Estonian Open Air Museum
Seaside parkland of relocated farmhouses, windmills, chapel and inn showing Estonian rural life
The Estonian Open Air Museum occupies a wooded seaside estate at Rocca al Mare, on the western edge of Tallinn. Founded in 1957 and opened to visitors in 1964, it gathers farm buildings, windmills, a fishing village, a schoolhouse, a village shop, a chapel and a wooden inn that were dismantled at their original sites across Estonia and rebuilt here. The buildings are grouped by region, so that visitors move between the farmsteads of northern, western, southern and island Estonia within a single park.
Interiors are furnished to particular decades, and costumed staff demonstrate weaving, cooking and other household work of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. The Kolu Inn, moved from Jarva County, serves food based on historical recipes, and horse-drawn transport runs in the warmer months. Newer additions extend the story into the Soviet period, including a collective-farm apartment block interior. The grounds also hold the Rocca al Mare summer manor, and a calendar of folk-calendar festivals marks Michaelmas, Martinmas, Midsummer and Christmas.
Highlights
- Farmsteads rebuilt from four Estonian regions across a 79-hectare seaside park
- Working windmills and the wooden Sutlepa Chapel of 1699
- Kolu Inn serving dishes reconstructed from historical recipes
- Folk-calendar festivals from Michaelmas to Christmas Village
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