Located in the modern-day Valga Municipality, the Soviet-era Vilaski nuclear missile base has stood abandoned for a long time.

During the Cold War, missiles here were pointed toward both Paris and London. To avoid detection, the R-12 Dvina missiles were transported to the base on vehicles resembling passenger railroad cars.

"These missiles were very large – 22 meters long – and carried nuclear warheads 70 times more powerful than the Hiroshima explosion," said Rain Aunapu, one of the owners of the old base.

Ultimately, no missiles were ever launched from here toward London or Paris, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the hangar was briefly used for potato storage.

The current owners bought the abandoned site about a year and a half ago. Their vision includes an underground cultural center, but also a museum to showcase the unusual location's gripping history.

"We've been hunting down various documents and photos from archives, and we've gotten old documents from the CIA from when the base used to be spied on from the air," Aunapu described. "The year was 1964 – February. There are actual preserved aerial photos taken from here, and there's also info about the base, and plans that reflect everything that went on here."

Recently, the former missile base was repurposed for a very different secretive purpose – as one of Santa Claus' homes.

"I like organizing these kinds of parties, and Rain had the idea of doing something exciting for kids too," recalled co-owner Hennri Kirt. "And it's actually really fun for grownups here too!"

Nestled among more typical Christmas decorations is an older antique: a Soviet-era firetruck. Whether this vehicle also serves as Santa's sleigh remains a secret for now.

"It fits here, in terms of the year," Kirt explained. "We got an offer to acquire this vehicle, and we thought, 'This is cool!' It actually runs, and we're trying to fix it up a bit more so we could use it to go fight fires if any wildfires were to break out."

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