Places | Paldiski | Harju County, Estonia

 

 

Originally a small port on the Pakri Peninsula, the town was occupied by the Nazis and largely demolished when they left in 1944. It became a Soviet base in 1962. Most of the residential blocks, Khrushchevka (Russian: хрущёвка), were built then and are typical of the style across the whole of the fomer Eastern Bloc. The Soviet era base was for nuclear submarine training and maintenance and had land based nuclear reactors. While the base was active, the city was closed and surrounded by fencing and military patrols with many travel restrictions. The reactors were decommissioned in 1995.

The scars of the Soviet military buildings and factorys still remain.