Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom. Tallinn, Estonia

This museum in the center of Tallinn reveals the story of Estonia during the Soviet and Nazi occupations, the restoration of independence, and the importance of preserving it.

Vabamu is the largest private museum in Estonia, whose mission is to share the importance of independence and its fragility. This is the theme of the permanent exhibition “Freedom Without Borders”.

You can explore the exhibition with an audio guide, which is available in different languages. The exhibition tells the story of Estonia during the Soviet and Nazi occupations, the restoration of independence and the period after it.

As a part of the exhibition, you can discover various items, which all have a personal story to tell, examples of things made in Gulag prison camps, the interior of Soviet housing, short documentaries and much more. An audio guide with voice actors tells real people’s stories recorded from their words. These are the stories of those who were exiled and were unable to return to Estonia, those who successfully returned, those who remained in the country during the regime, etc.

The museum offers several audio guide options: the major one for adults, and a simplified version for children aged 6–12. The children’s version is designed as a dialogue between a child and an adult, with the adult answering the child’s questions. In this way, the museum fulfills its main mission: to explain what freedom is, how hard it is sometimes to achieve, and how important it is to preserve it.

Vabamu is the first museum in the Baltics that covers the history of the LGBTQ+ community. A special audio guide program reveals how community members lived under the pressure of the USSR and the Nazis, what difficulties they faced and how they overcame them.

The museum has a branch, the KGB Prison Cells, where a new permanent exhibition, “Locked Up Stories: The KGB in Estonia”, recently opened. The exhibition is located in the building that served as the KGB headquarters and explores the crimes that took place there. This is the only building of its kind in Estonia.

Both museums can be visited with a joint ticket. Detailed information on opening hours and tickets: vabamu.ee

Stay tuned by following social networks:
www.facebook.com/Vabamu2022
www.instagram.com/vabamu

Tallinn, Estonia