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

Patarei prison occupies a massive, sprawling complex of concrete and brick walls on the shore of Tallinn Bay. Originally commissioned by Emperor Nicholas I and completed in eighteen forty, the building began as a sea fortress meant to guard the sailing routes of the Russian Empire. By nineteen twenty, the Republic of Estonia converted these thick-walled barracks into a central prison. It functioned as a penitentiary for over eighty years, but its most notorious period occurred during the Soviet and Nazi occupations.