Patarei Memorial Museum for Victims of Communism, the world’s first comprehensive museum on communist crimes, will facilitate world class research and raise awareness through online projects and an immersive, state of the art exhibition, ensuring that the inhuman nature of communist regimes and ideology will never be forgotten.
The museum will be established by 14th June 2026 in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, led by the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory with the support of the Government of Estonia and leading remembrance institutions in Europe and beyond.
The museum will be built on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, in the heart of Tallinn, within the Patarei sea fortress that was used by both the Soviet and Nazi regimes throughout the XX century. The museum will introduce crimes committed by both regimes, with the main focus on the machinery, ideology and crimes of communist regimes, moving from a local overview, to the events in Europe, to a global scale.
While Patarei is one of the most formidable symbols of Soviet political terror for Estonians, it is also an international monumental memorial that helps to understand the inhuman nature of totalitarian regimes, irrespective of the specific state power, indicating with sinister clarity as to why it is imperative to avoid their recurrence.
The museum is planned to an approximately 5,000 square meter (65,000 square feet) area in the eastern part of the building, with authentic prison cells, an execution chamber, corridors, a prison lean with prisoners’ walkways and much more.
The museum and centre will bring together a diverse international coalition of trusted regional and international memory institutions, researchers, experts and thinkers on the crimes of totalitarian regimes. Governments and media who seek facts and information can contact the museum and centre as an international nexus for information about the crimes of communism.
Visit the museum’s webpage for more information: www.patareimuseum.org
