Atop Soviet Ruins

Today I spent about ten minutes sitting cross-legged on top of a giant, crumbling building formerly known as the V. I. Lenin Palace of Culture and Sports. It was built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, when land-locked Moscow farmed out some of the sailing competitions to seaside Tallinn. Today it’s known as the Linnahall, or Town Hall, which is misleading because it’s not Tallinn's Town Hall—in fact, it’s not anything anymore but an old example of Soviet brutalist architecture, a place where joggers run stairs, artists paint graffiti, and teenagers drink boxed wine and smoke cigarettes. And it’s a place where I sat to ponder Estonia’s Soviet past.

Estonia became part of the USSR in 1940, after an occupation by Soviet troops and the sham election of a communist government. Only a year later, however, Estonia came under the control of Nazi Germany when it invaded the Soviet Union.

some of the graffiti atop the Linnahall

In 1944, the Red Army retook the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) but not without a fight. An estimated 30,000 people—called the Forest Brothers—retreated to the wilderness to wage guerrilla war against Soviet occupiers for more than ten years. Estonian farms were collectivized in groups called kulaks and anyone who resisted was sent to the gulags. Ultimately, the Russians deported tens of thousands to prison and work camps in Siberia. To escape this fate, thousands of Estonians fled across the Baltic Sea to Finland, Sweden, and Germany. Most never came back.

outside Russia's embassy in Tallinn

Estonia is the first place I’ve been to that used to be part of the USSR, so it’s front of mind as I’m walking around, especially because Russia’s shadow looms so large right now. There are Ukrainian flags and posters tied to a metal fence in front of the Russian embassy, and the guestbook at an old KGB interrogation center is filled with scrawls of “fuck Putin,” and “free Ukraine.” One memorable note reads “better to be dead than red [Soviet].” Estonia seems to be all too aware that the totalitarian and populist ways of the Nazis and the Soviets are in danger of returning. A sign in one of the KGB cells asks, in Estonian and English, “which freedom is most important to you?” It’s a reminder that freedom can’t be taken for granted here, as it so often is in the U.S.

a page from the aforementioned guestbook

My old orchestra director, born in Estonia, recommended I visit the Vabamu Occupation Museum, and this is where I learned most of what I told you above. The museum is filled with papers and articles of clothing left behind by deportees and you’re handed an audio guide with the recorded stories of dozens of Estonians who survived deportation or exile. I went to another museum too, a maritime museum that displayed an old submarine, collections of Estonian fishing boats and ice yachts, and an array of Soviet-made mounted guns.

By the time I returned to my apartment, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, or do anything except eat dinner, wonder why Norwegian Boy hadn’t texted me back, and fold my laundry. Because it was kind of a depressing day. Estonia has been through a lot.

a prison cell formerly used by the KGB

But I realized that’s what the Estonians did, and that’s what the occupation museum was about—resistance, sure, but also going about normal activities, continuing to live life. The Estonians are remarkably resilient, and their country is probably the greatest success story of all the former Soviet states: safe, clean, democratic, free, open, technologically advanced. Because they just kept going!

I'll leave you with a little dark humor that was printed on the wall of the occupation museum:

Juku is asked to bring 3 roubles to school to support the Communist Party of Afghanistan. Juku doesn't bring any money because he doesn't believe there is such a thing as a Communist Party in Afghanistan. He is then asked to bring in 3 roubles to support the trade unions of Afghanistan. Juku doesn't bring any money because he doesn't believe there are such things in Afghanistan. He is then asked to bring 3 roubles to support the starving children of Afghanistan. Juku brings 9 roubles: "My father said that if they have starving children, they are bound to have the Communist Party and trade unions, too."