How to Run a Top Secret City

The town of Sillamäe in Estonia looks like a perfectly normal seaside town today. But appearances are deceiving: for decades, the town was completely sealed off. More than that – it was so secret that it didn’t even appear on maps. In what is now a quiet little place, the Soviet Union once enriched uranium for the production of atomic bombs. What was life like in Sillamäe back then? And what relics from that era can still be discovered today? A film by Matthias Schwarzer and Geraldine Oetken. ------------------------------ Here you’ll find the bonus video from the abandoned ghost town of Viivikonna – exclusively for channel members. https://youtu.be/T3sjqxfWQcA ------------------------------ Sources for the video: Sillamäe's history on the town's official website: https://www.sillamae.ee/web/eng/secret-period Facts about Sillamäe's architecture: https://www.sillamae.ee/web/eng/architecture Blog post about Sillamäe and its history: https://tuda.xyz/sillamae/ Another blog post about Sillamäe's history: https://www.exutopia.com/sillamae-soviet-estonia/ Report about Sillamäe in Russian: https://youtu.be/a1fN3Ai9_GQ?si=xyiytL2pWZ7vtGXA Childen's hair loss (New Scientist): https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12316731-300-hair-raising-fallout/ Remediation of Sillamäe’s radioactive tailings pond completed (Estonian World Review): https://www.eesti.ca/remediation-of-sillamaes-radioactive-tailings-pond-completed/article21671 Vaivara concentration camp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaivara_concentration_camp ------------------------------ Did you like this video? Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/MatthiasSchwarzerEnglish Or become a channel member on YouTube! ------------------------------ ▪️ WEBSITE https://matthias-schwarzer.com/ ▪️ SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/show/0QqRLRYel3FE6n14LpXdLF ▪️ TIKTOK https://www.tiktok.com/@matthiasschwarzerenglish ▪️ CONTACT [email protected] ------------------------------ Intro song: MÆT - Start Again Music: Epidemic Sound #sillamäe #estonia #baltics #sovietunion