- The 22nd Olympic games were held in Moscow between 19th of July to 3rd of August, 1980. The games were boycotted by a USA and some other countries also followed the example, which resulted the number of participating countries to 80, which was the lowest number of countries in Olympic Games since 1956. Despite the boycott, the Games were opened by the Soviet President, Leonid Brezhnev. The 22nd Olympic Games were a historical moment in a sense, that this was the first time that the Games were held in a Socialistic country. The little known fact about the closing ceremony and about the mascot of the games, Misha the bear, is that while being happy through out the games, it appears to have a tear in it's eye, during the closing ceremony.

- Interesting isn't it? So what the hell all of this has to do with Tallinn and this Linnahall place I hear someone already shouting there, while pounding the keyboard...

- The thing is, that Moscow is located inland and you cannot held one Olympic competition there...the sailing. So Tallinn hosted the Olympic Regatta in 1980. Although I must say that I've always wondered, why they chose Tallinn and not for example Leningrad, which was the birth place of Bolshevism and a bit closer to Moscow. But in any case, Tallinn was chosen and enormous construction effort was started to build all the facilities that the Olympic Regatta would require.

- A new airport building was build, along with a TV-tower, hotel Olympia, Olympic Yachting Centre, beach facilities and Linnahall which functioned during the Games as an Even Centre. Linnahall is actually much criticized building, because if you would need to name one building that reminds about the Soviet rule in Estonia, Linnahall would be the one. It's a massive building and climbing up the stairs takes few minutes, before you reach to this massive square. It's just absolutely huge...too huge actually if you start to look around. It just doesn't fit to the surroundings and when I first saw this building, my thoughts were something between the Pyramids of Giza and Mayan Temples in the jungles of Central America.

- Linnahall was designed by an Estonian architect Rain Karp. One has to wonder what went through his mind, while designing this monster. The place might look a bit more inviting, if some other material along with concrete would have been used. But now it's just a huge concrete pyramid and nothing else. It's nearly empty now, with a ice hockey hall inside. Although while we were walking here, the place looked very deserted and certainly no tourists around. Just local youth....

- A lot has changed in 24 years...24 years ago this place was full of life. People cheering, laughing and spending a day here. Now....now you need to close your eyes and sit for a while there to listen the echoes of the past, before hearing some drunken Finnish men trying to buy sex from a married Estonian women...a lot has changed. To a better direction? I don't know...

- The Linnahall parking lot, which for some reason didn't have any cars, despite the closeness of the harbour. Most likely it's not safe to park near here, as while walking here, we didn't see any tourists, just local youth drinking and relaxing. It's just not something that tourists want to see I guess? But then again, I do not consider myself a tourist while exploring in a foreign country. I rather try to blend into the local population, than to stick out from the crowd to miles away.

- My fiancé and the view towards Finland. I guess she was already fed up with me, dragging her to all sorts of weird places and was looking a boat to Finland....

- The view from Linnahall was absolutely amazing and not just because the nearby factory looked very inviting. Staring that place a long time, I still couldn't figure out whether it was abandoned or not. All of the windows were intact and generally speaking, the place looked to be in a very good condition to be abandoned and middle of Tallinn.