One room full of bottles, another with dirty clothes up to the waist

Vesa-Matti Loiri photographed in 2003, when he had already moved to Kaapelitehta. Kari Pekonen

Vesa-Matti Loiri lived at the beginning of the 2000s for nine years at the Cable Factory. The apartment built in a former factory building was marked as a business premises, so it should not even have been used for permanent living. That didn’t stop Loir, and the four-meter high apartment was his home for a long time.

Journalist-Writer Tuomas Marjamäki says Iltalehti’s latest LOIRI & Marjamäki podcast, that Loir’s home was really bohemian.

– There was one room full of bottles. The other room was full of dirty clothes up to the waist. There was a bed in the bedroom where, according to my memory, there were no sheets, Marjamäki recalls.

The living room was dominated by a huge spindle pool table.

– Naturally, Vesku had piled things on top of it.

– There was also a TV corner with a couch, a Playstation, a cognac glass, a flute, medicines, an ashtray and a lot of cigarette ashes and butts. Such an artist studio.

Loiri smoked almost non-stop at home. At first, tobacco, but at some point switched to cigars.

– Vesku’s interviews included the fact that after getting home after the interview, the clothes immediately went into the laundry, because they smelled so much of cigarettes.

Listen to the LOIRI & Marjamäki podcast on the Iltalehten Plus service here.