Estonia's Motorsport Museum has closed, but its exhibits found new homes

A year ago the Museum of Motorsport (MOMU) in Estonia displayed hundreds of cars and motorcycles. Today almost nothing remains of that exhibition. The collection of museum founder Arno Sillat has shrunk from three hundred vehicles to just five.

After MOMU closed its doors to visitors last autumn, much of its collection was sold, returned to the original owners, or sent to other museums. According to Sillat, about 90% of the exhibits remained in Estonia. Items that had been deposited by owners were simply returned to them, while a significant portion went to 15 current or future museums, including sports museums, highway-themed museums, and LaitseRallyPark.

A new life in a former power plant

The museum occupied a former power station where the sound of engines and the smell of gasoline once filled the air. Now artists and various creative projects have moved in. Considerable attention is also being given to the garden next to the former museum building, where workshops on natural materials have already been held and artists have used the surroundings for photography and landscape work.

Sillat says MOMU's closure marked the end of a long chapter for him, as maintaining such a collection alone had become increasingly difficult. Still, he is not ready to fully sever the site's connection to the history of motor technology, arguing that motorsport and creativity are not opposites — engineers and mechanics create too, and Estonia once had nine companies that professionally built racing cars, which are themselves works of art.

No final decision has been made about the building's future, but Sillat says the site's history continues, simply in a different form.