KGB Cells Museum
Repression & resistance
A sobering and at times harrowing account of the Soviet occupation, the KGB Cells Museum (KGB kongide muuseum) is in the so-called “Grey House” (Hallis majas), former regional headquarters of the Soviet secret police. As well as preserving the basement cells in their original state, the museum offers a history lesson in Soviet methods of control.
The grainy photographs on display pack an extraordinary amount of emotional power, recalling the deportations of 1941 and 1949, as well as the gruelling conditions of life in Siberia experienced by the victims.
Most poignant of all are the pictures of idealistic schoolchildren who joined secret patriotic organizations like the Tartu-based Blue-Black-and-White (named after the colours of the Estonian flag), only to be confined in the cells here before being sent to work camps in the east.