Winners of the Estonian Memory Institute's essay contest "Kiri küüditatule" (Letter to the deported) will be honored at a ceremony at 12 p.m. Teachers who participated in a contest to compile new study materials on near history will also be awarded.

The institute will open its traditional photo and video contest titled "Eesti mälumajakad" (Lighthouses of Estonian memory). This year also marks 80 years since Soviet forces occupied Estonia in connection with which a new essay contest is opened, with the award ceremony set to take place on June 14.

Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur will lay a wreath at the officers' wall of the Victims of Communism Memorial at 3:50 p.m.

A wreath-laying ceremony to remember the victims of the deportations will start there at 4 p.m. The president, prime minister, justice minister, chairman of the Memento Society and head of the diplomatic corps will give speeches, and the archbishop of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church will lead the participants in prayer.

People can light candles on Freedom Square in Tallinn from 6 p.m. The action is organized by the Estonian Institute of Human Rights. A total of 1,550 candles will be placed in the square, which people can light on location. The Estonian Memory Institute will set up informative plaques in Estonian, English, Russian, Finnish and German.

Traditions also include a red light installation to be projected on the seaward side of the Patarei Sea Fortress at night.

The Vabamu Museum and the KGB prison cells are open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on March 25. Vabamu's permanent exhibition "Freedom has no Limits" invites visitors to feel the fragility of freedom and share Estonians' personal stories of life under the occupation.

Tartu

In Tartu, a remembrance ceremony will start next to the "Rukkilill" (Cornflower) monument to victims of Stalinism at 11 a.m. with speeches by Tartu Mayor Urmas Klaas, members of the Tartu Memento Society Piret Tarto and Tõnu Käbi and 12th grade student of the Hugo Treffner High School Toomas-Erik Vahtra. Bishop Emeritus Joel Luhamets will lead the gathered in prayer.

A remembrance service will be held at the St. Paul's Church at 12 p.m. The people of Tartu can light candles in the Town Hall Square at 7 p.m. People are asked to bring their own candles and matches. The city will light 250 candles on its part.

The Estonian National Museum (ERM) has complemented its permanent exhibition "Encounters" with items people took with them when they were deported to Siberia as well as those the deported sent back home.

On March 25, homes, organizations, agencies and institutions in Tartu will hoist mourning flags.

More information on events can be found here (in Estonian) and here (in English).

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