Tallinn (Estonia)

A train of thought clattered through my head and came to a halt at anxiety station. It was seven o'clock on Sunday evening. I was on the dockside in a very foreign country. A very bleak, foreign country. All I could see was crumbling Soviet architecture looming in the approaching dusk. I had no local currency and the guide book said "booking ahead is advisable". Oh dear.

>>
Here, is a further instalment of my vacation-related escapades, the "Scruffy Shoe Diaries". Think of me as David Duchovny if it’ll help you relax (for those of you who have never seen late night tv on Channel 5, you probably just want to ignore this last sentence).

This opinion is adapted from diary entries I made while in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, in September 2000. It follows on from the Helsinki opinion as it was part of the same trip. I thought I’d revise them in chronological order to provide some continuity. Originally written in August 2001 and updated April 2002 with some added facts and rewrites for extra readability.
>>

FIND
Tallinn is a port on the Baltic sea. Consequently, you can get there quickly, easily and cheaply by boat. The quickest, easiest and cheapest route is from Helsinki, where for the foreign equivalent of a tenner you can take the hour and a half catamaran trip, a mere 53 miles, with a bunch of Finns intent on p*ssing it up on the cheap. (Finnish booze, although probably the least expensive in Scandinavia, is still pricey. Estonian is not).

Thankfully, a short stroll away from the depressing looking harbour where I was deposited along with my long-suffering travel companion Adrian, was old town Tallinn. It was a varied collection of winding cobbled streets, and northern European buildings dating from the 15th through to the 19th (and of course 20th) centuries, all sited fairly randomly with no real discernible purpose or plan. Ade, who is a town planner, was in paroxysms - he was loving it. I think it appealed to the nihilist in him. "Nice" I thought. "I hope we can find somewhere to stay".

STAY
We found the main square, Raekoja Plats, dominated by the impressive gothic town hall (the only surviving gothic town hall in northern Europe, apparently) and so had an instant frame of reference. For ideas about accommodation we had to consult the black book (my pet term for the Lonely Planet Guide – due to the fact that in the wrong hands it is evil) and the guide book that Ade brought as well, the "Rough Guide to Everywhere", I think it was called. It had about one paragraph on Estonia.

As I was reluctant to trust the black book, we instead took the recommendation of the Rough Guide which was mentioned a guest house: "a few yards from the square, on the third storey, above an excellent restaurant". This place turned out to be Hotel Eeslitall on Dunkri. We knocked, we spoke in broken English, we asked the lady who answered if there was a room available. She looked at us as if we were morons, or at least not the sort of folks who stay in her guest house. Scruffy oiks.

Beating a hasty retreat from the mad lady our second and successful choice was the Hostel above the strip joint (now you're talking!), just round the back of the square, on Vaike-Karja. It wasn't as seedy as it sounded. In the old town, nothing was as seedy as it sounded.

EAT, Part I
Sunday evening found a most acceptable Italian restaurant called "Contravento" down a medieval looking alleyway off a quiet cobbled street, Vene. I wasn't feeling v. hungry so I had "Pizza Lazio" - I think the menu was mainly Roman cuisine. Ade wasn't hungry either, so he only had a TWO course meal.

Afterwards we went to soak up a few local beers (the name of the brew escapes me for now). It was sort of lagery. Apparently the hotspot in the old town is an Irish pub right in the town hall square, Molly Malone’s, (for crying out loud) owned by a Scotsman. It was full of foreigners.

After a reasonable night's sleep in the stark but mercifully clean "Vana Tom" hostel (Translates as Old Tom) we kicked off our first full day. The morning was warm and bright and perfect for showing off this chocolate box town at its eclectic best. The narrow cobbled streets were lined with an uneven collection buildings of different style and period, many of which had been renovated, or were in the process of being tarted up.

INVESTIGATE
The old town divides into to sections. There’s the Lower Town which can be entered through the Great Coast Gate, past the four metre thick city walls and along streets lined with medieval housing and there’s Toompea where Estonia’s governing body meets in the pink Classical-style parliament building. Nice.

The overall impression was generally very pleasing, although I couldn't help but feel as if it was more of a little enclave preserved expressly for the purpose of tourists and 12 year olds studying national history, rather than a functioning section of the town. We spent a good few hours milling round the old town, bumping into a guided tour every so often as well as encountering some low key tat sales from a couple of Russian women who's main sales tactic consisted of thrusting their breasts in our direction and calling out in thick accented English "Hello Boys". They'd seen better days!

In the afternoon, with the temperature getting up to around 30C we ventured out of the cloistered protection of Tallinn old town and out into the metropolis proper. Here we observed what might be described as "contrast". The old town just opens out onto a congested main street that you'd find in any city pretty much anywhere, with department stores and hotels and office blocks and the like. Beyond that, a few blocks over was more interesting. This is where the residential areas began, and the spectre of Soviet planning was plain.

DECAY
It was a monument to concrete. Now I’m told that concrete, when used creatively, can be made to look attractive. I'd never have believed it, until I saw it. However, this was old school concrete, not the funky modern stuff. In short, it was shite. And covered in graffiti. I guess in a totalitarian state with "robust" law and order, such as the former Soviet Union, you can prevent the proletarian scumbags from "re-decorating" their places of abode however they want. Now, post-liberation so to speak, it just looked like any inner city housing project, only extra sinister cos it was ex-Soviet. Cool.

Conveniently, we stumbled upon the bus depot while drinking in the genuine Eastern-bloc urban decay. Checked out the timetable for buses to Riga in Latvia, our next stop, which appeared to be fairly regular. Eurolines seemed to do several trips a day so we booked on to one leaving around midday and forked over the foreign equivalent of a tenner. Ade got a discount for being a student (Ha! The oldest student in town).

EAT, Part II
Well, finding a restaurant to match the Italian took some doing but we managed. Called Vanama Jaares, or something along those lines (meaning Grandma's Place), it promised a traditional Estonian nosh up. I read about it in one of the local guides (it might have been Tallinn in Your Pocket or the regional English language paper, the Baltic Times, can't remember which); we turned up and the place was packed (it was just a small basement affair with room for around 35 or so) mainly occupied by a large table of Scandinavian academics getting roaring drunk and insulting each other's homelands.

We had to wait for a table, so me and Ade went to a bar round the corner to absorb a large "le Coq" beer (named after the Tallinn-based brewer, an Englishman who had a French name and nothing special, flavour-wise). On our return the table was set with a "Reserved" tag (I love that) and we got the VIP treatment from the waitress. Soup was good and the main course consisted of a large slab of meat with a variety of pickled stuff (as you might expect): onions, gherkins, cabbage. I think there were spuds too. The mustard sauce I had with my pork was a bit rich and sweet but you couldn't fault them for effort. The wine list was pretty reasonable, even some local stuff on it, I think we had a cheeky red number. The final pleasure was the bill which was ludicrously cheap, given the amount we’d just noshed through.

Tallinn was great but the day after we had to bid adieu, but not before booking another night at the hostel for our return trip. That, boys and girls, is another story altogether.

THE LAST WORD
I liked Tallinn it has a lot going for it. There’s the drop dead gorgeous old town, with all the bars, cafes and restaurants you could shake a stick at; plenty of history, architecture, art and all that good stuff to keep you occupied for a couple of days.

There are guest houses and hostels in the old town as the tourist infrastructure is well and truly in place. These seem to be reasonably priced, on a par with, say, Prague. Ditto the cost of most other things (i.e. food and booze), you can eat and drink well for not a lot of money.

It’s easy to get in and out of Estonia, by boat to/from Finland and bus to/from the rest of the Baltic Region, including Russia (St. Petersburg and Kalliningrad) and also Germany, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. Train travel is also possible, but is the least attractive option (it pains me to say).

Now that Helsinki has been recognised as one of the places for a city break (it was in the Observer so it must be true!) tourism to Scandinavia is becoming more popular, meaning that, like as not, this region will be appearing in more and more travel itineraries. So if you fancy a European city break that’s a bit off the beaten track I can heartily recommend Tallinn - but get there quick, before everyone else does!

Official Tallinn Website: http://www.tallinn.ee/english/index.html
The Tallinn Ecotourism Website: http://www.ee/ecotourism/tallinn.html
Estonia In Your Pocket: http://www.inyourpocket.com/Estonia/inde​x.shtml

Paicey’s Photos of Tallinn: http://www.geocities.com/paiceyjohn/Tall​inn.html

© Paiceyjohn 2001, 2002