On Estonia 9 сентября 2012

Estonia has an especially interesting history and was an important “holding” of the Soviet Union. As the Cold War heated up Russia invaded Estonia shipping off entire families to Siberia on very short notice (it is said: “15 minutes”) to set an example that Soviet satellite countries were to fall in line with the USSR or suffer severe consequences.

Estonia, and Tallinn in particular represented the most western frontier of the Soviet Union and thus became an important tactical holding of the USSR. While we were in Tallinn we took a day-long tour of the western coast of Tallinn and visited old, now rotting, military installations including a horizontal ICCM missile silo which would be the first line of attack had the US launched an attack on the USSR. The silo we visited was basically an enormous cylindrical culvert sunk into the ground so from above it would not be detected by planes flying overhead or by spy satellites. At one time it held 4 missiles that would be rolled out of the silo, aimed and fired – presumably at the US. There were holes in the back of the silo that allowed fuel lines to connect to the missiles.

Today the silo is empty and overgrown and hidden by trees and bushes. If you weren’t aware of the history you’d walk by thinking it was an abandoned drainage pipe.

We also visited an enormous block of concrete that served as an artillery battery that supported a huge canon aimed at London and England. All around the area were abandoned military control buildings and barracks that housed troops stationed in Estonia. All were overgrown and in various states of decay and collapse.

One of our other stops was to a large non-descript building surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by security people not keen on curious photographers getting close to the building. We were told that buried deep beneath the building was a sarcophagus that contained the decommissioned uranium from warheads originally hidden in the silos I described above. When the cold war ended and the Soviet Union collapsed the warheads were buried here. The hot uranium has a half-life of 10,000 years so it’s going to be around for a while hence the barbed wire and cranky looking security guards.

If you’re interested I’ve posted a slideshow of images I shot when we were in Estonia. Some images show the things I’ve described above as well as the Old Town section of Tallinn. The easiest way to view the show is to click on this link: http://player.vimeo.com/video/49012736 . I’ve also posted the show on my site at: www.andrewmcdonoughphotography.com/russia Click on the last entry.


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