Patarei Prison – Tallin, Estonia

Our guide was Rasmus. He was genial and bearded which meant H and I drew on our bet. I said he would definitely have a beard (Rasmus sounding like a friendly, beardy sort of name) but he’d be in his 60s. H said no beard and in his 30s or 40s.

But that’s by the by. He took us round the desolate and snowy prison, chucked loads of information at us and even locked H in a cupboard.
Great. Saved me having to do it. (Aw, just joking.)

Patarei Prison was originally a fortress and has also been an army barracks. It became a prison in 1920. This is only a very small part of the huge prison complex.

patarei fortress prison estoniaAnd here, looking less like a magnificent fortress than a crumbling vestige of the Soviet regime although it was a fully functioning prison until 2003 or thereabouts.

The oldest parts of the building are still structurally sound but the Soviet-built parts are in need of er, attention.

The entrance to Patarei Prison. Step inside.
Clang clang.
Terrifying or what?

patarei prison entrance tallinn

First up for new recruits – a trip to a holding pen type room.

Rasmus marched us up the corridor with our hands behind our backs then shut us in.

The slam of the metal door was like a pistol shot. Then he left us in there for a few minutes, wondering what was coming next.  I guess he did it to give us experience of the fear and disorientation a new prisoner would feel. You know what? It worked.

Still, it was reassuring to see that in the case of kacking one’s pants in terror, there were toilets on hand for new prisoners.

patarei prison toilets estonia

Sometimes there could be a few of those pesky prisoners to deal with all at once.
Thank goodness for nifty little gadgets like this to make life easier.

Then it was mug shot time.
This is what’s left of the dark room.

If a few prisoners were in the room all at once, a very efficient system was devised whereby 2 or even 3 of them would be shoved in this cupboard while one was being photographed. Believe me, this cupboard was tiny, only just large enough to hold one hulking 17 year old son, as Rasmus demonstrated by shutting him in, something which amused all of us.

The first cell shown here had 5 or 6 bunk beds but around 40 prisoners would be housed there.  Even when the temperature was dangling around the minus 20 mark outside, the prisoners still kept the windows open to get some air in there. There was one hole in the ground toilet, made of stone, at one end of the room.

There were strict hierarchies amongst prisoners (not so unusual). If you were top dog you got to choose the best bunk to sleep in which was a whole lot better than being put in charge of keeping the toilet clean and having to sleep next to it. Being allocated the role of sex slave would not have been a bundle of laughs either.

prison cell patarei prison estonia

A truly terrible photograph of a truly amazingly skilled mural.

There was something really pitiful about the flimsy little jigsaw pieces abandoned on this bed. I’m a bit of a jigsaw nut myself and can really understand what a difference a jigsaw would make in a place like that.

Unless it was a picture of Stalin of course, in which case I’d probably abandon it as well, especially if the picture on the box showed it was a jigsaw of fluffy kittens. Actually, think I prefer Stalin.

Washroom….

…and some moldy old soap…

Five prisoners at a time would walk round these little exercise yards.

The last part of the tour was the most gruesome – the execution chamber.

Now, the idea of what constitutes crime in the West today is completely different to what was considered to be crime under Communism. Obviously some things were the same;  for example you aren’t allowed to murder people today, just as you weren’t allowed to then (not that the Soviet authorities ever let that put them off). However some activities would be seen as a crime against the State, eg withholding profits from your business would be stealing from the State.

If the sum total of your crimes came to 15 years imprisonment, no matter how minor they may have seemed, it automatically meant execution.

The prisoner would be told they were being taken for a shower because it’s much easier to walk a prisoner down the corridor if they think they are being taken for a shower than if they think they are being taken to be shot.

They’d have smelt a rat when they were marched past the showers and into a bare room. They’d be told of their fate, a thick felt hood put over their head then they’d be led into the small chamber and told to lie down with their head on a wooden block.

This is the hose used to swill the room down afterwards. Apparently it is all exactly the same as it was all those years ago, apart from the empty cans of Stella in the sink.

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