Patarei prison

For Estonians, Patarei Prison is one of the most prominent symbols of Soviet and Nazi political terror. Known locally as Patarei vangla, or simply The Battery, the complex covers about four hectares of a former sea fortress on the shore of Tallinn Bay in the Kalamaja district.

The building began as a fortress, built between 1830 and 1837 on the orders of Emperor Nicholas I as part of the fortifications of tsarist Russia. After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War, Tallinn was removed from the empire's list of fortresses in 1864 and the fort became barracks. The newly independent Republic of Estonia rebuilt it as a prison after World War I, and from 1919 until 2005 it served as Tallinn Central Prison.

In 2018 the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory began preparing a museum of the crimes of communism, with an international research centre, in the eastern part of the building.