Paldiski

Until the early 90's Paldiski was a huge Soviet naval base, totally closed for the outer world. Some 15.000 soviet marines used to live here. The city is slowly recovering but it is in many ways still a ghost town.

While a lot of the soviet submarines and war ships was carrying nuclear weapons there was also some testing and education facilities for this in Paldiski. The huge building (photo no 2) was the center for much of these activities and is known as the Paldiski Pentagon. After the russians left, the IAEA made careful investigations making sure that Paldiski was resonably safe from nucelear waste.

Most of the depressing scenes in the movie "Lilja Forever" (Moodysson, 2002) was shot in Paldiski.

(While I ran out of film I had to buy an old roll from a babushka at the bus station in Tallinn - this is why all the color photos have a nice yellow vintage touch! And yes, the B&W photos are of course shot with real B&W film.)