Tourists Pay for a Night of Abuse In Latvian Prison

From The Moscow Times:

After the ill-tempered guard clanged the cell door shut, the darkness was enveloping and complete. Then lights flashed and a voice barked: "Face the wall! Hands behind your back!" In the room, under pictures of Lenin and Stalin, a stern-faced Soviet army officer sat hunched over a desk, smoking. "What are you doing in a restricted military zone?" he demanded.

So began an unusual Latvian exercise in retro-chic: a night in a Soviet-era slammer.

Each weekend, about 25 people pay 5 Lats ($9) to spend the night being bullied and interrogated in a prison haunted by Latvia's 20th century miseries. Real and fake mix together in grisly harmony: Visitors witness the re-enactment of a prisoner being shot after his third escape attempt and visit the mass grave of 160 real inmates nearby.

Those inmates were shot during the 1941-44 German occupation of Latvia. Then came the Soviet reoccupation which ended in 1991. Now, comes the age of nostalgia as the country moves ever further from its painful past.