Tallinn's Many Talents
I knew I was in a completely different world when I stepped off my bus in Tallinn. The station was modern and clean, and the other passengers seemed to be about as cheerful as anyone can be in a bus station. On my walk to the Old Town where my hotel was located I passed a thriving farmer’s market that was selling loads of strawberries, blueberries, ligonberries, cloudberries, apples, pears, and large quantities of apple cider.
When I reached the Old Town I came upon a thriving flower market, and a generally festive atmosphere. While Vilnius seemed to be putting most of its economic eggs in the corporate multi national basket with tourism being only a sideline, and Riga was scrambling to develop its fledgling tourist industry, the tourist party in Tallinn had been playing out for years.
Tallinn’s massive head start and focus on tourism has produced many benefits and possibly a few drawbacks for anyone who wants to experience the city. It is able to offer a huge menu of cultural activities, both high brow and low, for the traveler to choose from. I probably could have spent a week there and not run out of new things to see and do. The descriptions below represent only a small sampling of the diversions Tallinn offered me. Some of these offerings can be little dodgy, however. Tallinn first became a tourist draw a generation ago when day trippers from Finland (where alcohol was heavily taxed) would take the short ferry ride over to Tallinn to imbibe in cheap booze. After getting wasted in Tallinn they would stumble back or be carried back to the night boat to Helsinki. This still occurs although the dive bars and ancillary strip clubs are well hidden in an otherwise family friendly city. In my mind, Tallinn’s biggest drawback was that it was a little too family friendly in that it projected a Disney-like air of extravagant sweetness. It looked too cute and adorable to be real. I love candy, but even I will get a stomach ache if I gobble down too much all at once. It was also a little troubling to acknowledge that behind the pretty fantasy being presented were people trying their best to separate you from your money. Now that I think of it, there really wasn’t that much difference between the people working in the strip clubs and those serving you the perfect cappuccino and flan in the refurbished basement of an ancient Lutheran church. They were both offering attractive fantasies in exchange for cold hard cash. Not that I am complaining much since the fantasy landscape of Tallinn’s Old Town provided me with a lot of pleasant pictures. 🙂
I found my hotel sitting in the middle of the Old Town. Small, posh and privately owned, it had recently developed some kind of relationship with Marriott. The desk clerk told me that I was the first person staying there that had booked a room through Marriott. The hotel was much nicer than I expected for the money I was spending though I found the hotel’s restaurant to be prohibitively expensive. My luck improved even further when the bellboy opened the door to my room. Inside were a half dozen men and women standing around three opened suitcases on top of a bed. I’m not sure what was going on, but everyone had their clothes on. 🙂 Some other sort of business transaction seemed to be taking place. Whatever it was, the bellboy was unfazed. He quietly closed the door and whispered, “We’ll get you another room”. He led me back to the lobby, asked if I wanted a free glass of wine, and then went to speak to the manager. I could hear hushed conversations in the manager’s office. Eventually the manager came out and apologized for the delay. She said all the regular rooms were booked but she could put me a suite of rooms for the same price. She wondered if I would find that acceptable. I think you can guess my answer. (I still have some of the expensive soaps and shampoos that came with the suite.:-)
After settling in and taking a shower I hit the streets. Tallinn was loaded with art, history, and natural science museums. There really is something for everyone here. My first stop was a natural history museum where they were holding a huge display of Estonia’s mushrooms in several tents crammed into an open courtyard. I’m afraid I got a little carried away photographing mushrooms. I now don’t know what I’m going to do with all these photos, except post two here so you can get an idea of how they were displayed.
After managing to squeeze through the museum’s crowded doorway and make it inside, I found myself being pushed helter skelter by laughing, screaming, crying, coughing, sniffling children and their harried parents. I took only a single picture ( of a stuffed polar bear) before making a speedy escape. I thought, “OK no more family friendly locations”. I had read that Tallinn possessed a bar located in an underground bomb shelter. Well, that sounded interesting. So I went looking for it. When I found it, it was raining outside. and I noticed rain water running in under the door when I went in. The floor was wet and muddy. The shelter/bar was tiny, tiny, tiny. Tourists sat on benches that hung from the walls because there was not enough room for any tables. The bar itself was about 4 feet high and 3 feet wide. A girl in her 20’s stood behind it while reaching into a cooler to retrieve cans of beer which she would hand to anyone who wished to linger and purchase one. The tourists sitting along the walls looked confused and uncomfortable. No thanks! I spun on my heels and immediately retreated. The rain outside looked much more fun and cheerful.
I then bought that hat I realized I needed when I was in Lithuania. The tag said it was made in Estonia, so I paid more than I would for a similar beanie in the United States. Which proves we tourists are able to rationalize almost any decision when we are in a foreign country.
What to do next? I like art, because art often entertains when all else fails. So I set off for the Kumu Art Museum out towards the edge of the city. It was a bit of a hike, but after Lithuania, I knew I could do it, and felt I had nothing to lose.
The trip there was almost as interesting as the Museum itself. On the way I passed the Kadriorg Palace and its gardens.
When I later passed a small amusement park, I took several pictures of the colorful and unreliable looking rides.
Finally I arrived at the museum.
Estonia has been traditionally identified as the Baltic country most interested in the visual arts and their creation. Before the second world war many artists like the old Lithuanian man who sold me the amber, traveled from the other Baltic countries to study art in Estonian art schools. Estonia was and still is well known for producing great folk art and cutting edge modern art. You may wonder how Estonia has been able to succeed in generating both the oldest art forms and the newest. The differences are smaller than you may think. Picasso, Marc Chagall, and other modern artists borrowed much from primitive art when creating their work. Both folk art and modern art stress bright colors, and striking juxtapositions of forms and geometric patterns rather than realistic depictions of the everyday or elite worlds. I was looking forward to viewing such energetic, in your face art at the Kumu Art Museum. I was not disappointed.
The museum itself was a work of modern art. It consisted of a number of blocks perched on each other with ramps running from one floor to another.
The museum does not limit itself to modern art, however. It also displays a lot of representational art though it often presents it in novel and experimental ways . The Kumu Museum also displays Soviet era paintings and posters, not because depictions of unrealistically fit men and women shoveling grain into bins makes for great art, but because it was part of Estonia’s art history whether they like it or not. (And some WERE very colorful).
After a couple of hours I became hungry and sought out the museum’s cafeteria for something to eat, but the museum was busy and there were no free tables, so I left and headed back toward downtown Tallinn looking for a place to eat. Those of you who have been reading this blog know that I like eating in museum cafeterias. I was disappointed for not being able to eat in this one, but as is often the case, what first seems to be bad luck turns into good. I stopped at a nice looking Italian restaurant next to a large park and ate the best, most authentic Italian food I encountered anywhere on this trip. The ravioli was hand made. The tomato sauce simple but perfect, and the greens fresh and tasty. The meal rivaled even some I’ve eaten in high end Italian restaurants in the States. This quality shouldn’t be too surprising since Estonia has been hosting large numbers of tourists for at least a generation, and has developed restaurants for almost every taste. While there I saw Mexican, German, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, French, and American steak house restaurants. No matter how picky an eater you may be, you won’t go hungry in Tallinn.
I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting a photographic museum in Tallinn’s Old Town and taking pictures of some of the Old Town’s street art.
I got back to my hotel about dinner time where the hotel offered me a complimentary glass of champagne. I think they would have liked me to have dinner in their expensive restaurant, but I was tired and still full of delicious ravioli. I took a shower and fell asleep a few minutes after my head hit my pillow.
I awoke early the next morning feeling great, (Italian food often has that affect on me). A light mist hung over the city, but didn’t dispirit me. In fact a soft joy flowed through me instead as I navigated the empty streets on my way to the boat to Helsinki. As I crossed the wide road that separated the dock area from the rest of the town I looked back over my shoulder and decided that Tallinn was one city whose talents I wanted to experience again. If I could.
