The College Building

The Baltic Defence College is located in the right hand wing of the building on 12 Riia Street in Tartu, Estonia.

The College initially used all three floors of the building in the following way. Two College faculty departments (Department of Defence Administration and Management and Department of Strategy and Political Studies) and the College Administration including the Education Support Offices were situated on the 1st floor.

The Department of Operations Tactics and Logistics, the Course Office as well as five small student working rooms ("syndicate rooms") and the only lecture hall - The Celsius Hall (with the capacity of up to 50-60 persons) - were situated on the 2nd floor of the College building.

College Infrastructure Development

The increase in the number of courses and students led to requirement for additional space. From the idea in late June 2000 it only took 15 months before the extra lecture area was available. The College received it in early October from the Estonian Ministry of Defence. It covers all need forseen in the approved Long Term Plan, and has some room beyond the requirements of even that plan.

It has now been possible to organise and group the College education and the education support branches in a more efficient way. The faculty departments are now concentrated on the 2nd floor together with the elements of the College administration that support the teaching most directly.

The 1st floor now gives much needed extra room to the College Management and the rest of the support administration, including a dedicated Printshop and an extra conference room. It also holds a couple of equipped work places for external lecturers.

The key education activities have now been placed on the new 4th floor with its 9 syndicate rooms and the 100 seat lecture hall (The Björn von Sydow Hall). The 4th floor has added nearly 600 sq.m. of space to the previous lecture area. It was equipped using saved budget money from the year 2000, supplemented generously by the Netherlands.

To assist defence planning the College has hosted Estonian war-gaming activities. Both these external and the College's own war gaming has been eased by the addition of the 250 sq.m. bunker area in the basement of the building. Together with the TT Main Room on the 3rd floor, 10 small and 2 larger staff working rooms now form the heart of the College war-gaming facility. All has been wired and equipped as a result of support from Denmark, the U.S., France and Finland. To support longer exercises, the basement also has a small kitchen, toilets and shower.

The Admiral Cowan Hall on the 2nd floor and the former Tactical Trainer area on the 3rd floor (2 class rooms and up to 4 student working rooms) will now be used for the shorter College activities like the Civil Servant Course. They are also used for other shorter supporting states activities like the Swiss Media Course for the Baltic States. To mark the very important support of the Netherlands to the College as well as the traditional Dutch interest in security in the Baltic Sea region, one of the 3rd floor classrooms has been named after Admiral de Ruyter.