ABSTRACT
At first glance, Tartu, Estonia (1989 population: 113,000; 2016 population: 97,000) is a typical second-tier city of the Baltic republics, known as a regional centre of south Estonia and a university town. But, during the Soviet occupation of Estonia (1944 to 1991), Tartu gained importance as the home of a massive USSR airbase, taking advantage of Estonia’s physical location on the western periphery of communism as a frontline for air offense or defence. This chapter explores how the Soviet occupation of Estonia transformed the cityscape of Tartu in three ways. Firstly, the socio-economic and demographic composition of the city changed, as Russian-speaking labour was imported (from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine) for employment in the industrial and military spheres. Secondly, new housing estates were built to house the new immigrants in vast master-planned districts—removed from the city centre and traditional neighbourhoods—and disrupting conventional urban density gradients. Thirdly, Tartu was a “closed” city during Soviet times (non-residents could not visit without a permit), and the district surrounding the airbase was subject to even greater security (non-military local residents could not even walk the streets); consequently, the city grew during the decades in a lop-sided fashion as urban development accommodated a high-security and oversize airfield located only 3.5 km from the medieval historic centre of this Hanseatic-merchant town. In late 2016, the new National Museum of Estonia, a high-profile € 46 million project, will be dedicated on one of the airbase runways; the museum is poised to reinvigorate urban development in this part of the city as it draws Estonian and international visitors to a site of remembrance of the Soviet occupation. This research uses demographic analysis, archival documents, and historical imagery to trace the short- and long-term effects of Soviet-era urbanisation in Tartu during the Cold War given Estonia’s uneasy membership in the Communist Bloc.
