Last Thursday I went to the Estonian History museum to see the film "Eesti Vangla"(Estonian Prison) . The film was introduced by the author Indrek Kangur, who talked about the idea of the film and how he ended up doing this. Then Robert Nerman talked more about the history of Estonain prisons and how they were made. Very interesting fact is for almost all the prison buildings, that intentionally they were built for some other institutions, but when it occurred that the building is not suitable for living or working, they made a prison out of it. Of course this kind of behavior was mostly used in the past, about 16th-19th century. For the Patarei prison- what is under the discussion in the film, history has been rather "colorful". As Estonia has been under different occupations, big part of prisoners kept in Patarei have been political prisoners- who have acted against the state's power- or who had different world views. So there have been a lot of interesting and now famous writers, politicians and culture figures. Times in Patarei are always been hard, but for some people it was a home for a long time. Until year 2002 it was activly used as prison, but now for few years it is a reminder of difficult times in Estonia, on the shore of Tallinn.
But as I arrived to the museum a hour earlier I had the chance to visit the expositions in the museum. For me the exposition "Will to be free" gave a great impression. It is a mixture from the examples from different time periods in Estonia from the years 1917-1992, it is in some parts even interactive. There are lots of picture materials, letters, films and sound materials. The whole exposition is in different floors and needs time to really work this through.
Second expositions was about the Estonian Court and justice systems. This exposition introduces the former and present judges and the traditions of court in Estonia- there are a lot of pictures of the Estonian judges and information about their work.
I really loved the afternoon I spent in the museum and if you have time in the summer I recommend you to go and see these expositions.
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