"Tallinn - Nordic beauty with soviet past " a Tallinn Travel Page by Airpunk

Travel planning sucks! If you have friends like mine, you surely don't lack enemies... For the second time in sequence, my travel plans were destroyed before they became reality. In 2006, it was a trip to Greece that was cancelled, forcing me to start new travel plans for my vacations. I ended up visiting Slovenia and Italy. In 2007, I wanted to visit some friends in Dublin. Short before booking the flight, they asked me to postpone this trip due to some university exams. Well, it is no problem for me to cancel a trip. But my airport job does not give me the chance to change my vacation period spontaneously. That means: No Dublin for me this year. Instead, I looked out for destinations to which I can get some cheap flights and I discovered an offer by Estonian Air. Some klicks later, I had bought a ticket to Tallinn.

It already happened a couple of times that I missed an unpleasant event by around two weeks. The first time I can remember that was in late March of 2002 when I was in Caracas, Venezuela. Shortly after returning home, a coup d’etat took place in Venezuela’s capital city and the Chavez government was taken out of power for 48 hours. Somewhen in March 2005, I booked a flight to London for July of the same year. I missed the terrorist attacks in the London underground by only two weeks. And now Estonia: In late April 2007, the Estonian government decided to dismantle a WWII monument and place the main part of the monument, a statue known as the “Bronze Soldier” on a soldier cemetery, 3 kms away from the town center. By the russian minority (which makes up about a quarter of Estonia’s population), the Bronze Soldier is seen as a monument for the victims of WWII. However, for the estonian majority, the soldier statue is a symbol for the Soviet occupation after WWII. This was the cause of riots taking place in the last week of April causing over 70 injuries and claiming the live of a russian nationalist. During the riots, russians destroyed a couple of estonian shops while on the other side, a couple of estonian vandalists took the opportunity to loot them. The violence had calmed down by the beginning of May, but the political tensions between Russia and Estonia (as well as with other countries which supported Estonia) were still present. But surely, this was not the best time for a trip to Estonia starting on May 16th.

Well, so what has Tallinn to offer? Most times, I return enthusiastic from a trip and I want to return to the respective place. Tallinn is no exception and unlike other trips, I can for sure name the things I really liked about Tallinn. First, it is a dynamic, open-minded city. There was never a place where I didn't felt welcome and many young Estonians are interested in talking to people from other countries. Second, Tallinn has preserved its medieval old town and while Estonia is opening itself to the rest of the world, estonian culture and language is well alive. Here, Estonians are proud to share their culture with others. Together, this forms a nice background for exploring an interesting city and having fun in lively pubs.

For those who would like to have the more cold facts and figures: Tallinn is Estonia's capital and largest city with over 400 000 inhabitants. Its history can be traced back to the mid-ages when a castle on what is now Toompea was built. During all the centuries, Tallinn was conquered several times and was under german, danish, swedish and russian rule. The city gained its wealth from its membership in the hanseatic league in the middle ages. Between 1918 and 1940, it was the capital of the new state of Estonia. It gained back its title after russian occupation ended in 1991.