The agenda for today was visit the KGB museum at the Viru hotel. Afterwards I seen a large concrete building that was marked House of Estonian Design that looked like it might be fun, and then the Patarel Prison - a Soviet era prison on the waterfront. First things first, a stroll down to the hotel itself.
The morning air was refreshing - not too cold or damp, not a lot of people running around on a Sunday. I decided to grab the buffet at the hotel as there are not a ton of breakfast places around. Those that are tend to be of the espresso and croissant variety. I could have actually just walked in and eaten. No one was checking and it didn't seem anyone cared to be honest. Bacon, eggs, pastries, OJ, potatoes, etc. Pretty much standard fare.
At first I thought the museum would just be a tourist trap. You had to schedule an English speaking tour and it was in the hotel itself. I was pleasantly surprised.
Back in the 70s, the tourist trade to Tallinn brought maybe 500 visitors a summer. When the Tallinn/Helsinki ferry started up, this number grew to 15,000. Mother Russia wanted a piece of the action and the ability to gather intel on visiting people of interest. So they hired a Finnish company to build the Viru hotel. Of course, at the very end before they opened - the Soviets had everyone leave for three days so they could "inspect" the hotel.
They ended up taking over the very top floor, where there was "nothing". Just the elevator maintenance access. Riiiight.
The sign on the door to the radio room translates literally to "There's nothing here."
Out of the 400 rooms, they only had 60 of them bugged. They controlled all aspects of the hotel staff and when person of interest showed up, they would place them in the assigned rooms. They also had the sauna bugged and would have the waiters place special bread dishes at their tables and special ashtrays at the bar seats.
"Say hello to my little friend. No really, but speak clearly please." - the dish had a microphone built into it. The camera was for taking picture of interesting people through pinholes in the walls. The compact had a small explosive device with a red dye pack. Hotel staff were strictly instructed not to touch anything of any guests - bring it unopened to the hotel manager. Then they would plant these purses. Staff caught "red handed" tended to have exciting new employment opportunities in Siberia.
The top floor was used as a place to spy on other buildings around town from either of the spacious balconies.
The floor consisted of basically two rooms. One where the manager sat. In it where two phones - one direct to the KGB and another this a built in scrambler to call other places with the right equipment. Here is where the day to day orders on who to watch and how to arrange things came from.
The other room was the radio room. Not a lot was known about it as the Soviets gutted the room before they left and no one was allowed to even look into it. The theory is that this served as a base for communications with operatives in Scandinavia. Regardless, there were only around four people at any one time in the room. Plus file cabinets, which were also gutted - though unmarked files were left scattered.
Overall the tour was pretty cool. It was definitely something you want to have a tour guide explain, plus the stories she gave of various hotel experiences were troubling. Its weird to think this was still happening up until the late 80s.
From there I wandered back to my room for a quick 40 minute nap, then out to check out the House of Estonian Design.
Not sure why that was on the map. I found out later that it was actually called the Linnahall Terminal and it was a structure built years ago for the summer Olympics, then later was used as a possible military structure in case Finland attacked.
Its now just a huge concrete thingy covered in graffiti that people climb up the stairs to relax on.
So I did my part and wandered around on it. Looking out over the Baltic Sea. Didn't add any artwork to it though.
Mimekitteh rules your world.
Since that was a bust I walked to the prison, which was closed. Likely for the season. And breaking into it was not going to happen.
So I ended up wandering the city and checking out the night. One cool place I found was an artist startup. They were trying to raise money to afford heaters and building repairs to make an old dock building usable. Currently they only had a small coffee shop and a book store working. I told them they reminded me of home.
A stroll back to the Old Town for some fried dumplings, lime and chicken soup, and a schnitzel. G'night yall. Tomorrow I board a ferry to Stockholm.
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