Tallinn visit
Tallinn visit summer 2019
(NB If you are new to blogspot you can
view the photographs on their own simply by clicking on the first one
once) Copyright@L D Breitholtz. All rights reserved.
Our family association arranged a visit
to Tallinn 10 years ago but we did not go that time. This year
however we have decided to go. So we dropped the car off at the long
term car park, caught the shuttle bus to the terminal and soon Air
Baltic flew us across the Baltic. We flew in a de Havilland C400
which is a turbo prop aircraft for 76 people ( as per
spec) Being overhead winged it gives you uninterrupted view when taking off and landing. It was less than half full so we had a relaxing 50min crossing.
As per schedule it should have been 65 minutes so maybe the pilot was
in a hurry to watch a thriller on his 52” TV at home?
For us it was somewhat more than
exploring a new city as our family has connections with Tallinn since
the 14th century, or Reval as it was then named. Our
predecessors were merchants that came over from Gotland, Sweden and
were involved with the Hanseatic trading movement. Some of them ended
up in various senior public positions. When Sweden was asked to
'rule' the country they had roles to play. So as part of our
exploring we were looking for traces of the family.
We caught a taxi to the hotel. Our
driver was not talkative but it is only a 10 minutes drive. Perhaps
even shorter as he could only do fast acceleration (a big Mercedes
300) and impatient stop at red lights. The hotel turned out to be
very central and the room excellent with a balcony and a good view as
it was on the top floor (6th). We arrived quite late so we
did not venture out.
Our hotel was on the Narva road which
they say stretches all the way to St Petersburg. We had about half a
kilometre walk to the famous Old Town where we spent a lot of time.
Breakfast was fine. It also showed that
the hotel had quite a few visitors. So you turn left out of the
hotel, go down the 20 meters to Narva road and then right and it will
take you to the Old Town. Narva road is a mixture of newish
buildings, mainly on the right!!, well as you walking westwards, and
old and older ones, obviously on the left. However just as you reach
the main junction before Old Town you have, on the left!!, the
massive Viru hotel built 1972 looking quite modern. So you can't
generalise. One feature that architects have used to 'modernise' old
buildings (successfully so I think) is to put a new face to them
.e.g. adding sheets of glass in front of the old facade. They might
be fully modernised inside of course. Must be more economical than
tearing down and building new.
Welcome in any language
General street scene
Older style tram
The streets are full of cars, quite a
few the very newest. The city also uses trams, some of the older
variety and some of the very latest design. Buses are often of the
stretched variety i.e. with a rubber middle to enable it turning
corners. Do you follow? Pavement scooters, or rather scooters on the
pavement are quite common, mainly the electric kind. I don't know if
it is allowed but we often so two people on one scooter. I did not
work out if all scooters are for hire or not.
At the entrance to the Old Town is a
street market selling clothing mainly but also some tourist ware. We
proceeded towards the main square but soon turned right in to Vene
street. We were looking for number 17 which nowadays is the City
museum.
Vene 17 i.e. the City museum and typical merchant's house
The guide we spoke to first remembered my ancestors, no, I
mean he knew about them. Their name at that time was spelt slightly
differently. We did spot two of them on an old document. According
to my brother's research one ancestor bought the building 1470 and
for two further generations they used it. The building is typical for
a Hanseatic merchant with living quarter on the first floors and the
top floor used for storing the goods, hoisted up. So quite apart from
any family connection it is an interesting museum to visit.
Almost directly opposite is an
interesting white wall with a open gate into a courtyard with a big
building. It turns out it is The St Peter and St Paul catholic
cathedral, but Catholicism is not a major religion in Estonia.
Next we set off towards the main square
in the Old Town, the Town Hall Square.
The Town hall and square
Town hall gargoyle
Crowded up the hill
Today is was market day so the
square was full of stalls and packed with people. The outdoor
restaurants were filling up as well but they did not tempt us just
then so we headed for Pikk 26 (The long street) looking for the House
of Blackheads.
The Blackheads entrance (formerly)
The Blackheads were a Brotherhood for Tallinn's
bachelor merchants. Once they married they joined the Guild. As early
as 1424 some of our family were members. The building, next to the
Swedish embassy as it happens, is nowadays in different hands but its
interesting facade is still popular with photographers.
Street scene in the Old town
So having achieved much already on the
first day it was time for lunch but an art gallery caught our
attention so we explored it before going in search of a restaurant.
Obviously easily distracted I stopped next by a cellar restaurant with good music coming out.
The Town Hall square restaurants were packed but we found one a block away, where, unsurprisingly, the prices were a bit lower.
Obviously easily distracted I stopped next by a cellar restaurant with good music coming out.
The Town Hall square restaurants were packed but we found one a block away, where, unsurprisingly, the prices were a bit lower.
The young woman serving spoke very good
English, telling us that she had taken extra lessons to improve her
spoken English. Lunch over we walked back to the hotel to refresh
before the evening.
We started the evening sejour by
walking to the harbour. Sitting on a bench looking out on the leisure
boats a seagull joined us, but he did not talk much.
Our not talkative friend
What happened to Plan A?
Further along we
could see a few cruise ships. Walking back to the Old Town we passed
the memorial for the shipping disaster September 1994 when MS Estonia
sank and 852 lives were lost.. We also passed a stadium sized hole in
the ground where obviously a new building complex was shooting up.
We picked a small restaurant at the
northern end of Uus street that had an interesting menu. Again we
were lucky and the food and service were good.
Tourist's still life
Taking the long way
back to the hotel we crossed the Town hall square and shortly after
that I stepped into a restaurant offering medivial atmosphere and
entertainment to book a table. No sign of the staff but it was packed
with Chinese tourists who obviously thought I was the entertainment!
Yes, I disappeared quickly.
Further down the street we came across
a Japanese musician using an ancient Japanese string instrument. I
liked the music so we donated and talked to him. After Tallinn he was
going to Riga in two days time followed by Vilnius and then a hopp to
Budapest. He gave us his Facebook account so we could post our video
of him.
Don't you dare. I am keeping this car safe, so there!
Norse runes or what? Answer at end of this posting.
Day 2 we decided to take a city bus
sightseeing tour. After a few failed attempts - wrong bus, next
stop, this is the red line - we sat back upstairs in the open decked
green line bus, the weather was very good, and we put the headphones
on. It was a hard choice which of the 12 languages to listen to!
Initially we rode along our own Narva street, the guide giving us
plenty of information about the area. We headed east. The first stop
was Kardriorg park, where like other stops people could get off or
rejoin.
Wait for me!
We decided to do the full tour first to get a good overview
of the city and then possibly go again and get off at e.g. Kardriorg
park. So we saw a few residential areas, the forest cementary, the TV
tower and after going back toward the centre, the Russalka monument,
the convent ruin, the long beach, the harbour, the Estonia memorial and
the fat Margareta before reaching the end station.
Russalka monument. Photographed from the bus.
Russalka monument remembering a Russian
warship that sank 1893 with all hands. The fat Margareta is a low
very wide tower part of the old town wall.
We were going to lunch at Uus street
again but stumbled upon a promising looking Indian restaurant that
turned out to be excellent. Next we rejoined the City tour bus and
got off at Kardiog park. It is a beautiful park with wide walkways,
lots of flowers, bushes and trees plus a small lake with fountain.
There is also the Tsar's palace, and art gallery plus the KUMA which
also is an art gallery in a tall and very modern building.
Inside KUMA
KUMA is the tall modern building
We
explored the three major floors presenting local artists over the
decennia. It great to see painting styles similar but still different
from main western European art. They also showed art produced during
the occupations which at the time were kept very private but now can
be publically displayed.
A walk in the park
Having a rest
Rejoining the City bus but a different
colour/line we saw some of what we already had seen but also new
areas, particularly in the north west of the city skirting the
Kalemaja district with it residential blocks in wood. It is becoming
the bohemian part of Tallinn.
Modern buildings so it is not all Old town
Supperwise, it was now fairly late so
we decided to give TarTar a chance partly because it looked very good
in a balanced modern way and partly because it was less than 5
minutes from the hotel. It proved a very good choice. Excellent food
and drink, good and pleasant service in a stylish surrounding. Only
when we wanted to order sweets did we discover that they closed 10pm
Thursday evenings.. But they took our order anyway and there was no
chasing us out!
Lovely resting place
Day three. Breakfast as usual. Two days
ago we met an American woman at breakfast who had lots of Estonian
relatives and friends in and around Tallinn. She came to Tallinn
nearly every year and always stayed in this hotel. The day before she
showed us that she had 'acquired' a rash. Fi suggested it might be
shingles. But no, she had taken an injection for that. This morning
she told us her doctors had confirmed Fi's diagnose. But she was
cheerful enough anyway and was going to carry on her visiting
programme anyway.
Our programme this morning started with
a visit to the Museum of Occupations. We decided to walk there which
must have been a good 25 minutes walk. On the way we bought four
postcards and stamps. As I was paying, 2 euros per stamp, Fi spotted
that the stamp was marked 1.5 euros, but the women insisted she had
charged the correct amount, and I accepted. Later on in the day we
established that she, and I, were wrong! So she fooled us of 2 euros.
Well you learn. Don't you?
The museum is a very worthwhile visit.
It tells the story of the people of Estonia's suffering during the
two Sovjet occupations and the German as well. It is very well laid
out and takes you through individuals stories and it does not hold
back on the atrocities they endured. It is almost inconceivable that
people can do that to each other. As the WW2 came to an end and
people realised that the Sovjets were coming back many people tried
to flee the country, many managed but many more remained. And in 1949
thousands of Estonian were deported to Siberia and Russian were,
often forcibly, moved into Estonia, to Objectify the country. The
effect of that still plays a part in today's politics in Estonia.
Propaganda poster
Next we walked up the hill to see the
Kiek-in-de-Kök
tower and the Alexander Nevsky cathedral before decending to visit
the Niguliste church/St Nicholai church, now a museum.
Kiek-in-de-Kök is
part of the town wall , built 1475. The name simply means that the
guards could spy on goings on in neighbouring houses kitchens. The
tower is actually slightly wider in it upper part, In modern times is
had various uses. E.g. athletes used it as a gym. A wrestler who was
using the tower and who won two gold medals in the Berlin Olympics
1936 was deported to Siberia by the Sovjets. Probably never to be
seen again.
Part of the City wall
Alexander Nevsky catherdral
We did not enter the Nevsky Cathedral
which is very impressive on the outside and heavily inspired by
Russian orthodox church style. On the way down the hill we met our
Japanese musician again just packing up, off to the next session
before moving on to Riga.
Memorial of the Danish 'win' at a battle 1219 to capture Estonia. The Danish king had a vision of the flag which helped them to victory. It has been the Danish flag since.
The Niguliste church was of special
interest as many ancestors are buried there. We checked many of the
grave stones in the floor but did not see any link to the family.
Mind you they were very difficult to decipher. The church, now a
museum, is very big and interesting inside. E.g. there is a 7.5m long
painting depicting Dance Macabre. Painted by Bernt Notke in early
15th century it was orginally 30 metres long but damaged
in the WW2..
One of many tombstones in Nigulista. This one making a point of Death and the meaninglessness of things
Neguliste museum and, in front, a monument for a leading Estonia
n author
Roof repairs four floors up!
There was also a large display of
crystal ware, a large part of which were donated by the Blackheads.
In particular we were looking for a painting, a group portrait of the
Blackheads from 1535. We could not find it but one of the staff, who
also spoke Swedish, found out that it was indeed in the church.
However I could not see it so I took lots of photographs hoping that
my researching brother would spot it. You never know!
Time to eat - again! We were near
our first lunch restaurant so that is where we went and the same
young women met us. We ordered and sat back waiting. A Finnish (as we
learnt) couple sat at the next table and we started to talk. They had
already been waiting 15 minutes for their meal as our meal arrived
making us embarrassed but luckily theirs appeared seconds later,
before we could offer them ours! They were retired but he was a
member of a choir so they had been to Estonia and other countries
many times. She has a friend from school exchange days and they still
kept in touch, who lives in Haltwhistle. Small world.
Going back to the hotel for a short
rest, we came across a horse and cart for hire taking you through
town so as we were celebrating we hopped on and the coach,she, took
us through parts of both old and new town.
An eagle showing off bubble gum skills?
Coach and horse
Cars and other vehicles
had to slow down behind us. In parts it was quite bouncy as most Old
Town roads are cobble stoned. After some shopping we had a rest and
then an evening meal back at the TarTar again. Very satisfying.
Walking back to the hotel we always passed a restaurant which never seemed to have any customers. This Friday evening I was proved wrong. It was packed and pre-pop music filled the air and you could see people dancing, actually holding each other!
TarTar interior
The return flight was at 7am so a taxi
collected us 5.30am for the 10 minutes drive. Like our first taxi he
could only do full speed, but it was safe. We, or rather I, ordered
a coffee and sandwich for breakfast at the first cafe in the
departure lounge. I should have stopped it (although the food was
OK) as the waitress could not have been less interested preferring to
talk/joke with her colleague. She had not even picked up that I had
ordered coffee. Once back at Stockholm airport finding the right
shuttle stop was a bit tricky but the car was OK, so we just set off
to the next destination.
NB Answer: Norse runes or what?? Our hotel corridor carpet pattern!!
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