kreenholm lives on – not only in memories, but also in visions that link the Nordic countries and Estonia in a shared vision of the future.

"Before my first visit in April 2023, I had never heard of Kreenholm. But on a trip to Narva with other British travel writers, our hosts had spoken excitedly of a giant abandoned industrial site that was open to tourists only by appointment," said Bird.

"It was 'amazing' and 'extraordinary,' they said. I wondered how these superlatives might apply to an abandoned factory. There are crumbling industrial buildings littering the world, not least those parts of it formerly under Soviet rule. What was so especially enchanting about this one?"

It didn't take long for Bird to understand what his hosts meant.

"From the first moment of that first visit, I was in awe – of the factory's palatial scale, of the remnants of its former industrial glory. Colored layers of paint peeled back from rows of iron pillars that were formerly needed to bear the massive weight of machinery. In an otherwise empty hall that once echoed with the rattle and clank of spinning machines, the silence was punctuated with the occasional flap of cooing pigeons."

"The peeling paint of the walls and classical pillar heads revealed pastel pinks and soft greens, as if its initial design had taken into account the abstract beauty of eventual decay. I wandered from floor to silent floor, imagining the rhythms of the machinery and specks of cotton caught in slanted sunlight."

Originally from southeast England, photojournalist Tim Bird moved to Finland in 1982 and has since written about Finland, Estonia and the rest of the Nordic and Baltic regions for many magazines, websites and books.

Tim Bird's exhibition "Kreenholm – Factory of Phantoms" opens on Friday, July 18 at Narva Town Hall. The exhibition will remain on display until September 26. His article about Kreenholm: "Lost Cathedrals of Industry" can be read in full at Hidden Compass here.

More information about the exhibition in Narva is available (in Estonian) here.

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