Tartu Student Lock-Up

The University of Tartu in southern Estonia is the highest-ranked university in the Baltic states (according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings), and the only one to appear on the list of the top 500 universities in the world. Not all of its students have been upstanding citizens, though, as a graffiti-covered little room high up in the rafters of the university’s main building colorfully demonstrates. 

For decades, the university has supplied Estonia with its establishment: 40 percent of current representatives in the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament, attended the university, as did 87 percent of practicing attorneys, and an astonishing 99 percent of Estonian doctors—not to mention every single judge practicing in the country. But that doesn’t mean the university hasn’t seen its fair share of troublemakers, too.