Petrol Storage “Braghetta”

What’s the petrol like? – Horrible, I do not recommend to drink it!

Position

The Esso warehouse is located along the route that leads from Battaglia Terme to Padua. From the road, the plant can not be seen, half hidden by a hedge that has now grown out of all proportion. To enter first you need to climb over a kind of net (or pass between the brambles), and then open a gate kept closed only by a plastic string.

History

About ten years ago a fuel distribution point was active. Rummaging inside some documents and floppy disk we found matches with ENI, salaries, rents, holidays as well as a huge amount of porn. To add to all this also some documents relating to a construction site in Scorzè. In 2004 they demolished distribution sites, one in Scorzè in via Venezia, one in Mestrino (PD) Loc. Arlesega Via Mestrina n.10, and one in Trebaseleghe (PD) Via Sant’Ambrogio. In addition there is a fund for the disposal of the plants and the related reclamation.

Description

The archive is just entered on the left. We enter the basement, where a small dark room awaits us. The soil is completely covered by a thin layer of water (what remains of the downpour of the evening before). Archives, documents, files fill the shelves and the basement tables. On the first floor we find a sort of “electronic flea market”: computers, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, printers, typewriters. The best has already been looted and what remains is in bad conditions. In fact, many of the computers were opened and the copper coil was stolen from them. In what appears to be the office we find other documents, accounting and economics books, telephone directories, old Esso advertising posters, molds and even land samples. On the first floor we repeat what we saw on the ground floor.

So we head towards the warehouses, coming out of another door and making our way through two jujube trees. Where now there are only empty rooms, there must have been gas stations. We proceed forward, deciding to take a tour of exploration from the outside and passing in front of the big silos and the oil company’s insignia. Esso, we, you, they … this is the joke we keep repeating between us (it works just in italian). Inside a huge shed we find a hanged pigeon, and under it a yellow trash bin. On the first floor, passing through large sliding steel doors, we are led into the main room. On the left side there are ladders that lead us up to the roof, where the engine is still installed, which gave energy to the elevator and made it move. The darkness slowly envelops us, and slowly we also move to get closer to the entrance. With the head lamp we look at each other, observe the walls that surround us and the signs that reflect the light. Light that by now this establishment will no longer see  again.

 

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