Police museum collection gets 86-year-old patrol boat
The collection of the Estonian Police Museum was complemented recently with a six-ton border patrol boat. The boat that started guarding Estonia's eastern border nearly 25 years ago was gifted to the museum by the Police and Border Guard Board.
The patrol boat with the side number 024 arrived in Rakvere from the Mustjõe Cordon some 100 kilometers away where it had been used to catch smugglers and break the ice on Narva River for over 20 years. But all of that is history now, and the boat's new life will be spent in the museum's yard.
The new exhibit is causing quite a lot of excitement, while visitors cannot yet see the exhibit up close.
"We have a smaller boat that children and adults can sit on and examine. We will first renovate [the new boat] before deciding whether we will let visitors get inside. But it will be possible to get a close look at its interior," said Viljar Vissel, head of the Virumaa Museums Foundation.
The boat, made in Finland 86 years ago, was given to the museum by the Police and Border Guard Board that in turn received it as a present from the Finns.
"It is a part of history. The Estonian police received a lot of things from Finland in 1996, whether we're talking about advice, breathalyzers, speed traps, weighing equipment – it all came from Finland. The fact she was built back in 1936 is all the more reason to preserve her," said Andrus Eesmaa, director of the Estonian Police Museum.
No other such boats are known to have survived in Estonia or Finland.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski
