Paldiski is a seaside town in northwestern Estonia on the Pakri Peninsula. The town is adjacent to the Pakri Islands in the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. It is the administrative centre of the Lääne-Harju Parish in Harju County.
Paldiski is home to a large ice-free port and is the terminus of the Tallinn-Paldiski railway line. The port is served by passenger ferry services to Kapellskär, Sweden, operated by Tallink and DFDS Seaways.
According to the 2021 Estonian census, 3 719 people live in Paldiski.
Etymology
The first known name of Paldiski Bay is Rågervik, meaning 'rye island bay' in Swedish. This term was derived from the name Estonian Swedes used for the Pakri islands: Rågöarna. A small harbour, also called Rågervik, was established on the southern coast of the Pakri Peninsula in the 17th century. This port has also been referred to as Rudewa and Rågövik.
After Estonia was conquered by the Tsardom of Russia in 1710 CE, a new port was built about 1 km north of the old port, but the name Rågervik (Russian: Ро́гервик, German: Rogerwiek) remained unchanged.
On 20 August 1762, by the order of Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Rågervik was renamed Baltiyskiy Port (Russian: Балтійскій Порт, Estonian: Baltiski-Sadam German: Baltisch-Port) derived from the Baltic Sea.
The modern, phonetically spelled Estonian name Paldiski first appeared in literature in the first half of the 19th century. It became the official name of the town on 19 June 1933. Prior to 1933, the official spelling of the name in Estonian was Baltiski.
History
Early history
The village of Laoküla, situated just south-east of Paldiski, was first mentioned in the Danish Census Book in 1241 CE as Laiduscæ. It was part of the historical Keila parish and had an area of 18 ploughlands.
The Pakri islands, situated just off the coast of the current town, were first mentioned in 1283 as insula Rogoy, meaning "the rye island," but it is unknown if the islands had any inhabitants at the time or which island was referred to. In 1345, Suur-Pakri Island, belonging to Padise Monastery, and some territories in Laoküla, belonging to Keila Manor, were sold to Swedish settlers. It is speculated that the sales happened as a result of the Saint George's Night Uprising of 1343, to shield the coast from rebellious Estonians. Some of the settlers may have been from Uusimaa, as Padise Monastery owned territories there.
The first written records of human activity on this site are about Pakri in 1377. The village would have been on the eastern edge of modern Paldiski, in the middle of the peninsula. In Estonian, Pakri Peninsula and the Pakri Islands are named after Pakri.
Väike-Pakri was first mentioned in 1425. The island was likely settled by Laoküla Swedes, as both were a part of Keila Manor. Pakri Peninsula also belonged to Keila Manor.
On the north-eastern coast of the peninsula, the village of Leetse was first mentioned in 1561, and a manor was established there in 1677. It was only during the 19th century that this village was renamed Leetse (previously referred to as Perraste, Paresta, or Pärast).
The village of Pallaste was first mentioned in 1582, with its manor being established in 1802. The manor was located 1.5 kilometers north-east of the port. The village of Ohtra, just south of Pakri, had existed since at least the end of the 17th century.
There are records of severe Russian raids and looting on the peninsula between the years of 1576–1580. The Polish also conducted raids in 1601 and 1611. This led to a significant loss of population in the area.
In 1622, Gustav II Adolf of Sweden granted the lands of the Padise monastery, including Suur-Pakri Island, to Thomas von Ramm, the former bürgermeister of Riga. Additionally, Thomas von Ramm purchased Väike-Pakri Island from Keila Manor in 1628. The Von Ramm family kept ownership of both islands and the Padise Manor until Estonia gained independence.
The Swedish port of Rågervik was established during the 17th century, located approximately one kilometer south of where Peter the Great would later establish his port of the same name.
Russian Empire
Rågervik
Peter the Great, on behalf of Russia, entered the Great Northern War against Sweden in 1700 with the aim of restoring Russia's access to the Baltic Sea, which it had previously lost. He began building a fleet on the Baltic Sea in 1702, established Saint Petersburg in 1703, and by 1710, he had gained full control over Estonia and Livonia. Peter ordered a survey of the coasts of the territories to identify potential locations for building new ports. The survey determined that Rågervik Bay (modern Paldiski Bay) was the only suitable place in the southern Gulf of Finland for a new warship port, with various complications. Peter decided to temporarily utilize the existing port in Reval instead, which was not ideal for his purposes. Dissatisfied with the lack of a suitable port, Peter the Great personally began searching for the ideal location. On 23 July 1715, he decided that the new port would be built on the shores of Rågervik Bay. Preparatory work started on 20 July 1718, when Peter ceremonially initiated the construction of the fortress and the breakwater between the mainland and Väike-Pakri Island. As part of the preparations, a church, barracks, and two piers were built, but relatively little work was done on the fortress itself.
Work began in earnest in 1723, when the Great Northern War had concluded. Labourers constructed bastions and a central rampart for the fortress, a nearly 300-meter-long breakwater for the port, and a lighthouse at the tip of the peninsula. There were also plans to build a fortress on Väike-Pakri Island, right across the bay from the mainland fortress, but these plans were ultimately abandoned when Peter the Great died in January 1725. Work on the mainland slowed down significantly, and projects completely halted by 1731. Two artillery batteries were finished on the mainland in 1726 and at least one on Väike-Pakri in 1731. Two additional batteries were built on the mainland during the Russo-Swedish War of 1741–1743. In 1746, Elizabeth of Russia ordered for work to continue, but not much was done. Minor constructions on the port and the breakwater occurred in 1751 and 1753, respectively.
Baltiiski Port
On 20 August 1762, Catherine the Great of Russia renamed the port to Baltiiski Port. She also tasked Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, a fortification expert, with finishing the project of fortifying the port. Münnich presented his plan in 1763, but it was deemed too grandiose and less deserving of funds than the port in Kronstadt. No new construction began, and only existing projects were maintained. Münnich died in 1767. On 18 November 1768, Catherine the Great ordered for work to stop. At this time, the breakwater on the mainland was 400 meters long, with the breakwater on Väike-Pakri being 100 meters long. The port was 447 meters by 1067 meters in area.
Baltiiski Port received town status on 3 July 1783 being the center of the Baltiiski administrative division that existed between 1783 and 1796. Between 1787 and 1820, Baltiiski Port also held the status of a county town, gaining a courthouse and other governmental institutions.
On 6 March 1790, during the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790, Swedish warships sailing under Dutch flags seized the port for a day and destroyed its artillery batteries. The bay was blockaded by the Swedish and British navies in the fall of 1808 during the Finnish War. When the blockade was lifted, Russian ships left for Kronstadt, leading to the British bombardment of Baltiiski Port, which caused little damage. As part of the Crimean War, British warships passed through between 23-25 June in 1854, though they did not bombard the town.
By the end of the 18th century, the fortress and garrison had lost their importance and were abandoned, but the garrison was temporarily reestablished several times later on. The town's civilian population had grown significantly, reaching around 500 inhabitants
The construction of the St. Petersburg-Tallinn-Paldiski railway was finished in 1870, with the intent to utilize the ice-free port of Baltiiski to transport goods to St. Petersburg. A passenger station, a depot, a water tower, a fire station, a naval school, and warehouses were built. By 1914, the town had reached around 1,300 inhabitants.
On 22 June 1912, Russian Emperor Nicholas II and German Kaiser Wilhelm II met in Baltiiski for the last time before going to war with each other two years later, as part of World War I. Only one Russian warship was destroyed in the bay in WWI. During one shelling by the Germans, 20 houses were destroyed and 10 people died. Germans also tried to bomb the town from a zeppelin but failed. Near the end of the war, Russia started building fortifications around the town and established artillery batteries at the tip of the peninsula. After the war, Russian and German prisoners of war were exchanged through the port.
Interwar period
As Estonia became independent in 1918, the importance of Baltiiski Port significantly decreased, with the main economic activities now being fishing and fish processing. In the 1930s, marble from Vasalemma began to be transported to Sweden through the port. On 19 June 1933, the official name of the town became Paldiski. Before that, Baltiiski and Paldiski were used interchangeably. For a short while in 1939, the town was officially renamed to Lahe, however the change was cancelled by the Soviet occupation.
In 1939, the Soviet Union built a naval base in Paldiski, under the Bases Treaty it forced on Estonia. In 1940, the whole population of Paldiski and the Pakri Islands were forcibly relocated and replaced by Soviet military personnel. Under the Soviets, the settlement became a closed town and stayed that way until the early 1990s.
Soviet era
Soviet naval base headquarters were located in Paldiski. During World War II, Germans occupied the town on 28 August 1941 and left in 1944. During the retreat, most of the town was burnt down, and only 20 buildings survived. In 1962, Paldiski became a nuclear submarine training centre for the Soviet Navy. The training center had a nuclear submarine constructed piece-by-piece for naval personnel training purposes. The center, known by locals as the Pentagon, was demolished by 2007. Employing some 16,000 people, and with two land-based nuclear reactors (at 70 MW and 90 MW power, respectively), it was the largest such facility in the Soviet Union. In total, the Soviet navy used the facility for 27 years. Because of its importance, the whole city was closed off with barbed wire until the military base was shut down on 31 August 1994. The Paldiski nuclear centre was handed off to the Estonian authorities on 30 September 1995.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia regained independence. To house Russian troops and those in training, many barracks had been built, which have since been left in disrepair. The nuclear reactors were shut down in 1989, first on a temporary basis because of the Chernobyl accident and later, due to the collapse of Soviet union, it became permanent. Nuclear material was transported back to Russia in 1994. The reactors were thereafter decommissioned. The reactors were protected with a sarcophagus, finished by 2006, as they were potentially dangerous due to radioactivity.
When Paldiski was a Soviet closed military townlet, incidents occurred rarely and if something did happen, it was classified. At the time Jüri Liim, the Estonian government special representative in Paldiski, had undercover access to the closed city. Per his testimony, the Pakri Islands just next to Paldiski were practice bombing targets for the Soviet air force, including nuclear bombers. There were no actual nuclear bombs used, but bombs that were in similar weight and size categories. When real bombs were used, small tremors could sometimes be felt in Paldiski and at the nuclear reactors.
Nuclear personnel were concerned about potential cracks or other issues with the reactor because of the bombs. Practice flight paths were often routed over Paldiski. Once, a live bomb fell by accident into the local kindergarten's cabbage field. The bomb malfunctioned and caused no damage. On another occasion, a bomb accidentally fell 15 meters from the working nuclear reactors. This bomb also malfunctioned and did not explode.