History/Background:
This Art Nouveau villa was built in 1905 on the southwest edge of the Pisárka district of Brno, Czech Republic. It served different functions before it was abandoned - it was initially constructed as a German school, then was repurposed into a pub and inn in the 1920s then became a boarding school again during 1980s. Later in the 1990s, notorious businessman Rudolf Hošnov bought the building and rebuilt it into a "business baroque" style villa. While renovating the house into opulence, Hosnov was also getting more involved with fraudulent business dealings until he was finally convicted for embezzlement and was arrested in 1996. The villa was left abandoned since.
In an article published last March 2017, there are already plans to demolish the building and build a new six-story apartment with eleven apartments and garages. We went in June this year and the building was still standing, although in a very dilapidated state. It's pretty popular within the Urbex community but unfortunately, also among vandals, homeless people and junkies.
Knowing the history of the place, we should have had felt some kind of foreboding when we went there to explore. Boy, we were not prepared for what happened...
The Exploration:
I'll cut the suspense right here - we found a corpse in the basement of this house. It was of a man who committed suicide. My girlfriend and I are fine now. It is really distressing but mainly because this poor man felt this was his only solution.
We consider ourselves experienced amateurs in urban exploration. So we have psyched ourselves many times about the likelihood of these encounters happening, so we were prepared. That's what we thought. Nothing can prepare you from seeing a corpse, in the dark, when you two are "sneaking" into an abandoned, unfamiliar building . NOTHING...
We have no news as to what happened to Hosnov after serving 8 years in prison, but it might have been him in the basement.
Let me take you to our tour of the house, when we were casually strolling around at first, completely unaware that down in the basement was a dead body.
My girlfriend has been in charge of taking photos as she has a great photo camera.
So while she was taking photos, I went into the basement. It's huge! I turned a corner and saw a rucksack in the middle of the corridor which was really odd. I suspected someone was down there. So I went to get my girlfriend aka The Muscle. We both went down and got to the same location. I then turned the corner and about 2 feet in front of me a man was hanging dead.
It was what I think is called a partial hanging. So he wrapped a rope around his neck and then allowed the weight of his body to strangle him. This type of hanging takes a lot of will to die because you could stand up and save yourself at any point. There were flies, so he'd been dead a while, but no smell at all.
I ran out, my girlfriend followed. I was saying 'fuck, fuck, fuck, he's hung himself'. I then called 211 and totally lost my temper, which I never do. The lady couldn't speak good English, and wouldn't get anyone that could. God help anyone who needs life and death assistance
The police turned up and I lead them to the body. It took a while for us to find our way back to the basement - it's a complex house. Luckily, they spoke a little bit of English.
One policeman went down and I think he couldn't find the body, so they were telling me to go down. They were very aggressive. I said 'no, I'm scared'.
We were questioned by our camper van. This was my girlfriend's I'm-scared-we-are-going-to-be-arrested face. However, via google translate he said we'd driven into a no entry road. He was saying 'penalty', but he didn't go on to do anything.
Forensics turned up and asked if we have touched anything. I touched a tiny bit of the stairs to steady myself and that was it. My girlfriend did the same.
These were the pathologist and a bigger guy, maybe the body mover.
We had to wait about 4 hours for all the investigation to be done. When the pathologist was convinced it was a suicide, she then questioned us.
We were released. I asked if this would make the local paper so we could find out what happened and the pathologist said no. So I've posted on google reviews for anyone with information to contact us. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hošnova+Vila/@49.1854313,16.5643029,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x471295ce21d6ec27:0x47ea40835a9c7fa1!8m2!3d49.1854313!4d16.5664916
I've always taken suicide very seriously and read many books about it. As the pathologist said, there has been a big increase in deaths in Czechia over the last few years, the same as in the UK. Men, in particular, are prone to suicide. Although talking about it is not as easy as it seems, it is always best to seek help from people around you (including me) or the Samaritan.
View attachment 774702
View attachment 774703
This Art Nouveau villa was built in 1905 on the southwest edge of the Pisárka district of Brno, Czech Republic. It served different functions before it was abandoned - it was initially constructed as a German school, then was repurposed into a pub and inn in the 1920s then became a boarding school again during 1980s. Later in the 1990s, notorious businessman Rudolf Hošnov bought the building and rebuilt it into a "business baroque" style villa. While renovating the house into opulence, Hosnov was also getting more involved with fraudulent business dealings until he was finally convicted for embezzlement and was arrested in 1996. The villa was left abandoned since.
In an article published last March 2017, there are already plans to demolish the building and build a new six-story apartment with eleven apartments and garages. We went in June this year and the building was still standing, although in a very dilapidated state. It's pretty popular within the Urbex community but unfortunately, also among vandals, homeless people and junkies.
Knowing the history of the place, we should have had felt some kind of foreboding when we went there to explore. Boy, we were not prepared for what happened...
The Exploration:
I'll cut the suspense right here - we found a corpse in the basement of this house. It was of a man who committed suicide. My girlfriend and I are fine now. It is really distressing but mainly because this poor man felt this was his only solution.
We consider ourselves experienced amateurs in urban exploration. So we have psyched ourselves many times about the likelihood of these encounters happening, so we were prepared. That's what we thought. Nothing can prepare you from seeing a corpse, in the dark, when you two are "sneaking" into an abandoned, unfamiliar building . NOTHING...
We have no news as to what happened to Hosnov after serving 8 years in prison, but it might have been him in the basement.
Let me take you to our tour of the house, when we were casually strolling around at first, completely unaware that down in the basement was a dead body.
My girlfriend has been in charge of taking photos as she has a great photo camera.
So while she was taking photos, I went into the basement. It's huge! I turned a corner and saw a rucksack in the middle of the corridor which was really odd. I suspected someone was down there. So I went to get my girlfriend aka The Muscle. We both went down and got to the same location. I then turned the corner and about 2 feet in front of me a man was hanging dead.
It was what I think is called a partial hanging. So he wrapped a rope around his neck and then allowed the weight of his body to strangle him. This type of hanging takes a lot of will to die because you could stand up and save yourself at any point. There were flies, so he'd been dead a while, but no smell at all.
I ran out, my girlfriend followed. I was saying 'fuck, fuck, fuck, he's hung himself'. I then called 211 and totally lost my temper, which I never do. The lady couldn't speak good English, and wouldn't get anyone that could. God help anyone who needs life and death assistance
The police turned up and I lead them to the body. It took a while for us to find our way back to the basement - it's a complex house. Luckily, they spoke a little bit of English.
One policeman went down and I think he couldn't find the body, so they were telling me to go down. They were very aggressive. I said 'no, I'm scared'.
We were questioned by our camper van. This was my girlfriend's I'm-scared-we-are-going-to-be-arrested face. However, via google translate he said we'd driven into a no entry road. He was saying 'penalty', but he didn't go on to do anything.
Forensics turned up and asked if we have touched anything. I touched a tiny bit of the stairs to steady myself and that was it. My girlfriend did the same.
These were the pathologist and a bigger guy, maybe the body mover.
We had to wait about 4 hours for all the investigation to be done. When the pathologist was convinced it was a suicide, she then questioned us.
We were released. I asked if this would make the local paper so we could find out what happened and the pathologist said no. So I've posted on google reviews for anyone with information to contact us. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hošnova+Vila/@49.1854313,16.5643029,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x471295ce21d6ec27:0x47ea40835a9c7fa1!8m2!3d49.1854313!4d16.5664916
I've always taken suicide very seriously and read many books about it. As the pathologist said, there has been a big increase in deaths in Czechia over the last few years, the same as in the UK. Men, in particular, are prone to suicide. Although talking about it is not as easy as it seems, it is always best to seek help from people around you (including me) or the Samaritan.
View attachment 774702
View attachment 774703
Last edited: