Goosebumps included: The old prison “Patarei” in Tallinn

Patarei is an old sea fortress and prison in Tallinn in Estonia. It was built in the 19th century and is a memorial for the victims of the Communist and Nazi rule. I visited this gloomy place in October 2016 and was lucky to get in because – as I just read on their  website – Patarei has been closed for visitors recently. The reason is “discussions about the future of the complex”.

I hope you will be able to visit Patarei again one day, because it definitely is worth seeing. Such a dark place, lost and cold. Furniture, medical instruments, books and other belongings of the imprisoned and the jail operators were deliberately left behind. Together with art installations and graffitis they trigger your imagination, you can almost hear echoes of voices in these rooms. I tried to capture this atmosphere with my photos, I think they don’t need more commentary.