Prisoners Rummu village Estonia tourists prison | iRADIO

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It has been 11 years since the prison colony ceased to function in the Estonian village of Rummu. The state within the state, where its own rules applied, has recently changed from a gray, inhospitable place to a zone of rest and sports. A group of enthusiasts has built a museum, a cafe, a campsite there and they also take care of the local beach. There is a flooded limestone quarry near the prison, from which mining structures still stand today.

From a local reporter
Rummu (Estonia)
11:15 p.m April 27, 2024

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“We are now going to the part where the prisoners lived – the residential blocks. There were ten of them and then a few more wooden houses,” says Mariane, who leads the project reviving the grounds of the former prison in Rummu, Estonia. The prison was established here in the 1930s. So it is not a Soviet penitentiary, as is sometimes said about the complex.

200 prisoners lived in one block, there were four to twenty in each room. As it was a colony type prison, the prisoners could move freely during the day, the doors of the blocks were unlocked. They could shop in the store, they had a gym, a canteen.

“It was a state within a state, its own rules applied. The living conditions here were not good either. The prison was eventually closed due to the age and condition of the buildings. It didn’t meet any standards, and certainly not the safety ones,” describes Mariane.

It is said that even before the closure, prisoners often sent requests to the management of the facility to receive, for example, a new towel and a sponge for washing dishes. They tried to be resourceful for the rest.

“There was cold water flowing, so the prisoners got a kettle, put it under the tap, plugged it in, turned it on, and heated the water by the flow,” he points to the preserved photo.

Cigarettes, tea and no caramels

We enter the premises of one of the few residential blocks that has survived. Others were razed to the ground due to state of emergency. Glass rattles underfoot. The prison ceased operation in 2013 and vandals ran through it in the time before it became a museum.

We find ourselves in the former local store – a blue-painted space in the middle blocked by a counter and a grate.

“The prisoners could shop here, but the selection of goods was limited,” explains Mariane. “Nothing that could be used to make alcohol was allowed to be sold, so for example no caramels – because they contain sugar. And they had their own currency, in the colony they used cigarettes and tea to pay.”

Very strong tea was able to act like some drugs.

Shuffle mail

From the store, we pass to the gymnasium, which today functions as an occasional movie theater, and from there we continue to the solitary confinement block, where prisoners were placed for punishment. The building did not have a heating system, so it was cold for a large part of the year. Even now it’s cold inside, with steam rising from our mouths.

Part of the building are small walking yards where prisoners could spend an hour a day. But they were rarely alone, they were mostly kept company by other prisoners and also by guards on the corridor.

Then we move to the building with the visitors’ hall, while Mariane tells me about the local delivery of prohibited items.

“Behind that wall there is already a road, so relatives or acquaintances often threw packages for prisoners over it. Things such as mobile phones were prohibited in them. I read somewhere that at one time there was a larger selection of mobile phones here than in some shops,” smiles the guide.

The visiting room doesn’t have a single window, just about two dozen tiny booths in a row. “The visitors sat here, the prisoners on the other side,” Mariane points out. There was a glass panel between the visitor and the visited, so they had to talk through an earpiece.

But there are small rooms with beds one floor higher. They were said to be used for longer-term permitted visits.

Secrets of the Lagoon

Perhaps an even bigger attraction for visitors than the former prison is the small village of Rummu, about an hour’s drive from Tallinn. There is a turquoise blue lagoon with a beach that rises up into an unusual looking hill. It is formed by waste material after limestone mining. Most of the workers in the former quarry were actually prisoners.

“In the 1990s, there was no lagoon here. There was a normal dry limestone and marble quarry – they mined the famous Vasallem marble. But one night something happened, to this day no one knows what. Maybe they disturbed a spring with an excavator, maybe the pumps stopped working. But practically in a single weekend, a lake formed here, flooding the entire quarry and buildings. Nothing could be done about it,” Mariane describes.

The water preserved the buildings, so a unique underwater museum was created in Rumm, which can be visited with the diving club that organizes dives here. Thanks to the clarity of the water, visibility is good below the surface and the buildings are practically in the same condition as they were thirty years ago. Just a little overgrown with aquatic plants.

Relax with everything everywhere

Guide Hailey takes me to the water. We head first to the lookout over the lake. “Some people dive to the buildings, others rent a paddleboard and sail between them. Some buildings end just below the surface, so even swimmers or paddleboarders can enjoy interesting views,” he says.

“We also have several street art works here, probably the most famous is from Lexus. The next piece is over there in the cafeteria,” Hailey points to a building with a terrace on the beach. “Now we are preparing it for the season, it will be pink inside,” he adds, adding that the colorful beach chairs have already been taken out.

In a few weeks, when the surface is not covered by ice, the first hardy people will be here, as well as beach and cafe loungers and campers. A new feature in the area is a parking lot for motorhomes. Beach volleyball players will eventually find their way here. The administrators of the area plan to create several beach volleyball courts here. Their dream is that one day a certified tournament will be played on the shores of the turquoise lagoon and with the prison scenery in the background.

The place also attracts view lovers, just go up the limestone hill. There are two routes to the top – a steep one and an even steeper one. The view of the lake, from which the buildings flooded in the 1990s stick out, is worth the rapid heartbeat.

Kateřina Havlíková, and

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