Tallinn (Estonia)

...I knew in advance that Tallinn wasn’t going to be the way it looked as we came in to land, or I might have been depressed. The plane’s flightpath brought us in from the east, flying over the dreary sprawl of apartment blocks that disfigures so many cities scarred by a Soviet past. And quite a few without a Soviet past, of course.

I knew that amid the sprawl I would find an attractive historic centre – a World Heritage Site, no less ...
.../> As a short-break destination, Tallinn today has much to recommend it. The charming old centre is compact enough to be explored in a day on foot – though two or three would be better – while the outlying sights are easily reached by cheap, efficient public transport. Notwithstanding the ugly sprawl seen from the air, the city has its pleasant green spaces and a shoreline too. The locals are friendly, welcoming and keen to practise their remarkably ... more

Fortunately, I knew in advance that Tallinn wasn’t going to be the way it looked as we came in to land, or I might have been depressed. The plane’s flightpath brought us in from the east, flying over the dreary sprawl of apartment blocks that disfigures so many cities scarred by a Soviet past. And quite a few without a Soviet past, of course.

I knew that amid the sprawl I would find an attractive historic centre – a World Heritage Site, no less – with other monuments and places of interest scattered around the outskirts. And so it proved. I also found a clean and prosperous-feeling city, very modern in places, capital of a country, Estonia, that has grown confident in its recently rediscovered independence and is eagerly embracing Western ways. One could almost forget its long periods of past subjugation – sometimes gruesome subjugation – under foreign occupiers. Almost, but not quite. The relics remain and the problems have not all departed with the erstwhile occupiers. Indeed, not all the erstwhile occupiers have departed, which is one of the problems.

As a short-break destination, Tallinn today has much to recommend it. The charming old centre is compact enough to be explored in a day on foot – though two or three would be better – while the outlying sights are easily reached by cheap, efficient public transport. Notwithstanding the ugly sprawl seen from the air, the city has its pleasant green spaces and a shoreline too. The locals are friendly, welcoming and keen to practise their remarkably good English. Prices, though not really cheap, are perhaps a shade lower than in the UK. There are good places to eat and drink, and comfortable places to stay. You can even drink the tap-water, though the beer is tastier. And though it is true that the city has lately been discovered by stag-party-throwers and cruise-line day-visitors, their presence is not so overwhelming as to spoil the experience for everyone else.

* Historic Centre *

There is much that is reminiscent of Krakow about the old town of Tallinn. Like Krakow, it has a mediaeval citadel on a hill at the south-western corner (in Tallinn’s case known as Toompea), with the rest spread out in a north-easterly oblong around a central market square. Both have the remains of ramparts; Tallinn’s are the better preserved – 2km intact out of an original perimeter of 3.6km – but only on their western side do they have surrounding gardens like those that insulate the centre of Krakow from the rest of town. Tallinn, too, is on a smaller scale than its Polish counterpart, less magnificent in its architecture and, despite being a capital city where Krakow is not, more provincial in feel. Not that it’s any the worse for that, since there is still plenty to see, and plenty of history to reflect on while one does so:

~ Toompea, literally “Cathedral Hill”, is best approached by mounting the stone stairway that ascends from the gardens on its north-western side. As you climb, views open up behind you over the city towards the Baltic, while the fine façade of an official building (or so I assume; the Estonian coat of arms adorns its pediment) perched on the ridge above beckons you upwards. Once atop the hill, narrow lanes lead you through to two squares, each with two notable historic buildings, one religious and one secular.

The first square surrounds the Lutheran Cathedral, essentially austere within but decorated with the coats of arms of notable families and some fine carved tombs. In the shadow of the cathedral stands a handsome but dilapidated building that was once the headquarters of the Estonian knighthood – successors to the Knights of the Teutonic Orders who swept up the Baltic coast in the 13th century, spreading Christianity with their swords and establishing themselves as feudal masters in the process. Their mastery was interspersed with dominance by Denmark, later superseded in turn by conquerors from Sweden and finally Russia in the early 18th century.

The later periods are evident as soon as you reach second square, known as Lossi Plats. Again the centre piece is a Cathedral, in this case an ornate onion-topped Russian Orthodox one; although built in traditional style it was not in fact completed until 1900, part of a Tsarist drive to make the Baltic possessions more Russian in character, a repetitive theme in recent centuries in this part of the world. Facing it is Toompea Castle, where the Estonian Parliament now meets. At first glance, this looks more of a chateau in the French style than a castle, with an elegant neo-classical frontage picked out in pink and white. At its rear and to one side, however, it is revealed as a hybrid edifice as it merges into the remnants of the original Danish citadel that stood here in the middle ages, and which gave the city its name; the word Tallinn derives from the Estonian for “Danish fort”.

For most of its history, though, the city was not known as Tallinn at all, but as Reval, a Germanic name bestowed on it during the rule of the Teutonic knights. In their wake they brought German merchants and tradesmen who, being regarded as inferiors by the knighthood, were excluded from Toompea. Instead, the newcomers set up shop and home between the hill and the harbour, and, as they grew prosperous with the city’s affiliation to the Hanseatic League, built their own protective walls around the resultant lower town.

~ Lower Town.

Zig-zagging down from Toompea through the mediaeval gatehouse at Pikk Jalg, you are quickly disoriented in the cobbled alleys below. No matter. Given half a chance and maybe a turning or two, most of them seem to lead soon enough to Raekoja Plats, the central square. One end of the square is dominated by the Town Hall, a heavy Gothic structure attractively – if a little incongruously – topped by a spindly minaret-like tower. On the outside of the Town Hall are hung irons for the shackling of convicts, the local equivalent of stocks, used in mediaeval times before crueller punishments superseded them in later eras.

The rest of the square is rimmed by cafés and restaurants, which (in summer at least) spill out onto the cobbles, lending the square a festive atmosphere, even more so when the middle is filled with market stalls. Above the cafés, the buildings are mostly flat-fronted and high-roofed in a distinctly Nordic style, as many others are all around the lower town.

Exploring the surrounding streets, one finds many examples of merchants’ houses from the city’s Hanseatic heyday, when it was the nexus of trade between Muscovy and the Baltic. Typically, these have only a narrow frontage, since taxes were paid by the width of pavement occupied, but are of four or five storeys, high for the times. The upper floors would be used for storage, and it is common to see one wide window under the eaves with a timber beam jutting out above it bearing a pulley with which to raise and lower merchandise. Three particularly fine examples, terraced together at the northern end of Pikk (“Long” street), are known as the Three Sisters, and are now joined as a hotel. Another, in Lai (“Broad” street), turns out to be a theatre complex, with performances staged both in its panelled interior rooms and in the courtyard at its rear.

Other worthwhile sights include: a fine 15th century Guild Hall, now housing a museum; numerous towers and gateways of different vintages that punctuate the remaining walls; a circular building, the usage of which you could guess at for a long time without recognising that it was a horse-mill, for times of siege – when the outlying windmills could not be used, sixteen horses were harnessed to walk in continuous circles to power the millstones; and several churches of note. The most notable of all is St Olav’s, with its 124m high spire. According to the guidebooks, you can for a small fee climb up to an observation platform in the spire, but I never managed to be there when it was open. A pity, since the view must be magnificent. The church is held in such high regard locally that there is a city ordinance forbidding the erection of any taller buildings, which accounts for the relatively modest scale of the small cluster of “skyscrapers” that mark the business district just to the east of the old town.

The best thing to do in the old town is simply to wander round. You’ll stumble across most of the main sights anyway, and it’s easy to find quiet backstreets behind the looming stonework of the city walls, where you can hear your own footfalls, observe the jumble of architectural styles and enjoy the wafted scent of lime-trees from the gardens outside. Once away from the crocodiles of sight-seers from the cruise ships that crowd around the central square, old town Tallinn seems curiously empty, as if it were neither lived in nor even worked in by ordinary Estonians. Whilst this adds to the quaintness of the place, it feels artificial, almost disquieting.

* Outside the centre *

When you’ve grown weary of wandering round old buildings in the middle of Tallinn, it’s time to go and wander round some on the outskirts of town. Two places for doing so, easily accessible by bus or tram, particularly spring to mind:

~ Rocca al Mare. Sounds like a sun-bleached Sicilian shore, doesn’t it? Reverse that image; see it in negative. We’re talking here about dark, dank woodland, dotted with sombre wooden buildings, roofed in slats of timber or dense thatch. The Estonian Open Air Museum, to give it its official name, exists to display the past traditions of rural life from each of the country’s four main regions, and has brought together typical old houses, churches, windmills and the like in which to do so. There is even a village inn, selling local refreshments at very reasonable prices. We went round in pouring rain, but still spent several hours and found it fascinating, well worth the 70 kroon per adult (about £3.20, but much cheaper out of season or for families) entrance fee.

~ Kadriorg. Peter the Great’s summer palace set in parkland near the eastern shore is a superb Baroque masterpiece, complemented by elegant gardens in the French style. The Tsar loved Tallinn, but, fortunately or unfortunately, captured it from the Swedes after he had already founded St Petersburg to be his seat of government and “window to the west”; otherwise he might have settled on the Estonian city to be capital of the Russian Empire as well, with incalculable historic consequences. Inside the palace is an extensive collection of 16th-18th century Romantic art. Entrance is 45kr (£2.00), and for another 15kr (70p) you can see inside the cosy little house to the rear of the gardens where Peter stayed while the palace was being built and which is now a museum full of fascinating memorabilia of his stay. Again, well worth it. Also in the area are some attractive 19th century bourgeois houses in traditional wood-fronted style.

Just beyond Kadriorg is the Lauluväljak (Song Bowl) where the annual Estonian singing festival is held. This is a site of great significance locally, since the singing of banned patriotic songs at festivals in the late 1980s acted as a fuse to ignite an explosive latent resistance to Russian communist rule. The “Singing Revolution”, as it is known throughout the Baltic states, included such daring acts of defiance as when over two million people formed a human chain that spanned the 600+ km between Tallinn and Vilnius via Riga while they, needless to say, sang. Although the Red Army was initially sent in as a show of strength, ultimately the collapsing Soviet regime balked at the prospect of a bloodbath and the resultant international ignominy, so independence prevailed.

Further east along the shore is Pirita, Tallinn’s playground for water sports, including yachting and boating facilities used during the 1980 Olympics. Also at Pirita are the Botanical Gardens, and there is a beach, very popular with the locals, which we never reached, maybe just as well since the weather was poor and the Baltic is one of the world’s most polluted seas.

* Restaurants, Cafés and Hotels *

There are plenty of eateries and drinkeries in old town Tallinn, the centre of which becomes quite lively in the evening. For better or worse most seem to be there primarily for the tourists, which may be one of the reasons they are not particularly cheap. All cuisines are represented (just around the central square one quickly notices an Indian restaurant, a pizzeria and an Irish pub).

As usual, we aimed to seek out local fare. Estonian food is not noted for its sophistication – robust roast or stewed meat with plenty of vegetables seems to be staple – and restaurants tend to feel it’s necessary to serve it in a mediaeval setting to make it interesting. Avoiding the Olde Hansa, which is famous, in tour guides at least, for its candlelight, spit-roasts and serving-wenches in period costume, we tried the almost-mirror-image Peppersack opposite. Here we enjoyed quite a tasty meal, but one which, with booze, came in at 720kr for two – about £18 a head. The Kuldu Notsu Kjrts (Golden Piglet Inn), with atmospheric cellar rooms and decent food, but less over-the-top medievalism, cost us 600kr – a bit under £15 a head. The third night we were there we went a little way down Pikk away from the centre and found a cellar restaurant with Mediterranean pretensions called Sisalik; again the food was okay, but this time totalled 830kr, about £20 a head, so going a little off the beaten track proved to be no saving.

My wife prefers to drink wine, and this probably added to the cost, but there were not a lot of noticeably cheaper places around, not in the old town, anyway, all of which, it seemed to me, made eating out in Tallinn pretty pricey by Eastern European standards. In bars and restaurants, local beer tends to cost between 30 and 50 kr a half-litre (equating to £1.50 to £2.50 a pint) and is drinkable enough without being distinguished. The two dominant brands are Saku and a le Coq, both offering a variety of brews. The best of those I tasted was a le Coq’s “English Ale”, which is a mellow, full-bodied lager and quite unlike any ale I would associate with England. The Brew House in Dunkri, just off the main square, has a micro-brewery in its cellar and looks interesting, but alas I never drank there.

Tallinn is well-known for its cafés, and it was pleasant to take a break from sight-seeing over coffee at one or another of these. The one we liked best was out at Kadriorg, with an open-air terrace beside an ornamental lake at the entrance to the park, and exceedingly good cakes. In the centre, the Bonaparte on Pikk is justly famous for French-style patisserie.

There are many places to stay in central Tallinn, from back-packer hostels to the swish and soulless clones of the international hotel chains. We had intended to stay at the Domina City, a traditional-style hotel in the centre, but they seemed to have confused our booking and after some argy-bargy we settled for being upgraded to a suite at a sister hotel, the 4-star Domina Ilmarine, an imaginatively-converted warehouse outside the walls, but conveniently close to the port for a day-trip to Helsinki. The suite was comfortable, the staff were helpful, but the breakfast room inadequate for the purpose and overcrowded with tour parties. Searching on the net, I see you can currently book a double room for £45-£65 a night, depending on season and day of week. At this price, I’d say it was reasonable value.

* Shopping *

In their quest for modernity, the citizens of Tallinn all seem to shop at new purpose-built shopping centres; there were two such visible along the 4km drive in from the airport alone. Perhaps as a result, there is a complete dearth of neighbourhood stores in the old town. Looking for a place to buy a litre of mineral water and a couple of bottles of beer to avoid having to fall back on the mini-bar in the hotel room was a bit of a washout.

There are craft and souvenir shops, of course, including those on the market stalls. Linen goods, amber jewellery and wooden ornaments are the staple fare, and very well-made and attractive some of them are here, as they are throughout the Baltic states. Talking of which, the prices for similar items tend to be cheaper in Latvia and even more so in Lithuania, so if you’re visiting all three, you know where to buy your souvenirs. On the other hand, my wife did find some most unusual and inexpensive knitting yarn.

* Getting Around *

The centre of Talinn is small enough as to allow one to walk around and see most of the main attractions. Outside the old town, though, it is served by plenty of public transport, most notably the trams and buses, which are quite comfortable when not packed with people at rush hour. Tickets can be used for any single journey, and can be bought in booklets of ten at 85kr from shops and kiosks, which works out at just under 40p a ride. If you don’t buy in advance, you can pay 15kr (70p) on board. We found our way to Rocca al Mare and Kadriorg, by bus and tram respectively, without any difficulty. I understand that taxis are also reasonably priced in theory, but in practice taxi-drivers have a bad reputation for tampering with meters and taking unnecessarily scenic routes. We never used them.

* Getting There *

It’s easiest to fly, of course: Estonian Air from Gatwick, Easyjet from Stansted, BA from Heathrow. In a brief scan of the internet, I haven’t managed to find direct flights from UK regional airports; most schedules seem to involve a change. One good way to go might be to fly to Helsinki and catch the hydrofoil across the Gulf of Finland, which is fun, not too expensive (£35 return) and takes less than two hours.

There are apparently long-distance coaches from London, which can be cheap, but I wouldn’t want to be on a coach for that kind of distance. Alternatively, you could drive; probably a very strenuous drive – three days minimum, probably more like four or five. Or if you don't mind the time and expense, you could catch the Eurostar train to Brussels, take the overnight sleeper to Warsaw, and find your way by rail through Latvia and Lithuania, which I have to say I rather fancy doing sometime, though I’m told people in the Baltic republics don’t themselves much use the railways.

* The People *

Asked to describe their national character, Estonians tend to use the word “calm”, and I suppose you’d have to be pretty phlegmatic to bear up under all those long periods of subjugation by outsiders. They are measured and polite when you talk with them, though a sense of humour may be lacking. They also take a pride in being diligent and meticulous in attention to detail, and there is nothing plodding or pedestrian in their calmness, as the country’s rapid modernisation since independence testifies. Business is booming, and Tallinn has one of the world’s highest internet penetrations per household.

Estonians regard themselves as Northern rather than Eastern Europeans, Scandinavians not Slavs, and their closest ethnic and linguistic affinity is with Finland. Highly educated, many of them speak good English and some German. Russian too, of course, though the 60% of Tallinn’s population that is ethnic Estonian much prefers not to do so.

The other 40%? The other 40% is mostly Russian, plus a few Ukrainians and Belorussians, left over from the long period when Estonia was subsumed in the Soviet Union, forming a sub-population that was once privileged but is being increasingly marginalised by the upsurge of Estonian national consciousness and the country’s western orientation now it is a member of both the EU and NATO.

* The Tallinn you don’t see? *

All of which brings me to the question of the Tallinn the tourist doesn’t see, and I can only pose it as a question because being a mere tourist myself I never found the answer. But I sense that all is not as it seems on the surface in this city with its picture-postcard mediaeval past and its much-vaunted high tech future. One thinks of the drab, dreary outskirts over which one flies but which one never quite penetrates once on the ground. One thinks of that 40% of non-Estonians. Those not born in Estonia, and their children, do not automatically qualify for citizenship, and the many of those who do not speak Estonian cannot get jobs of any seniority.

One thinks of recent confrontations with Russia. Only this Spring, the Soviet War Memorial, a bronze statue of a Red Army soldier contemptuously referred by locals as “the unknown rapist”, was removed from central Tallinn to obscurity in the outskirts, provoking a storm of protest from Moscow, and what many believe was a Kremlin-orchestrated cyber-attack on crucial Estonian financial and governmental websites. Estonians remain deeply resentful of the long periods of Russian rule; one we met told us in all seriousness that Nazi occupation during the war – with everything that that entailed – had “not been a problem” by comparison. The Russians are evidently correspondingly prickly, and one can only imagine that this is doubly true of those Russians still living in Estonia.

But a tourist in Tallinn sees very little of the Russian side of things. It is like anti-matter, that undetectable substance of which half the universe is allegedly formed; ever-present but intangible. For all the time-capsuled charm of the old town, the lime trees and the lilac around Kadriorg Park, the bright calm of the seemingly endless summer evenings, I sense that there must be another Tallinn of a very different, much less cheerful and comfortable, character.

© torr 2007

Talking of Krakow, a review of that fine city can be found at:
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Krakow_Poland__Review_5541561/ 

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