Tallinn City Museum

Tallinn City Museum is a municipal museum that encompasses a number of different sites both in Tallinn’s medieval Old Town as well as in the districts of Kadriorg and Kalamaja.

The museum was established in 1937 to preserve, present, and research the history and cultural heritage of Tallinn.

We currently run 7 museums:

• Kiek in de Kök Fortifications Museum  that consists of four medieval defence towers, passages in the city wall and 17th century underground bastion tunnels.
• Tallinn City Life Museum in a medieval merchant’s house.
• Museum of Photography in a small medieval jailhouse behind the Town Hall.
• Children’s museum Miiamilla in the middle of beautiful Kadriorg Park.
• Kalamaja museum – in a so called “Tallinn´s hipster district” Kalamaja.
• House of Peter the Great – the first residence of the Russian Emperor Peter the Great in Tallinn.
• Tallinn Russian Museum in the Old Town

MAIN CONTACT

Tallinna Linnamuuseum
Vene 17
10123 Tallinn
Tel (+372)6104178
E-mail: [email protected]

HISTORY AND AFFILIATE MUSEUMS

The museum, was founded  in 1937 as the Historic Museum of the City of Tallinn. Until then, the collections of historic items related to Tallinn was maintained by the City Archives.
Over time, a number of affiliate museums have been established in such historic buildings as the cannon tower Kiek in de Kök and the adjoining tunnels under 17–18c earthwork bastions, the Neitsitorn (Maiden Tower) tower of the city wall, former jail of the Town Council, now a photography museum, and the main building of the Kadriorg children’s park from the 1930s that serves as the Children’s Museum Miiamilla. In Kadriorg one can also visit the first residence of the Russian Emperor Peter the Great in Tallinn. In 2016, a display of decorative stones carved by Tallinn masters was opened in one of the bastion tunnels, and Tallinn Russian Museum became part of the City Museum.

COLLECTIONS

The collections of the City Museum now include c 150,000 items connected to the history of Tallinn.
The first statutes of the Tallinn City Museum from 1937 declare: “The aim of the Historical Museum of the City of Tallinn is to acquie, collect and preserve all items of historic and artistic value and related to cultural history that directly or indirectly are related to Tallinn, their research and presentation to the wider public.”

VIRTUAL MUSEUM

In 2015 we started co-operating with Google Inc. and since October 2016 everyone has the chance to visit the virtual Tallinn City Museum on Google Arts & Culture platform. The virtual museum includes 3D tours of three of our sites – City Museum in the Old Town, Kiek in de Kök, and the house of Peter the Great. It also contains pictures and information about more than 160 items, most of which are not on public display, as well as a number of virtual exhibits.