Tallinn – Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom

There will be more to follow on some of the individual exhibits that interested me in this museum, apparently the first structure built in the country for the purpose of being a museum. This is one of the museums I didn’t get to last time using the Tallinn Card and I thought it would be one that I engaged with as I’m more than a little interested in the period under communism. This is a theme explored by numerous museums in Poland and it’s an intriguing story.

Reading through the reviews, there are a few people who had a similar experience to me, but we’re in a considerable minority as most reviewers seem to really like the museum. I couldn’t engage with it at all though and I got fed up with how the museum had been curated and gave up after thirty minutes.

This is the reason I struggled to engage, most things are audio based in the museum and the technology wasn’t very robust in terms of how it jumped thinking I had moved room. I like walls of text with the option of audio rather than what felt like walls of audio with minimal text. Even though the museum was relatively quiet, there was a logistical issue that visitors were clumping together in the same spot, so it was hard to see the exhibits. Unlike with text, where it’s possible to go to another room and read the information there before returning, the technology wasn’t set up to work like that here. A few people have said they would have preferred if the audio speed could be made faster, which would have been useful as I routinely listen to podcasts at either *1.5 or *2 speed in order to get through them quicker. Maybe TikTok has reduced my concentration span somewhat.

There weren’t that many exhibits on display, so the museum was very much dependent on its audio guide to tell the story of the Soviet occupation from the perspective of eight individuals. I did want to listen to a couple of these audio stories outside of the museum, but they’re not on the web-site even in an abbreviated form. I suspect that the stories were really very interesting, but the presentation of them didn’t work for me, but it evidently does for the majority of visitors. Perhaps on a more important point (or to me), the museum did seem to try and tell visitors what they should be thinking and although I agreed with the sentiment of the whole institution, I’d rather be told what the facts are rather than what told what I should be thinking.

Anyway, a few photos of some of the exhibits to come now in this riveting blog. As an aside, this reminds me that I must revisit the Museum of Occupation in Riga, Latvia as they had a similar set-up (although it was text rather than audio, so I got on better there) as they’ve now opened up their new site and permanent exhibition.