The Red Army's large-scale offensive against the German Wehrmacht started on January 14, 1944 and reached the River Narva on February 1. Seven months of battles followed, leaving the city uninhabitable.

Some of the worst air raids took place in March 1944, when the Soviet Air Force launched a series of devastating raids on Estonian cities, including Narva-Jõesuu, Jõhvi, Tapa, Rakvere, Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu.

Narva suffered the most. Between March 6-8, tens of thousands of mines, shells and incendiary and explosive bombs were dropped on the city. And the bombs kept falling.

On July 26, when the Soviets finally crossed the river and occupied the city, little remained of Narva. Of the 3,200 buildings that existed before the war started, approximately 200 remained. Among the shattered remains, lay a 17th century Baroque Old Town built during Swedish rule, when Narva was a bustling merchant town. Explosions prepared by the retreating German troops also played a role in the destruction of the city. 

"Almost all the citizens were evacuated [in January 1944] and only a couple of hundred personnel connected to the German army were left here. So this was a good thing," Jänes said. "But unfortunately for the architecture and the heritage, it was all destroyed during the bombings."

The town was then photographed, the damage blamed on the Germans, and the rebuilding spun into a propaganda victory for the Soviet Union at the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946), where Nazi leaders stood trial for their crimes.

When the photographers were immortalizing the damage, World War II had not yet ended. "But the Soviets had already thought about how to sell their narratives about the war to Western people," Jänes said.

After the trials ended, the images were sent back to Estonia and archived. Few people have looked at them since. The 80th anniversary will be their first time on public display at the museum.

"We thought that it would be a good idea to show what these buildings look like, what was left of them after the fighting," Jänes said.

These photographs form the basis of "Narva 44", a new exhibition at Narva Castle that will remain open until the end of the year to mark the 80th anniversary. Images have been paired together to show what the city looked like before and after the bombings and this is the first time the museum has curated an exhibition on the subject. It also hints at what could have been possible, if the Soviet authorities had taken a different path.

"We also want to show that it was actually possible to restore these buildings," Jänes said, highlighting the fates of Gdansk and Warsaw's Old Towns. "These were restored but in occupied Estonia that wasn't the case. And this tragic history, events, these tragic events, still influence Estonians. It is like a scar that is hard to forget. And every time people visit Narva, they see this pretty city and unfortunately what is left of it."

The Soviets did launch a rebuilding project in Narva, but rather than recreating its grand heritage, the Baroque was replaced with uniform apartment blocks known as khrushchevkas. The town then rapidly industrialized and new inhabitants from across the Soviet Union were brought in. The majority of the old Estonian inhabitants never returned.

Despite the 80-year gap, the connection with Russia's war in Ukraine today are clear as eastern Ukrainian towns are destroyed by fierce fighting, Jänes said.

"I would say that only the blind cannot see the parallels," he told ERR News. "Of course, we are all thinking about what is happening in Ukraine and we see how cities are destroyed. How Russian propaganda nowadays is trying to say that it's not them destroying these buildings. There are many, many similarities."

The exhibition also aims to highlight how Russian propaganda works. Some people in Estonia still believe the Soviet narratives, he said: "We are trying to be neutral to show what events happened in 1944 and how these events influenced the Estonian state. We talk about Narva but we also have to talk about Estonia as a state, because Estonia lost its independence after 1945, for almost 50 years."

The museum is holding several other events connected with the anniversary. One exhibition showed architectural items that survived World War II.

"Soviet power wasn't interested in these items and they were basically just left in some warehouse. Only when Estonia became independent and, actually only last year, did we decide to show what is left of the Baroque city," Jänes said.

The Baroque remains are currently being restored and studied by the museum, students, and other experts. "There were many items that people thought were destroyed that actually weren't destroyed," he said.

From March 6, the exhibition will be open in the Castle Park of the Narva Museum (Peetri plats 7). It provides an overview of the Second World War in Estonia and the destruction of Narva in 1944. The exhibition will be open until the end of 2024.

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