Tram T2, from the airport to Kopli

Stop by stop

1. Lennujaam

   Stop 1 2 stories

   • Transport & harbour

     Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport : Show on the map

     The terminal opened in 1980, just before the Olympic regatta, its shape borrowed from the old Estonian barn dwelling. The president it is named after once gave a press interview in its toilets.

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   • Names & legends

     Lake Ülemiste and the Old Man : Show on the map

     Most of Tallinn's drinking water comes from this lake. An old man lives in it too, and he has one question for every traveller.

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2. Ülemiste linnak

   Stop 2 2 stories

   • Soviet traces

     The guarded strip of a secret plant : Show on the map

     Right beside the tram stop, the heritage register lists an unusual monument: the guarded strip that kept a Soviet military plant out of sight.

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   • Soviet traces

     Ülemiste City, the former Dvigatel works : Show on the map

     Today it is a business campus. After the Second World War part of it was a secret military plant, and one of its halls was built with no windows facing the airport.

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3. Majaka põik

   Stop 3

4. Sikupilli

   Stop 4 1 story

   • Names & legends

     Sikupilli: a bagpipe and a women's prison

     The stop is named after a bagpipe, by way of an old inn. The site behind the name has been a hospital and a women's prison.

     Hidden gem

5. Majaka

   Stop 5 1 story

   • Names & legends

     Majaka: lighthouse street, far from the sea

     Majakas means lighthouse, an odd name for a stop this far from the sea. It comes from a real light, and a street nearby remembers the one before it.

6. Bussijaam

   Stop 6 2 stories

   • Transport & harbour

     Tallinn bus station : Show on the map

     About 200 metres from the stop, coaches leave for towns across Estonia and for Latvia and Lithuania.

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   • Factories & trade

     The state vodka factory : Show on the map

     A neo-Romanesque factory from 1900 that the heritage register counts among the best industrial buildings of early 20th-century Tallinn. It was built to make vodka.

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7. Keskturg

   Stop 7 1 story

   • Soviet traces

     Keskturg, the Central Market : Show on the map

     Trading since 1947, and locals still come for the range and the prices. Catch its rough Soviet-era character while it lasts: a renovation is expected.

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8. Paberi

   Stop 8 4 stories

   • Graves, prisons, memorials

     Jaani seegi kirik, St John's almshouse church : Show on the map

     First recorded in 1237 as a house for lepers outside the town walls. Centuries later, restorers found something hidden in the egg of its weathervane.

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   • Soviet traces

     Cathouse, once the Turist currency shop : Show on the map

     In 1982 this was a shop for foreign tourists, paid for in hard currency and closed to locals. Since then it has been a bank, a shop and a string of nightclubs.

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   • Soviet traces

     The red star on Tartu mnt 24 : Show on the map

     A red star still sits on the roof of this 1957 block, built for factory workers. It is protected, and that has passers-by asking questions.

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   • Factories & trade

     Paberi: the paper mill under Stockmann : Show on the map

     The stop is named after a paper mill whose last buildings came down in 1995, when a department store went up in their place. One piece of the mill still stands behind it.

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9. A. Laikmaa

   Stop 9 3 stories

   • Names & legends

     Hobujaama, the horse station

     Tallinn's horse trams were gone by the 1920s. The street only got the name Horse Station decades later.

   • Soviet traces

     Hotel Viru and the KGB floor : Show on the map

     Estonia's first high-rise opened in 1972 as a hotel for foreigners. Its 23rd floor had another job, and some of the rooms were listening too.

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   • Old buildings & churches

     The buried Härjapea river and its bridge : Show on the map

     A river once flowed through here to the sea. In 2023, roadworks by the tram tracks dug up an 18th-century bridge over it, and then it disappeared again.

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10. Laeva

    Stop 10 2 stories

    • Factories & trade

      The Salt Storage and Stalker : Show on the map

      A limestone salt store from 1908, now the Museum of Estonian Architecture. Andrei Tarkovsky filmed part of Stalker around it, and what happened after the shoot is still argued about.

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    • Soviet traces

      The Fleet Officers' House and its hidden ceiling : Show on the map

      Built in 1954 as the Fleet Officers' House. In 2026 its Soviet symbols were removed or covered up, and one of them is still there, just out of sight.

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11. Vanasadam

    Stop 11 1 story

    • Transport & harbour

      Admiralty basin, handed to the Baltic Fleet : Show on the map

      After the war this basin was handed to the Soviet navy. Today a footbridge crosses it, and the bridge moves out of the way for boats.

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12. Linnahall

    Stop 12 1 story

    • Soviet traces

      Linnahall, the Lenin Palace : Show on the map

      Opened in 1980 as the V. I. Lenin Palace of Culture and Sport. It has played a Kyiv opera house in a Hollywood film, and in 2026 the mayor suggested tearing it down.

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13. Suur Rannavärav

    Stop 13 4 stories

    • Graves, prisons, memorials

      Katkenud liin, the MS Estonia memorial : Show on the map

      A memorial to the people lost with the ferry Estonia in 1994. Two black granite arcs reach for each other and never meet.

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    • Old buildings & churches

      Paks Margareeta and the Great Coast Gate : Show on the map

      Built in the early 1500s to guard the harbour and impress anyone arriving by sea, with walls up to five metres thick. It has since stored gunpowder and held prisoners.

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    • Old buildings & churches

      Oleviste church spire : Show on the map

      Struck by lightning about ten times, and used by the KGB as a radio and surveillance post. Legend says its builder fell from the very top when someone shouted up at him.

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    • Graves, prisons, memorials

      The KGB building on Pikk and Pagari : Show on the map

      The Soviet security service interrogated people in this building, and its basement windows were bricked up so no one outside would hear. Locals had a dark joke about how tall it was.

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14. Põhja puiestee

    Stop 14 5 stories

    • Factories & trade

      The art academy in a stocking factory : Show on the map

      The Estonian Academy of Arts now works in a 1932 factory building. It used to make lace, ribbons and, in 1945 alone, 371,000 pairs of socks.

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    • Factories & trade

      Kultuurikatel, the power station from Stalker : Show on the map

      Tallinn's power station went up here in 1912–13, on the site of an older gas works. Decades later Andrei Tarkovsky filmed part of Stalker inside, and a memorial plate remembers it.

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    • Graves, prisons, memorials

      Patarei sea fortress and prison : Show on the map

      Built as a sea fortress for the tsar, it was a prison until 2002. Its darkest years came in 1940–41, when it was the NKVD's Prison No. 1.

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    • Transport & harbour

      Lennusadam, the Seaplane Harbour : Show on the map

      Seaplane hangars from the First World War, now the main hall of the Estonian Maritime Museum. An old railway embankment turned walking route leads the way.

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    • Factories & trade

      Noblessner, the submarine yard : Show on the map

      The name joins two founders, one of them a nephew of Alfred Nobel. Before the revolution, this is where the Russian Empire built submarines.

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15. Balti jaam

    Stop 15 3 stories

    • Soviet traces

      The vanished coup monument

      Across from the station, four armed figures 4.5 metres tall stood from 1975 until 1993. They honoured the men who tried to seize power in 1924.

      Hidden gem

    • Graves, prisons, memorials

      June 1941 on the platform

      Every June, people gather on this platform to remember the deportations of 1941.

    • Transport & harbour

      Balti jaam : Show on the map

      The first station building here opened in 1870, on the railway from St Petersburg to Paldiski. In December 1924 it was caught up in a coup attempt.

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16. Telliskivi

    Stop 16 1 story

    • Factories & trade

      Säde: Estonia's first motorbikes : Show on the map

      Otto and Kristjan Saar's workshop grew into a factory that made nearly 10,000 bicycles. In 1937 it built Estonia's first series-made motorbikes.

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17. Salme

    Stop 17 3 stories

    • Names & legends

      Kalamaja, the fish house

      The name means fish house, and from the 14th century this was the town's fishing harbour. Then the railway came in 1870, and the factories followed.

    • Names & legends

      Salme, once War Street

      Until 1951 this was War Street. Salme is a heroine of the national epic Kalevipoeg, and also a village where Viking Age ship burials were found.

    • Factories & trade

      Havanna, Kalamaja's cigarette factory : Show on the map

      In 1921 a tobacco factory opened here with German machines that could make half a million cigarettes a day. It did not stay on its own for long.

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18. Volta

    Stop 18 3 stories

    • Factories & trade

      Volta: motors, irons and hand grenades : Show on the map

      Named after Alessandro Volta, these works made the electrical equipment for submarines, hand grenades in the First World War and, later, irons by the hundred thousand.

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    • Transport & harbour

      A steam-locomotive turntable : Show on the map

      A listed turntable from the old Kopli freight station, where steam locomotives were turned around.

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    • Graves, prisons, memorials

      Kalamaja cemetery park : Show on the map

      Tallinn's oldest cemetery was flattened in 1964. Only a gate and a bell tower are still standing, and the gravestones ended up somewhere you might not expect.

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19. Krulli

    Stop 19 2 stories

    • Factories & trade

      The Krull kiosk : Show on the map

      A small 1931 pavilion from the Krull works, listed as a fine example of 1930s kiosk architecture.

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    • Factories & trade

      Krulli: from vodka stills to locomotives : Show on the map

      It started out making stills for distilling and ended up building steam locomotives. Look down: the Krull name is still cast into old manhole covers.

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20. Angerja

    Stop 20 1 story

    • Old buildings & churches

      Peter the Great's Naval Fortress houses : Show on the map

      Two houses from 1915, built for long-serving soldiers of the fortress ring the Russian Empire threw around Tallinn before the First World War.

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21. Sitsi

    Stop 21 1 story

    • Factories & trade

      Balti Manufaktuur, the cotton mill and its town : Show on the map

      A cotton mill that opened in 1898 and still employed over 2,000 people in 1984. It came with a town of its own: houses, a church, a school, even a sauna.

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22. Maleva

    Stop 22

23. Sirbi

    Stop 23 2 stories

    • Names & legends

      Sirbi, the sickle, and a garden city

      Sirp means sickle, as in hammer and sickle. The street itself, built in 1940, is the only finished part of a planned garden city.

    • Graves, prisons, memorials

      Kopli cemetery park : Show on the map

      This cemetery opened in 1774, after Catherine the Great banned burials next to churches. It was flattened in 1950–51, and in 2018 some of its stones came back from an unexpected place.

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24. Marati

    Stop 24 9 stories

    • Parks & nature

      Kase park and its missing birches

      A protected field of Ice Age boulders, the biggest more than two metres tall. The name means birch park, and two of the city's own guides can't agree whether any birches grow here.

    • Names & legends

      Marati, a tram stop for a French revolutionary

      A Tallinn tram stop named after a French revolutionary who was murdered in his bath. The name outlived the Soviet era.

    • Old buildings & churches

      Bekker's company town, police station included : Show on the map

      The shipyard sat outside the city, so it built a town of its own, police station included. Until 1951 none of its streets had names.

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    • Factories & trade

      Kopli's Fist, the Bekker water tower : Show on the map

      Locals call it the Fist of Kopli. It once supplied water to almost the whole peninsula, and in 2004 a crew moved in with vans, claiming to renovate it.

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    • Soviet traces

      Post Box V-8434 : Show on the map

      After the Second World War, a navy repair firm worked here that was known only by a postal code. It was not the first time secret orders had reached this yard.

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    • Old buildings & churches

      Estonia's first purpose-built kindergarten : Show on the map

      Built in 1928 as the first building in Estonia made specifically for children. It is still a kindergarten today.

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    • Factories & trade

      Põhjala factory : Show on the map

      A rubber factory moved into the empty shipyard in the 1920s. Today its old halls hold a bakery, a brewery, studios and summer film nights.

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    • Factories & trade

      Bekker shipyard : Show on the map

      An imperial shipyard built with French money to make destroyers for the Russian navy. One ship launched here in 1915 was not finished until 1927, in another city and under another name.

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    • Factories & trade

      The last slipway and Kopli Goliath : Show on the map

      Tallinn's last slipway of its kind, and the place where a giant crane called Goliath was brought down in front of a crowd in 1935.

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25. Sepa

    Stop 25 1 story

    • Old buildings & churches

      Kopli Rahvamaja : Show on the map

      A functionalist community centre from the 1930s that spent the Soviet years as a sailors' club. Now it keeps bees.

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26. Kopli

    Stop 26 6 stories

    • Transport & harbour

      Kopli, end of four lines

      Tallinn's largest tram depot is here, and four tram lines start at this end of the peninsula. The street that brought you here is named after a pasture.

    • Factories & trade

      The Russo-Baltic shipyard : Show on the map

      When it opened in 1913, this shipyard's power plant was eight times stronger than the one serving the rest of Tallinn. Much of the site is still closed to outsiders.

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    • Old buildings & churches

      St Nicholas church on the fire-station site : Show on the map

      The shipyard's first church shared a hangar with the canteen until a fire in 1934. The church that replaced it stands on the site of the yard's fire station.

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    • Old buildings & churches

      A company town for life : Show on the map

      The shipyard was planned so that a worker never needed to leave. It even ran its own tram line.

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    • Old buildings & churches

      The Professors' Village : Show on the map

      Garden houses built in 1914 for the shipyard's senior staff; one still has its original 225-square-metre flats. The name came later, with a new kind of resident.

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    • Factories & trade

      Kopli liinid : Show on the map

      Rows of wooden barracks built for shipyard workers, each with running water and electricity. By the 2000s squatters lived there and fires were common; now they are being rebuilt.

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