KGB Museum at Viru Hotel - the floor that does not exist

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KGB Museum in Tallinn at Hotel Viru's secret 23rd floor makes for a surprisingly  interesting and entertaining visit!

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Hotel Viru in Tallinn was the first tower-like building in the country. The completion of this 22-storey hotel in 1972 was truly something spectacular. 

Back then the country was firmly under the Soviet rule and it was a widely known secret that in reality there was a 23rd one, too.

As you step into the lift today, there are still no signs of this. The buttons finish at 22.

Next to lifts in the 22th floor there's an inconspicuous door, behind which stairs await, taking you to the secret floor.

Should anyone ask about the floor, it was vaguely dismissed as "something to do with maintenance".

Though as surely as the locals knew about the existence of the secret floor, they could guess what it was actually used for.

Yep, you got it: KGB.

During the Communist era people here (like everywhere on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain) lived and died under the Big Brother's watchful eye.

The hotel was no exception: walls had ears and eyes and the espionage extended to the guests and staff alike. 

The hotel was commissioned by Inturist, Soviet's official travel agent. This entity was run by KGB and NKVD and charged with monitoring the foreigners' visits to and in the country.

Inturist hotels were the only ones foreigners were permitted to stay in - locals on the other hand had no business entering here.

Designed by two Estonian architects the actual building work was given to a Finnish company.

The story doesn't tell whether they ever questioned why the blueprints required the walls to have so many openings for "cables" and "wiring".

Estonians themselves laugh, how whereas elsewhere in the word concrete was used as a building material, in Estonia the preferred choice was micro concrete.

Microphones and cameras were everywhere; even hidden inside the restaurant's bread plates set in the special tables marked in the seeating chart with an "X" where particularly interesting guests were ushered.

They helped make sure that no harmful information would be leaked into the country, potentially shaking the foundations of the bizarre parallel universe the party elite had so carefully crafted.

Members of the foreign press were among the groups subject to particular care. They were among the individuals who were always accommodated in one of the 60 special rooms tapped with listening devices.

The views from up here are spectacular.

As I stare at the chair I can't help but wonder how it was for the KGB officials; sitting here and looking at all this - at least suspecting that somewhere someone is keeping tabs on them, too?

To the delusional eyes of someone alarmingly detached from the reality Communism might seem like a very noble idea. 

In reality it never was, anywhere they tried it. 

Here, like everywhere else, the Communist era was an era of supervision, paranoia and lies. 

Suspicion, betrayal and persecution. 

You couldn't trust anyone; everybody was a potential informant. 

Answers given to the questions posed to the foreign guests under the guise of "considerate customer service" were all reported back here.

This is the room where the whole operation was overseen. The white phone was bugged, too, and the red one only had one line: hotline directly to KGB's Tallinn headquarters.

Tour of this tiny museum is as informative as it is entertaining (surprisingly so, actually). I found myself thinking about the world I never got to see and an ideology I will never understand. 

Was it all just a scam or did people genuinely believe in all this? 

At the end of the day, did the ideology actually ever serve to make anyone's life better? 

In case it really was so superior, why was there need to enforce it with such extreme measures; resulting in the deaths of millions and millions of people?

Though, if there's one thing I've learnt from travelling in Post-Soviet countries struggling with the aftermath of the fall of Communism (such as Bulgaria), it is this: people truly are nowhere near as susceptible and stupid as the ruling class would like to tell themselves. 

That, and the fact that sufficiently black sense of humour will get you through just about anything. 

During the Cold War people were fed horror stories of America's corruptness, evil nature and somewhat imminent danger of a nuclear war. So, every citizen was required to own a gas mask to save them when the shit would hit the fan.

The survival strategy as told by the people was this: that's when you should pull on the mask and run to the nearest cemetery.

(A rubber hoodie like that would obviously not be able to do much and they knew it, too.)

After the fall of Soviet KGB, too, had to face the music (and with it, urgent need to vacate the premises). Overnight they destroyed the evidence, got rid of the devices and closed the shop.

And so, as the dawn broke one spring morning in 1991, all the operatives and officials had disappeared as if they were never here to begin with.

The room itself, however,  remained undiscovered for another 3 years. Later it was converted into one of most fascinating museums in Tallinn. 

While small, the museum makes for a very interesting visit - not least because of its dedicated and engaging guide.

Guided tours are available daily (also in English), admission is €11 / €9 (hotel residents).

Owing to its popularity you do need to book your place on the tour in advance  as the number is limited to 20 people. 

You can do this either at the Hotel Viru's reception or by contacting them using the details given below. 

For more information please see here. 

Has any of you had the chance to visit KGB museum in Hotel Viru? Or have you familiarized yourself with the agency's work somewhere else in the Balkans? What did you make of the visit?

PS. In case you're interested in this kind of tours, you might also like blog's tour of KGB's headquarters in Riga!

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Hotel Viru & KGB museum
Viru väljak 4
10111 Tallinn

tel. +372 6 809 300

viru.reservation@sok.fi

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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?

            

SHARING IS CARING!

Jerez Alcázar - glimpse into the Arab Andalusia

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Much like its other counterparts, Alcázar fortress in Jerez offers an interestng glimpse into the Arab conquerors' Andalusia

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My head aches. Ligh hurts my eyes, no matter ho deep I try to bury myself into my brand new Panama hat. Jerez in May is suffocatingly hot, but having been up most of the night before, not being able to keep anything inside I don't even dare to drink anything, which probably doesn't make my current state any better.

A guide I've been provided with smiles and nods knowingly. "You've been getting to know sherries aready, then ?" If only. I'm desperately trying to trace the source of all this. Surely it can't be my lunch the day before - I mean, the place was so nice? I suppose it could also be the starter at yesterday's dinner? One of the six I had ...?

I'm trying to focus on the guide's words as well as I can and obiediently attempt to take some photos, too. Though my efforts are pathetically half-hearted as the results reveal. Poor horse is missing half of his head and I resolve to pretending not to even notice.

I'm looking at a tour of Alcázar fortress in Jerez de la Frontera. Or something like that. 

"They all look the same, anyway", I find myself thinking cynically. At this point my crap mood is aggravating even myself.  Seville, Alhambra, Cordoba... makes absolutely no diference. 

I stare numbly at the wall surrounding the fortress and briefly toy with the idea of actually just using a photo from a wall somewhere in Jerusalem. 

Same old crap, everywhere. It's not like somebody can tell the difference? It's not like anyone's actually even going to read this?

Oh, yeah. Palm trees. How bloody exotic. No-one has ever seen those anywhere, right? Well, let's take another pointless photo, just in case. 

I pull my hat even deeper and map out the public toilets in case I need to emergency evacuate myself. Not that I can, though. That's the thing with travelling alone: there's no-one else to take the photos and tour the sights.

Just like there's no-one to hold your hair as you need to throw up for the 16th time that night. And no-one to fetch you water. Or head out in the search for the closest pharmacy. Seriously - what the hell is the point of this travelling alone business? It sucks!

I hate myself, my life, my stomach that by now is making noise that rivals any death metal band, history, sunshine and Andalusia. 

Even my lense proves to be too dense for this place. And there's far too much light. I try to replace my camera with my phone, but fail at that (too).

So, I also hate my camera. And my phone. And the tourists, moving around with the leisurely pace of a comatose cow, continuousy walking into my photos, with no rush anywhere.

(How the hell can they not be in any rush? What do they think they're on - a holiday? I, for one, still have like three places to go see after this one!)

Soon I start hating my guide, too. Dignity and pride of their origins are qualities I've so far looked up to in Andalusians but now they're reaching a point of irritation beyond belief. Our talks about my life in my little corner of Andalusia just make him sneer.

"Benalmádena? What planet's that one on?" He thinks his remarks are awfully funny - seeing how we're no longer in my province of Málaga. Instead we're in his province of Cádiz, which according to the guide is clearly the best world's got to offer.

The longer he keeps pouring out pompous superlatives about Jerez and the Alcázar, the more I just want to rip his tongue out and shove it in my ears.

This is nothing more than a poor man's Seville!

As we reach the fortress' garden, the temptation to resort to violence is becoming increasingly impossible to resist. Hasn't this moron ever heard of Alhambra?!

Under the cooling shade of Alcázar's arches I finally start to feel a little better. My vision is no longer a blur of Zig Zag patterns that look like a Missoni collection cirka 1973. 

I take a deep breath, manage to drink something and decice to give the tour another chance.

The name Jerez has its roots in the Phoenician era and the name it was known as back then: Xera. The region has been inhabited at least since the Neolithic era, though who they were exactly is still unknown. First larger settlement can, in any case, be traced back to the 3rd millenia BC. After the fall of the Rome, the area was ruled by the Vandals and Visigoths until 711 and the beginning of the Arab conquerors' era.

Back in 11th century Jerez was  independent until it was joined with Arcos. Both of them were annexed to Seville in 1053.  Between 1145 and 1147 Jerez and Arcos were briefly under the Granadan rule until the Almohad dynasty conquered the cities.

This is when the fortress was built, too. 

Reconquista, the Christian reclaim of the Iberian peninsula was not something that happened overnight in 1492 - it was a centuries-long tug of war. Jerez for instance was reconquered already in 1264 and as a result the Alcázar became the seat of the city's first Christian mayors. 

Jerez used to house 18 mosques. Today Alcázar is the home to the last of them. During Alfonso X's reign it was converted into a chapel, but the old minaret still stands, next to the cross-bearing church tower.

Many well preserved details shed light into the kind of life that was led here over the centuries. Grain being ground to flour, bread being baked, olive oil being pressed in massive presses...

You know, the very life that we self-respecting food bloggers still live. Oh, and them Amishes. 

One of the most beautiful features are the arches, under which time stands still.

The most memorable part of the fortress is, without a doubt, its hammam, the Arab spa. Hammams were important not only as a tool for hygiene and ritual purity but also as the source of pleasure. 

Andalusia still has hammams that are open to public - one of them right here in Jerez (admission €25 pp/ 1,5 -hour visit). For more information please see here.

The octagonal tower is a typical feature for the Almohad architecture and that, too, stll stands. From there you can admire the views over the fortress...

...its gardens, modelled after Paradise...

... and the city of Jerez itself. 

Which still failed to win me over the way Cádiz did. 

Relieved the tour was over (and mildly surprised over my own resilience) I did for a moment ponder a visit to the San Salvador Cathedral next door. 

However, common sense (and senseless hunger) got the best of me and I decided to pass on it. "It can't be more than another poor man's version of the cathedral in Seville" I concluded somewhat cruelly and decided to brave lunch instead. Which, by the way, was Iberico pork belly confit (!) with grilled octopus (!!!) 

And that, as you all know, pretty much covers all the crucial elements of my diet. 

But lo and behold: my gusto went steadily down as the fever went up and I couldn't even finish my lunch ( now there's a first...!)

After a pit stop at the bathroom I dragged my sorry ass (drenched in cold sweat) back to Cádiz and finally gave in, not even attempting to climb out of the bed. 

Until the next day, anyway - I had El Puerto de Santa Maria and the trip's best restaurant to check out after all!

* The trip was organized in collaboration with Cadiz Tourism *

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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?

      

CARING IS SHARING!