Patarei prison exhibition "Communism is Prison"/ Patarei vangla näitus "Kommunism on vangla"

The Patarei sea fortress features a long, weathered limestone exterior that hugs the Tallinn coastline. Originally commissioned by Tsar Nicholas the First in eighteen twenty-eight to guard the harbor, it served as a barracks before becoming a prison during the nineteen twenties. During the Soviet occupation, the facility held political prisoners behind its thick walls. In nineteen forty-one, when the German army arrived, they found the cells packed with people the retreating Soviet authorities had locked away just days before they evacuated the city.