The defenders had a matchbox. That was their best weapon when Soviet paratroopers came up the road on 20 August 1991 to seize the Tallinn TV Tower and shut down free Estonian broadcasting. They wedged it between the elevator door and frame so the lift would not function, leaving 1,050 stairs as the only way up. They also had access to an oxygen-removing fire suppression system that would asphyxiate everyone in the tower, defenders included, and they let the soldiers below know it. Whether the system actually still worked, or whether the threat was a desperate bluff, nobody really knew. Bullet holes from that day are still visible at the base of the 314-meter concrete and steel needle that rises from the suburb of Pirita.
The tower exists because Moscow needed it for the 1980 Summer Olympics. The sailing events were held off Tallinn at Pirita, six kilometers from the city center, and the existing broadcast infrastructure could not support the international television coverage. Cornerstone laid 30 September 1975, first transmission 20 December 1979, official opening 11 July 1980. The architects David Baziladze and Juri Sinis worked under chief engineer Yevgeny Ignatov and chief designer Vladimir Obydov, all from the State Design Institute of the Ministry of Communications in Moscow. The structure rose using the sliding mold method: a concrete form set at 2.5 meters, rebar inserted, concrete poured, then the form jacked up and narrowed for the next pour. The continuous concrete pour ran for eight months, and the 2.5-meter rings the technique left behind are still visible up the tower's flank. Total weight: over 20,000 tonnes. Construction concrete: M-400, made from oil shale ash and Portland cement, developed at Tallinn Polytechnical Institute under Verner Kikas, designed for 300 freeze-thaw cycles.
Tower height: 314 meters, of which 190 meters is reinforced concrete and 124 meters a steel antenna mast. The viewing platform sits at 170 meters, 38 meters in diameter, with a restaurant on the same level. The foundation slab is 38 meters across, 2.5 meters thick, buried 8.5 meters below ground. The concrete walls of the tower base are 50 cm thick, narrowing to 35 cm at the top. The center of gravity sits low enough in the base that engineers calculated it could not topple even if the foundation slab were sitting on the ground rather than buried beneath it. Allowed sway at the very top in heavy wind: 1.5 meters; at the viewing platform, 90 cm. The 1967 Baltic storm that hit 42 meters per second forced the design team to upgrade their wind specifications to the highest of four levels recognized in Soviet building codes. Subsequent inspections have shown the concrete is actually stronger than the engineers calculated.
In April 1980, three months before the official opening, a welder's mistake set fire to the cables in the elevator shaft. The tower acted like a giant chimney, the draft pulling flames up the structure at speed. Team master Vaino Saar climbed faster than the fire and cut the cables on the 23rd storey, stopping it before it could reach the steel antenna section above. Had the steel been heated, it might have collapsed. The damage was repaired in a month. The second incident came on 19 May 1994. A businessman named Juri Makarov had bought a 12-meter pipe-shaped antenna from the United States to broadcast his new TV channel, Tipp TV, and arranged for a helicopter from St. Petersburg to install it. The wind that morning was force 8, well above safe limits. As the antenna touched the tower the pilots, mistakenly thinking it had seated correctly, released the cable. The antenna fell, smashed through the restaurant roof, grazed the railing, and broke. The viewing platform's roof and windows shattered. Nobody was hurt. A new antenna was sent and installed properly under engineer Vitali Lonkin's supervision.
By August 1991 Estonia had been pushing toward independence for three years, the Singing Revolution gathering hundreds of thousands of people for choral protests at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds. On 19 August hardliners in Moscow attempted a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. As Soviet armor moved on key targets, including broadcast facilities, a small group of Estonian radio operators barricaded themselves in the TV Tower to keep Estonian Television on air. Their improvised matchbox in the elevator door bought time. Their threat to trigger the fire suppression system bought more. Estonia declared full independence on 20 August. The coup collapsed by 21 August, and the soldiers around the tower withdrew. The story is told at length in the documentary The Singing Revolution and dramatized in the film August 1991. Bullet holes still mark the base of the tower today as visible memorials to a defense that worked because the defenders were prepared to risk their own lives to hold it.
The original viewing platform, where tickets cost 60 Estonian kroon and locals went up for the Soviet-era restaurant and the views over Pirita and the Gulf of Finland, was closed on 26 November 2007 because the tower lacked enough emergency exits to meet modern safety codes. After almost five years of renovation by the architectural firm KOKO Arhitektid, it reopened on 5 April 2012 with a completely redesigned interior. The stained glass windows by Estonian artist Dolores Hoffmann, originally created for the 1980 opening, were restored and moved to the south side of the tower. A 1980s Soviet feel remains a deliberate part of the new design. The viewing platform looks down on the Pirita beach, the Pirita River meeting the sea, the Convent of St. Brigitta in ruins below, and on a clear day across the Gulf to Helsinki. The tower is now operated by the public broadcaster Levira and is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.
Tallinn TV Tower stands at 59.47 N, 24.89 E in the suburb of Pirita, 8 km north-east of central Tallinn. The 314-meter tower is the tallest structure in Estonia and is visible from far out in the Gulf of Finland. View from 3,000-6,000 feet to see the tower against the wooded coast and the Gulf to the north. Tallinn Airport (EETN) is 8 km south. Maintain awareness of the antenna's height when transiting the Pirita area at low level.