Location 2: Kultuurikatel Stalker (1979) Location from Stalker (1979) in the present day Most developers would have torn these old factories down, but the area now combines old and new architectural practices, creating a futuristic landscape more in line with the dystopian city of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s novel than Tarkovsky’s post-apocalyptic wasteland. When Tarkovsky shot here the area was abandoned, and it stayed like that for over 30 years. It’s here, whilst driving towards the entrance of the Zone, that Stalker, Writer and Professor jump out of their jeep to hide after hearing the sound of one of the guard’s revving motorbikes. The busiest of these streets is Stalkeri käik (The Stalker’s Path), named to reflect the area’s role in Tarkovsky’s film.

The area once housed a distillery and Tallinn’s largest mill, but is now filled with high-end fashion shops, cafes and even a BrewDog bar. Behind this imposing multiplex lies the Rotermann Quarter. The majority of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival takes place in the Coca-Cola Plaza, a neon-lit monument to Estonia’s full scale adoption of free market capitalism.

Stalker wind of time