Reval–better known by its Estonian name (at least here), Tallinn–is a city in Estonia with a long and storied history. I hadn’t thought about it, but northern Europe, specifically the Baltic Countries, were sometimes players in the game of Empire, but frequently pawns. Until Peter the Great stamped his footprint on the area, the Danes, Swedish, and Poles fought over it. In fact, Tallinn means city of the Danes. That was reinforced when we crossed into Estonia from Russia at the city of Narva, to be greeted by a wondrous 14th century fort we were told the Danes had built.
The border crossing taught an epigrammatic lesson about the contrast between Russia and its former satellites (the Baltic countries were absorbed into the Soviet Union during the Second World War–one of the unstated ironies of the Great Patriot’s Day is that the Great Patriotic War starts in 1941, but Russia invaded Poland and fought with Finland starting in 1939–and absorbed the Baltic states as a result of its treaty with Nazi Germany). In 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated, the three Baltic countries declared independence.
When we pulled up to the Russian passport/control area, the driver spoke to Dr. Vitzthum, explaining that for an extra 2 euros a person (about 3$), we could be spared having to take our bags off the bus; that smacked of a bribe as much as a convenience, so we refused. When we got to the Narva side, the officer took our passports and stamped them for no charge!
The last day in St. Petersburg, we were able to really see the city. The night before, most of us took the Metro downtown, where the size of the festive crowd, and the jostling, reminded me of Shanghai or Beijing–that’s how crowded it was. A number of us looked for a boat ride (St. Petersburg, built on swamp, is at the delta of the Neva River; the many canals are one way to travel) with a tour. Unfortunately, by the time we traipsed around looking for an English-speaking boat, the boats had stopped running. The walk along Nevsky Prospect, with its many converted palaces and monuments, reminded me once again that capital cities tend to be built to overwhelm, and the Russian royal family certainly overwhelmed with ponderous pretentiousness.
The next day, the bus took us down Nevsky Prospect, where we stopped for pictures at the Church of the Spilled Blood, built in the Moscow style (i.e., non-Peter, non-Western), onion domed) to honor Alexander II. It was erected on the spot of his assassination in the 1880s.
We then left the city for our exit from Russia, but first we stopped at the Peterhof, one of the many legacies of Peter the Great. Located between the city and the naval base further West, Peterhof spared almost no expense to dazzle visitors with the wealth of Russia. Perhaps its most well known feature is the gardens, which feature fountains and statues coated with gold leaf that make for great pictures. All I could think of was what took the Russians so long to rebel against what was obviously an ostentatiously rich system, much of it at the expense of the peasants. But it was a last chance for blini pancakes and caviar. That was my lunch.
On to Estonia. As we crossed the border, we could almost tell we were in a different country. With a population slightly over a million, speaking their own language, with a currency abbreviated as “eek” (Estonian kroner), the Estonians declared their independence of Russia in 1918, then fought a two-year war for Independence, and another less bloody revolution in the 1990s to escape from the Soviet Union. It’s only recently that the country was able to erect a monument to the former event.
Tallinn’s old city is a two-part gem. The hill was occupied by the church and knights; hence, the hill contains the fort, with towers enjoying colorful names (fat Mary, see the kitchen from the tower), and several imposing churches including the imposing orthodox church in honor of Alexander Nevsky, built by the Russians at the beginning of the 20th century. The irony is not lost on Estonians; the country converted to Lutheranism after the reformation, when it was under northern European rule, and Nevsky was a prince who helped turn back the Teutonic knights in a storied Russian victory captured best in the 1930s propaganda film warning Germany that Germans who came to conquer Russia had never done so. Though about 20-30% of the population is Russian by birth, the Estonians have required a reading and spoken knowledge of Estonian (a Finno Turkich language, not Romance based) for citizenship, which has, in effect, reversed the privileges once enjoyed by the Russians in Estonia.
The lower city–once divided by a wall from its upper protection–housed merchants, and also some spectacular churches. It was fun walking the city in the evening, as some of us did, because we could linger on the streets and read the signs on the buildings–such as the one housing the oldest pharmacy (1422) in Europe. Simply put, the lower city–claiming to be the home to marzipan–is cute.
It says a lot about tourist season that the town hall, one of my targets for visiting during our free time, opens only after May 15. The climate here is cool (it was 6 degrees Celsius at night), and the farming we saw (and the forests–Estonia is heavily forested) were about as far along as Wisconsin two or three weeks ago. The growing season is short, and I was struck by the relative absence of livestock along the road–it’s about 300 miles from Tallinn, which is across from Finland, to Riga.
When we crossed from Estonia into Lithuania, we changed currency (the Lat), but did not have to go through customs. The relatively easy entry between the member states of the EU is one major improvement since the last time I was in this area. Then, we got to a customs stop during lunch and waited about an hour until the officers were ready to resume. Another benefit from being in the EU is the support a small population like Estonia (Riga is the biggest city in the Baltic, with 800,000) gets. Our guide pointed out that the superhighway we were traveling on had been built with funds from the EU.
When it does warm up here (I was here in August, and it does get warm), Estonia has beaches and islands that attract hordes from elsewhere in Europe, perhaps the same way and for the same reasons as Wisconsin. We went through the resort town of Parnau for a short break and quick look at what had been a Russian resort spa. While some of the houses and hotels were unmistakably Soviet (i.e., too much concrete), turn of the century elegance mirrored the elegance of the home Peter the Great built there in the early 18th century.
We got to Riga late afternoon Tuesday, and I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow. We’re here for two nights.