It contained thousands of graves of ethnic Estonian and Swedish residents of Tallinn and stood for at least 400 years, from the 15th or 16th century to 1964 when it was completely flattened and destroyed by the Soviet occupation authorities governing the country at that time.
Shortly after the Second World War and during the second occupation of Baltic states, the suburb of Kalamaja (due to its strategic position as a base for the Red Army on the Gulf of Finland) was turned into a restricted zone for the Soviet military and closed to the public.
[2] Gravestones were used to build walls along the ports and sidewalks in other parts of the city and no trace of the cemetery was left standing.
[citation needed] Presently the former area of the cemetery is a public park, with no immediate visible indication of its previous status.
The only surviving evidence of those who were interred there consists of the parish registers of burials and some old detailed maps of the area in the Tallinn city archives.