The nuns of St Michael's Convent

Gustav Adolf Grammar School, Tallinn's oldest school, was founded in 1631 inside the walls of the medieval Cistercian convent of St Michael. Pupils and staff have long spoken of bell-like ringing in empty corridors and of pale women in nuns' habits gliding past the classrooms. One teacher who dozed off while working late said he woke to find a nun standing silently before his desk. The story gained weight at the end of the twentieth century, when renovation uncovered a well-preserved nuns' cemetery in the courtyard; the remains were reburied nearby. The school at Suur-Kloostri 16 still teaches in the old convent buildings.