Though it is one of the three Baltic States (they’re along the Baltic Sea, if you didn’t catch that connection), Estonia is actually more like Finland in language and culture. It is one of the greenest countries in Europe, with forests over 50% of the land. It is also known as a tech and start-up hub – companies like Skype and Bolt started here.
Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, and is on the northern coast – Helsinki is JUST a two hour boat ride away, and if I had an extra day I would have made the trip. As it is though, the trip is pretty compact.
Hello is Tere, Thank you is Aitäh, Please is Palun, and English is very common. Their base alphabet has 27 letters, though there are an additional 5 letters they are willing to use for foreign names – for instance, they don’t have the letter “C” in their base alphabet. The language is a part of the Uralic group, which basically includes Estonia, Finland and Hungary. I know from a previous adventure in Hungary that this language is beyond my (very rudimentary) language skills. I’m told Finnish and Estonians can understand about 70% of what the other says, but no one can understand Hungarians.
Travel went ok – though I had to run, I made my connection through Copenhagen thankfully. Estonia is 8 hours ahead; my flight got in at 15:15, which is the equivalent of 7:15 am, with only a few catnaps overnight on the plane. I wanted to go to bed but that would have been a terrible idea – so instead, I checked into my hotel, and then walked through an area of the city called Old Town. This area is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is definitely a bit medieval feeling.
Old Town is actually split into two areas – lower town, where the business people lived, and upper town, where the queens and things lived.
Viru Gate. This had been the main entrance of the fortified city.
The old walls are made of limestone, which is prevalent in this area. In some places they’re incredibly thick – but also built slightly crooked, and at risk of collapsing. They’ve installed different kinds of braces to try and hold them up.
against each other basically
St. Olaf’s Church This was once the tallest building IN THE WORLD (the equivalent of about 40 stories). It’s a bit shorter now (about 30 stories). Though no longer the tallest building in the world, it is still the tallest church in Estonia, at least. The earliest mention of the church was in 1267. The legend of the church is that it was cursed, and anyone who finished the construction would die. Understandably, this meant no one local would work on it. A stranger showed up and said he’d do it for a lot of $$$ (which they didn’t have) – OR, as a challenge, he’d waive his fee if they could guess his name. Someone overheard his wife use his name (they were stopping under the window of their home, which is a bit creepy) – and so, as he was putting up the final piece, the townspeople gathered below and shouted in unison “Olev, the cross is crooked.” The shouting startled him, and he fell. When he hit the ground, snakes and toads crawled out of his mouth, which obviously implies he was possesses by evil spirits. The town got their church, but I’m actually unsure if a church built by a demon is a good thing?
It was raining pretty heavily when I walked by it, so I didn’t get a photo of it. But don’t panic, I did get photos of other churches.
This one is interesting – you can see the old part on the right of the photo, and then the rebuilt part is a lighter colored stone, on the left. Russians bombed it.
Russia is complicated here. In general, it is unpopular – they know the risk of Ukraine falling. And the Estonians have spent a LOT of time under other people’s rule. First they were invaded by the Vikings – the Danish invaders are actually the ones that built the old town. Then they were sort of invaded by the people of what is now called Germany, but the Germans and the Danish agreed to let the Danes keep it for a fee. No one paid a fee to the Estonians. Then came Russia. Then, for three years, came Germany again (under Hitler). And then the Russians, again.
This is a Russian Orthodox Church. The Church (and basically, Russia) had a long-term lease on the building, but the lease is up this year. The popular vote is that the Estonian government does not renew the lease, and instead turns it into a museum to document to Russian occupation. The rumor is that in a pew, you can speak both to God and the KGB, because there are still microphones all over in it. I didn’t go in – I feel like I’ve got enough issues being recorded by my own government, I don’t need to add another one to the list.
The police have to stay outside the Russian Embassy because people kept throwing things at it. The sidewalk in front of the embassy is owned by Estonia, so they’ve allowed a visual protest to be built.
Tons of parks every where, and tons of sculptures.
Long day, and the rain got the best of me, so I came back a bit earlier than planned, ate a granola bar and now going to bed.
At today’s closest point, I was about 130 miles from Russia.