Tallinn, Estonia

The second main destination for my trip was Tallinn in Estonia.  For this part of the stay I got myself a Tallinn card.  This gave me access to almost all the museums in Tallinn that you would want to visit, alongside free travel on the public transport, for €45 for three days.  This was a lot better deal than the equivalent card in Riga would have been which had a very limited selection of museums etc (I think I only went to one that was on the card of all the ones that I visited) and only one day of public transport on a three day card!  However, it appears to be little known – people seemed surprised to see someone with a Tallinn card in some of the places I visited – this possibly could have been disappointment as they had to fight with an app on a phone to validate it each time!  However, all worked well, including on the trams and busses I was able to take with it.

Having this card meant that I did visit a large number of museums – even more so than normal!

I started with the collection of art museums in the Kadriorg Park area.  The star attraction is Kumu, the main site of the Art Museum of Estonia.  This is a modern gallery opened just over 10 years ago which houses a collection of more modern art and temporary exhibitions.  It probably was the biggest collection that I have seen on the trip and had some interesting pieces from the time of the Soviet occupation.

Also in the park were the Mikkell Museum, a former collection of a private collector, and the Kadorig Art Museum, which is situated in a baroque palace erected in the 18^th century by Peter the Great.  Now, Peter the Great never got to stay in the palace, but the house in which he did stay when he was in Tallinn is also in the park and is also open to visitors (as it has been for hundreds of years!).  Also in the park is the house of the current President of Estonia.  Unlike other such buildings around the world you can get very close to it (it is not fenced off) with the guard right outside the front door.  As I was there I got to see the changing of the guard – possibly not as impressive as at Buckingham Palace but interesting nevertheless, particularly when they have a spare soldier come with them to adjust their uniform when they are in place!

Back in Tallinn I visited the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design.  This had a lot of examples of glassware, book binding, furniture etc packed into a unique display concept.  In a square room they had a square case in the middle which you could walk round both the outside and the inside of, and also round the top to see the rugs etc hung on the wall.  However, as there were low archways in the room the raised walkway had steps down built into it to enable you to get under it.  At my height I was quite cynical about it but it genuinely did work – even for me!  Other art museums visited included the Adamson Eric museum, the Tallinn Art Hall, The Architecture Museum and the Photography Museum.

From a history perspective I visited the Estonian History Museum which is located in the Great Guild Hall.  This was a key building for the guilds in Tallinn historically, and is as interesting as the museum itself.  The museum showed how it had evolved over the years, and how the focus had changed to more Estonian culture after their independence from the USSR.  Other museums visited included the Tallinn City Museum, which told how the city had developed, the Russian museum and the music and theatre museum.  Whilst the museum of the occupation was closed for renovation, there was a free museum which told the story of the people’s front and the development of the independence movement from the USSR.  This included the “Baltic Way” when a human chain was formed across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany at the start of World War 2 which divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet “spheres of influence”.  Pictures and the song composed for it here. 

I also went to the Energy Discovery Centre, a sort of hands on science museum in an old generating station.  This was quite eerie to visit as for a lot of the time I was the only person in it!

The centre of Tallinn is quite historic, with much of the historic town walls and battlements still in place.  This meant that you could get some interesting perspectives, with two separate locations where you could walk on the town walls (and go up the towers that were part of it).  You could also get a tour of the Bastion passages – underground tunnels that were originally part of the defensive fortifications but were later used for air raid shelters and other uses.   At the end of the tunnels was a museum of carved stone.  Two of the largest towers that were part of the defences had their own museums in it – the Kiek in de Kok told the history of the city’s defences and the “Fat Margaret” tower had a maritime museum in it from which you also got access to the roof and the views below.

As ever there were a number of Churches to see, some like St Nicholas’ which had been turned into a museum, the Dome Church, which had a collection of crests and the Holy Spirit Church.  The most impressive was probably the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which has the look of a typical Russian Cathedral.

One of the things you have to be careful of with a three day card is which attractions are open which day.  This is particularly true for me as one of the days I had the card was a Monday, when the majority of the attractions are closed.  However, there are some open, and so I took a trip a little bit away from the centre to the TV Tower, a Soviet construction which should have views out over Tallinn and beyond.  I say “should”, as the day I went there was another rainy day and the viewing platform at the top was lost in the clouds.  This meant that at times you could see nothing, with occasional glimpses as the clouds parted.  Whilst you didn’t get the views it is just atmospheric being up there in such weather, and there were a number of interesting displays inside, particularly promoting the technology of Estonia (did you know the founders of Skype were from Estonia?).  One quirk that I haven’t seen at such towers before was that they limited your visit to one hour – I don’t know how they would check but it might have caused me some challenges were I going there to watch the sunset as I have at many such towers around the world.  As it was the sun was purely a theoretical concept!

Near the TV tower are the Botanic Gardens.  With the time of year the gardens had mainly gone over so there wasn’t that much to see, which is just as well given the rain.  Down the road was the ruins of the Pirita convent which was an interesting and dramatic sight to see.

Overall, Tallinn was a very impressive place to visit.  It is not “cheap” as might be expected of Eastern Europe (particularly compared to say Prague or Warsaw) but it is certainly reasonable compared to Scandinavia!  The city itself is nice to walk around, with the oldest part of the town on top of the hill but still lots of old buildings and cobbled streets further down within the old city walls leading down to the port.  Like Riga it was far less “Russian” than I might have expected in terms of architecture but Tallinn had probably more historic buildings and different influences.  Well worth visiting – despite the weather!