Tapa Army Base ( et, Tapa sõjaväelinnak), which lies to the south of the town

Tapa Tapa, TAPA, Tapas or Tapasya may refer to: Media *Tapas (website), a webtoon site, formerly known as Tapastic * ''Tapas'' (film), a 2005 Spanish film * ''Tapasya'' (1976 film), an Indian Hindi-language film * ''Tapasya'' (1992 film), a Nepalese f ...

, is the largest military base in Estonia. The base is next to the Central Training Area, excellent for artillery live-fire exercises and tracked unit maneuvers.

History

Tapa Army Base is one of the few former Soviet military facilities that was taken over by the Estonian Defence Forces in the early 1990s. The oldest facility is the airfield, which was built in the autumn of 1939 by the Red Army. After the end of World War II and the Soviet recapture of Estonia, the area of the base was enlarged, it totaled around . The

Soviet Air Defence Forces The Soviet Air Defence Forces (russian: войска ПВО, ''voyska protivovozdushnoy oborony'', ''voyska PVO'', ''V-PVO'', lit. ''Anti-Air Defence Troops''; and formerly ''protivovozdushnaya oborona strany'', ''PVO strany'', lit. ''Anti-Air De ...

later stationed the 656th Fighter Regiment equipped with 40 MiG-23MLD fighters at Tapa Airfield. In the 1960s the base received a tank and a pioneer training regiment. During the Soviet exploitation of the base, a lot of ecological damage was done, mainly due to the poor handling of oil and other fuels.

Present day

There are eight barracks in the compound and two more are being constructed. Three of the new barracks are for the

NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) is a NATO-allied forward-deployed defense and deterrence military force in Central and Northern Europe. This posture in Central Europe through Poland and Northern Europe through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, is in ...

multinational battle group in Estonia. The base canteen can serve up to 3200 personnel. There are repair shops, garages, study halls, and shelters in the base. In the future tracked armored maneuver units will be relocated to the Tapa military base. Maintenance facilities and shelters will be built for armored and unarmored vehicles.