Since 1853 the country’s worst villains and murderers have been locked inside the bleak walls of Kakola. The futures of thousands upon thousands of men have been lost behind the iron doors and granite stone walls. The Kakolanmäki Hill Museum will present these stories to the visitors. In the prison warden’s old horse stables are a collection of photographs and artefacts from a hundred years ago. A large part of the exhibition artefacts are donations from the families of Kakola’s former prison guards. At the museum you get to know about the Kakola granite, known as ‘Kakoliitti’, and the historical use of prison labour for quarrying.

Kakolanmäki Hill Museum is located in the prison warden’s old horse stables at the highest point on Kakolanmäki hill. The summertime Cafe Kakola operates in the park courtyard from the house of the old prison warden, built in 1879. The café’s speciality is the Kakola Cake, equipped with its own escape file.