Brothels and prostitutes in small towns is not a very common research topic but thanks to relatively well-preserved archive materials, it is possible to provide a fairly good overview of the situation in Rakvere. In the fourth quarter of the 19th century, Rakvere was a rapidly developing small town without major industrial enterprises. In addition to numerous taverns, two, sometimes three brothels also operated in the city. Although it was reported in 1887 that brothels were located on the town’s main street, public women were soon relegated to the outskirts of the fairgrounds, where they remained until the outbreak of the First World War. Despite turnover among brothel owners, the same buildings were used consistently.
Marie Sassian and Marie Vulkan ran brothels for a long time until 1893-94. Then the brothel madams began to change quickly. The third brothel was briefly reopened in 1900. All three were next to each other. When the city market moved to the fairground in 1906, it was decided to eliminate the brothels near the future market square, but this only affected the properties located right next to the market square. Brothels were allowed to continue operating on the side streets of well-known neighbourhoods.
Brothels changed owners or closed mostly because the previous owner became bored of the business. Yet sometimes it also ended in scandal when the police accused the brothel owner of fighting, playing cards or selling alcohol. Despite many complaints, neighbours were never the reason for closures. The motives of neighbours for filing complaints were mostly not entirely honest since some of the signatories to complaint letters were themselves innkeepers, beer shop owners or other persons with not very ethical backgrounds. Thus, the explanation of one police officer stating that complaints were instigated by a rival brothel owner in the hope of getting rid of the competition sounds plausible.
According to the laws of the Russian Empire, only women could run brothels. In only one case, it can be suspected that the main person running a brothel in Rakvere was the husband of the official owner. At least two brothel owners were widows.

More is known about the lives of four brothel owners (Vulkan, Kõiv, Lipke, Prink). They lived to the age of 54 to 62 years old and were quite prosperous. None of them continued to run their businesses in Rakvere until the end of their life. While Caroline Kõiv went back to Tartu, the other three sooner or later moved their business and/or family to Tallinn, although Lipke and Vulkan arranged for themselves to be buried in Rakvere. Brothel owners had children only before becoming brothel owners, except in the case of Vulkan, where it can be suspected that a client of a newly opened brothel became her new husband and the father of her children. Some brothel owners had earlier worked as public women themselves (Kõiv for sure), while others had not done so (Vulkan, Prink, Tromberg).
Rakvere was the only small town in Estonia where brothels operated permanently for decades. Therefore, independent prostitutes were less important, and the police generally did not register them. The exception is the list of independent prostitutes from 1875. Rakvere brothel prostitutes rarely had a local background, and if they did, they had previously been registered in Tallinn. 44% of the women came from Southern Estonia, i.e. the northern part of the Livonian Governorate, and 31% from the Estonian Governorate. Prostitutes mostly came from Tartu or Tallinn and when they left town, they went to Tartu, Tallinn, or Narva. It can be assumed that prostitutes from Tartu and Tallinn stopped briefly in Rakvere and Narva before heading to the capital of the empire, St. Petersburg. Most of the women who worked in the city stayed in Rakvere only for a short time (often 2-3 weeks). In addition to the St. Petersburg train that stopped there, they could also be attracted to the city by its generally less stringent medical control. Most of the women certainly came voluntarily. There are some cases where women from the relatively distant towns of Valga and Pskov came to work at a newly opened brothel, which suggests that the madam bought or recruited workers. Migration was strongly linked to the railway network. There was no railway connection to the neighbouring town of Paide, and no prostitutes ever came from there. True enough, since Paide was a small, poor town, there might not have been any prostitutes there at all.