Museums open for a night of celebration

On Saturday, May 17, Estonian museums will open their doors for visitors for a night of special events and exhibitions, celebrating the ‘Night of Museums’ for the sixth year running, the Tallinn Tourism Board said in a statement.

There will be more than 130 museums participating in the ‘Night of Museums’ program, but this year also brings a number of new additions to the list. There are churches, archives, exhibition galleries offering a special program. For the first time, Tallinn Botanical Gardens will be opening their doors for the event.

As always, there are several new museums added to the program. One of these is the Estonian Firefighting Museum in Tallinn, on Raua St. 2, which will open its 11-storey tower for the general public for the first time. The evening will include special tours and storytelling about the remarkable fire station building, where the museum is housed. The program will be in Estonian, but the panoramic view from the top of the tower will translate into any language.

There are interesting events across all the museums, but among some of the more intriguing is the propaganda-themed program "Red Stars in the Night" at the Estonian History Museum's Maarjamae palace. Visitors will be invited to look into how propaganda and information wars were waged 90 years ago. There will also be a special workshop where participants get to make their own propaganda leaflet. The program is in Estonian, but the all exhibitions are English-speaker friendly.

Some programs in English include St. John the Baptist's Hospital, or Alms-house (Ravala St., Tallinn - next to Swissotel), which is also open for the first time during Museum Night this year, and will have a free tour in English at 7 pm. The KGB museum at Hotel Viru will have a free tour in English at 4 p.m. Most of the museums participating will have their permanent and current exhibitions open for public in addition to the special programs, and will keep their doors open from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

That same evening, the biggest celebration of European museums - the European Museum of the Year Award Ceremony - will also be held in Estonia, in Tallinn, at the Estonian Art Museum. One of the nominees for the title this year comes also from Estonia - it's the Estonian Maritime Museum’s Seaplane Harbor - there will be a lot of excitement in the air.