Tallinn pics: excursion to former prison, Kalamaja district and some other pics

kalamaja is actually one of the coolest districts in tallinn! it's got beautiful architecture - wooden buildings from ~1910-1930 mixed with some stalinistic residentials + a soviet palace, salme cultural center (theatre), which is a true MONSTER! (hope to see pics of it here! ) and of course some modern weirdos as well

kalamaja has a bright future to look forward to!
its atmosphere is something that can't be found anywhere else. its residents are among the lower class and it's true that it's in a bad shape (as you can see in the pics) but things are developing rapidly - new buildings are being built and planned, old ones are being renovated.

thanks so much for this thread, sander! i love that you ignore the 'city' and our old-town in your threads as they're so overrepresented here, and take time to explore the 'outskirts' of modern tallinn!

in the big cirkle - kalamaja district.







(funny... in the prison's ''tag'' picture... notice the wall... 90% of the writings are in russian)

Here are three more pics, what I forgot to show here.

anyhow, that man in denim is the coolest capture!

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I was there on a right moment "fortunately".

salme cultural center (theatre), which is a true MONSTER! (hope to see pics of it here! )

Click to expand...

I just went through the Kalamaja, so I don`t have pics of Salme cultural centre.

Really interesting thread, sander! Nice to see some other places of Tallinn although they are not that modern or well-restored. Actually Kalamaja is one of my favourite districts in Tallinn - I love it's wooden houses and seaside views.

Patarei looks very interesting (I know, I have rather strange taste..), it's a bit like Kresty at St. Petersburg. Is it usually open for public? If so, it's definitely my next "I have to see in real life"-place in Tallinn.

Kopli and Paljasaare are also rather interesting places, but not the safest ones. I didn't like the huge angry dog who wanted to bite me with no reason...

Thank you, sander! This is an interesting and unusual photo series. :applause:

I spent a morning with Renx and ch1le walking through a non-glamorous neighborhood in Tallinn as you show here. Pretty dreary on the whole, but with some bright spots in between. kay: Yet it is reality, and it shows how people live. It also shows the huge amounts of money and time yet needed to bring these (sometimes potentially VERY beautiful) buildings up to standard, and I hope the day will come! :angel1:

What surprised me walking through street after street is that we didn't encounter a single grocery store! Those people have a looong way to go to buy their daily necessities.

And the prison ... :runaway: You say it ceased operating in 2000. Are there any future plans for the complex? After all it sits on prime waterfront real estate!

It would take HUGE amounts of funds to fix the place up, of course, but it could be turned into a boarding school or a conference center or some yuppie lofts with a private yacht harbor.

On the other hand, that is perhaps too ambitious because I would like to see the Rotermanni Quarter spruced up & filled in first while lots of rehabbing & restoration projects happen in the Kalamaja District. So just let the prison continue to sit there by the seaside and slowly decay ...

hey doris!

there are several proposals and ideas, more likely visions, about what to do with the prison. some time ago the city thought of moving the estonian academy of art into the complex. but i guess it would be quite awful for young artist to work in a place like that - it has a certain bad aura or something as it used to be such a terrible place (still is).

i'm certain - in a few years this prison will be renovated and it'll have a new use!

by the way, i'm thinking of moving to kalamaja, after graduating from the 12th (which is in the upcoming summer) - it is a perfect place to live for students, close to the center and cheap apartments.
have i mentioned that i love kalamaja?

O it's a pleasure, sander. Hi, Jarmo! :wave:

When I have actually been to a city I feel great affinity with it, and although I may still be quite lost overall, I am sort of familiar with it at the same time.

Indeed the area of Tallinn where I walked with ch1le and Renx didn't have any outright commieblocks, but there were plenty of lowrise equivalents.

I hope ch1le will come by this thread and confirm or deny whether we walked in Kalamaja or not.

here it is In the top right corner is The old Town, those little buildings are mostly wooden and we walked on a couple of those streets