Patarei – A Little Slice of Hell
It’s a deathlike silence in here. I’m inside the abandoned Patarei Prison on the outskirts of Tallinn. This was once one of the scariest places in Estonia, back when the Soviets used it as a high security facility from 1920 onwards.
I’m walking through the corridors past cells, along rusty gangways. The only sunlight that sneaks in comes from the windows within some of the rooms of the corridor. These rooms are darkened by their history. The long corridor is empty and silent. Doors hang half open. There’s graffiti. Some is recent. Some, in Russian.
The complex of Patarei was originally built by the Russians in the mid-1800s as a fortress and a military barracks. It was converted into a prison in 1920 and over the subsequent years it saw different phases. Early on, it was being used by the Republic of Estonia government as an ordinary prison, but then the Soviets occupied the country again in 1940. This began the most notorious period in the history of the prison. The KGB took control of the buildings and used it primarily to deal with resistance fighters.
Across the yard, a small corridor led me to what was known as the “hanging” chamber. For centuries, a ladder was used to unpick the noose from around recently departed prisoners’ necks. I come out of one of the corridors on the second floor and into sunlight. Climbing up a steep metal ladder, I end up in the guardhouse that looks out across the whole courtyard. Each of these cells has a hard floor, four solid walls and then just a metal grill for a ceiling. You can see right down into them.
Patarei Prison was closed in 2002. Not much has been done here since. However, it is open to the public to explore.
Now the most interesting activity here is done by artists. They have used some of the ground floor cells for artworks or small exhibitions – many of the walls around the outside have been covered with paintings and graffiti. It actually seems quite appropriate somehow. Watching their pictures I wonder what would have happened to them if they had been born a generation or two earlier.
Patarei – A Little Slice of Hell
It’s a deathlike silence in here. I’m inside the abandoned Patarei Prison on the outskirts of Tallinn. This was once one of the scariest places in Estonia, back when the Soviets used it as a high security facility from 1920 onwards.
I’m walking through the corridors past cells, along rusty gangways. The only sunlight that sneaks in comes from the windows within some of the rooms of the corridor. These rooms are darkened by their history. The long corridor is empty and silent. Doors hang half open. There’s graffiti. Some is recent. Some, in Russian.
The complex of Patarei was originally built by the Russians in the mid-1800s as a fortress and a military barracks. It was converted into a prison in 1920 and over the subsequent years it saw different phases. Early on, it was being used by the Republic of Estonia government as an ordinary prison, but then the Soviets occupied the country again in 1940. This began the most notorious period in the history of the prison. The KGB took control of the buildings and used it primarily to deal with resistance fighters.
Across the yard, a small corridor led me to what was known as the “hanging” chamber. For centuries, a ladder was used to unpick the noose from around recently departed prisoners’ necks. I come out of one of the corridors on the second floor and into sunlight. Climbing up a steep metal ladder, I end up in the guardhouse that looks out across the whole courtyard. Each of these cells has a hard floor, four solid walls and then just a metal grill for a ceiling. You can see right down into them.
Patarei Prison was closed in 2002. Not much has been done here since. However, it is open to the public to explore.
Now the most interesting activity here is done by artists. They have used some of the ground floor cells for artworks or small exhibitions – many of the walls around the outside have been covered with paintings and graffiti. It actually seems quite appropriate somehow. Watching their pictures I wonder what would have happened to them if they had been born a generation or two earlier.
