The ruins of the abandoned prison camp outside the small Estonian town of Rummu were once a dreaded stone edifice, but are now a beach attraction. The prison was already established in the 1940s by the Soviet Union. It was built in a convenient location, on the lip of a limestone quarry in which the inmates were forced to toil.
When Estonia regained its independence in 1991, the Soviets moved out and many of their institutions fell, including the labor prison at Rummu. Both the prison and the quarry were abandoned.
Without anyone to look after the natural groundwater that seeped into the former quarry, it soon filled up with water, creating a new lake. It filled up so fast that many of the mining machines and even some of the buildings were swallowed whole by the rising waters.