Spies in the Hotel Viru...

The very first time I ever visited Tallinn, Estonia, about 20 years ago back in the early '90s, I stayed in the Hotel Viru.  It was a memorably bad experience.  My bed was a straw-stuffed pallet placed on top of cinder blocks, and that was the highlight.  I stayed in the Hotel Viru again, many years later, and had a much more pleasant experience.

On my first visit there, our Estonian (though ethnic Russian) hosts warned us about the bugging of the Hotel Viru – apparently it was well-known amongst the locals.  Now 20 years later, here I am reading about it in the Smithsonian Magazine!