Tag Archives: Estonia

21 June 2014: Tallinn, Estonia

June 22, 2014 Corey Sandler

A Soviet Flashback

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

Tallinn is a spectacular old city in an old land that has seen its ups and downs. I wrote about its history and some of its culture in my post of 18 June 2014, which you can read in the blog page for that date.

On this visit, I went on an shore excursion run by an Estonian who helps visitors gain a sense of the mostly unhappy times when Estonia was a Soviet Socialist Republic–the years after World War II until the early 1990s.

The tour–in an antiquated Soviet bus–veered between moments of great poignancy and humor. We heard of family and friends jailed or deported, of lack of food and culture, and we learned quite a bit about the resiliant sense of humor of ethnic Estonians.

And we visited a most unusual cemetery: a graveyard of deposed statues of Soviet herors including Lenin, Stalin, and others.

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18 June 2014: Tallinn, Estonia

June 18, 2014 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

Two Millennia of Ups and Downs

The penultimate port call on our superb cruise in the Baltic Sea was Tallinn. On this cruise we had just about everything: history, culture, art, music, great food, and good company. The only thing we lacked was a touch of summer: we finished our tour in near-wintry temperatures and winds.

Tallinn is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[whohit]-Tallinn 18Jun-[/whohit]

Over the centuries Estonia has been assaulted, occupied, liberated, and reoccupied by: Crusaders, Danes, early Germans, Swedes, Russians, Lithuanians, the Soviets, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union again, modern Russia, electronic pirates of the Internet, and tourists.

The Lower Town of Tallinn on Toompea Hill. Photo by Corey Sandler

Estonia was on the front line during the Livonian War of 1558-1583.

Combatants included the armies of Ivan the Terrible of Russia, Denmark, and Poland. The winner was Sweden, but battles with Poland continued for decades.

The Swedish period in Estonian history was a time of great cultural advancement. The University of Tartu—still in existence—opened in 1632.

In the Great Northern War—the same conflict that led Peter the Great to found Saint Petersburg—Sweden fought Russia, Denmark, and Poland. Russia claimed Estonia in 1710, and for the next two centuries its people were powerless serfs to the Tsars.

The Russian empire brought its own customs, architecture, and the Russian Orthodox religion.

The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in the upper town of Tallinn, a reminder of the Russian presence in old Estonia. Photo by Corey Sandler

Peter I began building the magnificent Kadriorg palace in 1718. Nicolo Michetti (who later designed Peterhof in Petersburg) created a Baroque version of an Italian villa for the Russian Emperor.

Kadriorg: Catherine’s Valley.

Kadriorg in Tallinn; across the park is the elegant Swannery. Photos by Corey Sandler

It’s not always possible to start out with a palace; sometimes you need more modest accommodations during construction.

Peter bought a little cottage nearby. The house, with a kitchen and four rooms, is pretty much the way it was when Peter used it. His extra-tall chair dominates the tiny dining room.

Outside Kadriorg is Swan Lake. Some of the trees were supposed to be replanted in gardens in Saint Petersburg. After the death of Peter I, the horse chestnuts and the swans stayed in Kadriorg.

In the 19^th Century came the National Awakening, spread by schools, literacy, books, and newspapers.

In Tartu in 1869, a song festival launched a movement to revive the Estonian national identity.

Tsar Alexander III, the repressive ruler who took the Russian throne in 1881 after the assassination of his father in Saint Petersburg sent troops to Estonia to enforce Russification.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is Tallinn’s largest and grandest cathedral. The richly decorated Orthodox church was built on Toompea Hill in 1900.

Taking advantage of the chaos in Russia caused by World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, Estonia declared independence on February 24, 1918.

That did not last long. Within days, Germany took over. And then in November of the same year, Germany capitulated and the Soviets moved back in.

But the Estonians fought back while the Soviets tried to sort out their own internal conflicts.

In the Tartu Peace Treaty, signed February 2, 1920, Soviet Russia renounced claims to Estonia and Finland “for all time.” In 1921 the Republic of Estonia was accepted into the League of Nations. Social and political reforms were enacted and the country became a presence in the Baltic.

But as war again raged across Europe in 1939, Hitler and Stalin engineered the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact, carving Eastern Europe into spheres of influence between Germany and the Soviet Union.

On June 16, 1940, Stalin accused the Baltic states of aggression and demanded the right to occupy them. Elections took place in July, with Soviet-approved candidates.

The peace between Hitler and Stalin ended abruptly on June 22, 1941 when Germany invaded Russia and its occupied states. Germany held Estonia for three years.

Soviet forces began air attacks in March of 1942, seriously damaging Tallinn in an attack two years later. By September 1944 the Germans retreated.

Estonia declared itself an independent Republic once again on September 18, but Soviet forces reached Tallinn four days later.

Few Estonians speak well of the Soviets, who exercised tight control over almost every aspect of life.

The former KGB headquarters in Tallinn; a plaque out front tells passersby that this was at the core of the Soviet oppression. Photo by Corey Sandler

Over the coming decades, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians were sent to live in the Estonian territory: Russification once again.

A bit of perspective: the Estonians lost more people during the first years of the Soviet occupation than during the German occupation that followed.

And Estonia lost more Jews during the Soviet times than the German occupation. The Jews were doctors, lawyers, teachers; the Soviets considered them class enemies and they were deported, many to Siberia.

Estonia would not regain its independence for fifty years, a mostly unwilling member of the USSR until 1991.

On February 24, 1977 a small act of rebellion: the blue-black-white Estonian flag was briefly raised in Tartu to mark the 59^th anniversary of the first Estonian Republic.

Ten years later, a series came a second National Awakening.

The Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn. Photo by Corey Sandler

In June 1988, more than a hundred thousand people packed the Song Festival Grounds, across the harbor from the heart of Tallinn. A few months later came the first public demand for independence.

The very avante-gard Kumu museum, near Kadriorg, includes a room full of busts with a hidden speaker system; they murmur to each other. Photo by Corey Sandler

The very modern side of Tallinn, across from the old city. Photos by Corey Sandler

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September 2013: Out to Sea Again to Tallinn, Saint Petersburg, and Helsinki

September 16, 2013 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

First of all, apologies to all for the delay in posting. We’ve been experiencing some technical difficulties in the Baltic (I blame Vladimir Putin. Why not? . . . our satellite uplink got bollixed while we were in Saint Petersburg during the G20 meetings.)

We are now aboard Silversea Silver Whisper, on a two-month journey from the Baltic through the North Sea to England and Ireland and across the pond to Canada and America.

Tallinn, Estonia: 3 September 2013

The Answer is Blowing in the Winds of Change

There’s change in the air in Tallinn, Estonia.

But that’s hardly news.

Estonia has been through more changes than just about any other country. An ancient tribe (the Aesti), the Swedes, the Livonians, the Germans, a brief sniff of freedom, the Russians, the Germans, an even shorter breath of liberty, the Soviets, and then finally the Baltic Way.

Estonia is still a place apart, though. The architecture is wonderfully quirky and the folk tales are even quirkier. But the principal barrier to widespread integration is Estikel, the almost-singular language of Estonia.

Tallinn Old and Reborn

Estikel is one of the Finno-Ugric languages, which include Finnish, Estikel, and Hungarian. It actually is said to have its roots in the Indian subcontinent.

But things change. Estonia is one of the technological hubs of the Internet; Skype and several other elements of the computer lingua franca were developed here.

And there has also been a burgeoning invasion of tourists. At first from Europe, and now from around the world.

We arrived on Silver Whisper in early September and there was a whiff of fall and a promise of winter in the air. We also found that the billboards are becoming more and more oriented to the outside world: Europeanized and (increasingly) Americanized.

We could have gone to see the latest Jennifer Anniston movie, dubbed into Estikel (probably would have been every bit as intelligible as the American version.) Or we could have ordered a hamborger at the new Striptiis joint along the waterfront.

It’s still a fascinating country, populated by mostly lovely people who all seem to be ready to burst into song at any time to declare, “We’re free, we’re free!”

I’ve decided to cut them a bit of slack for that reason. I just hope the Estonians will hold on to much of their character and culture along the way.

Saint Petersburg, Russia: 4 September 2013

The Long Haul to Nicholas’ Last Stand

Saint Petersburg and all of Russia is never an easy place.

Russia is one of the bastions of bureaucracy. This one country (all right, it is the largest country on the planet, but still) is probably the principal reason that the rubber stamp industry still survives.

Silver Whisper arrived this morning for a two-day visit. The lovely, smaller vessels of Silversea usually get the best parking space in town—right on the River Neva at the English Embankment—but today we had to settle for circling the block and tying up at the somewhat further-out Sea Passenger Terminal at Ploschad Morskoy Slavy.

Why were we denied our view of ancient Petersburg?

Because the town has been taken over by the muck-a-mucks and the minions of the G-20 global economic summit.

River traffic has been curtailed, roads are closed, some museums are subject to sudden and unexpected and never explained lockdowns.

Views of Alexander Palace in Saint Petersburg, the final home of the Romanovs

I covered some of these sort of political events when I was a reporter, and I know this: nothing gets accomplished at the meeting itself. Everything has been pre-wrangled, pre-edited, and scripted. All that remains is the grip-and-grin photo session of world leaders.

Putin is here, of course: it’s his country (at least that’s the way he thinks of it.) So too is Obama and 18 or so other world leaders.

We wish them well, and expect little. (Okay, maybe not too much for Putin; he’s a scary dude.)

In any case, our goal was to stay out of their way.

And so this morning we headed from the ship to the Primorskaya Metro station about a mile away and zipped beneath the traffic jams and the police checkpoints to Vitebsky station to catch a train to Detskoye Selo (also known as Pushkin.)

We went not to see Catherine’s Palace (been there, done that, very nice but way too crowded) but instead Alexander Palace.

We were sitting pretty when we got to the ticket counter at a few minutes after 10 in the morning. . . until the agent told us in Russian and sign language that all trains had been cancelled until after noon. Why? Just because. (G-20…)

We finally made it out to Pushkin and walked through the town and out to Alexander Palace, which has been on our list of should-sees for some time.

The palace was designed in 1792 for Catherine the Great as a gift for her grandson, the future Alexander I. It is a relatively simple palace, some say austere, but it certainly has more than a bit of grandeur about it.

The reason it is of interest is that it was the final personal residence of Nicholas II and his family from 1904 until their arrest in 1917. They went from there to a lockdown 850 miles east of Moscow and eventually to their mass execution.

Like nearly all of the treasures of this part of Russia, the palace was severely damaged by the Germans who encircled Petersburg for 900 days during the blockade of World War II. It has not been fully restored, but a dozen or so rooms are open and they are grand…and a bit poignant.

Nicholas and Alexandra were, by the standards of their peers, not really party people. They kept to themselves most of the time, even choosing not to live in the spectactular Catherine’s Palace just down the road.

At Alexander Palace, we were taken by some of the portraits and toys and riding uniforms of the Tsarevich Alexei and some of the clothing and dolls of his sisters.

Not to defend the Czars particularly, but Alexander Palace is one place to go for a sense of the last of the Romanovs as a family. Catherine’s Palace and Peterhof are spectacular but hard to relate to. Alexander Palace was a home.

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Helsinki, Finland: 6 September 2013

A Glorious End of Summer in Finland

There must be a Finnish word that is the equivalent of the American expression: “Indian Summer.”

And Indian Summer is a short but very sweet reappearance of warm temperatures and blue skies while autumn and winter are preparing to arrive.

That was certainly our experience in Helsinki this time. On previous visits in the heart of the summer we have experienced winter-like weather; today we could have gone to the beach.

Which is pretty much what we did. We took the public ferry from the city market to Suomenlinna Island in the middle of the harbor.

Suomenlinna was first built up by the Swedes, who held Finland for seven centuries from about 1200; they called it Sveaborg, as in the fortress (borg) of Mother Sweden (Svea).

Finland, which for nearly all of its existence has lived in a very rough neighborhood, has been occupied and assaulted by just about all of the powers of the Baltic: Sweden, Germany, Napoleon, and Russia amongst them.

Suomenlinna (renamed by the Finns when they gained their independence), is a sprawling complex of fortresses, barracks, armories, and dozens upon dozens of very large guns aimed out to sea to protect the entrance to Helsinki.

We spent a few hours strolling in the Indian Summer sun, storing up some warmth for the coming months as we head to northern Scotland, Greenland, Iceland, and Atlantic Canada on the next few cruises.

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8 July 2013 Tallinn, Estonia: Free at Last. . .

July 8, 2013 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

Silversea Silver Cloud arrived this morning in a sunny, warm, and happy Tallinn, Estonia.

Over two millennia, Talinn has had its ups and downs. It still does. Its ancient center is the city on the hill. [whohit]-Tallinn 8July-[/whohit]

But more to the point: in the 800 or so years, Estonia has had only about 40 years of independence.

And 20 of those years have come in the last two decades.

Tallinn

Ancient Estonia was first settled about 3,000 BC mostly by Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, and Ugric-Hungarian tribes from the east.

But Tallinn as we see it now: winding cobblestone streets and rough stone buildings date mostly from the 11th to 15th centuries.

Estonia’s golden era was between the early 15th and mid 16th centuries when it was a member of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic.

Being an important trading center had advantages and disadvantages: there were great riches and culture, but also the need to defend against enemies.

And so, over the centuries it has been assaulted, occupied, liberated, and reoccupied by: Vandals, Crusaders, Danes, early Germans, Swedes, Russians, and Lithuanians. And then in the 20^th century by the Soviets, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union again, modern Russia.

Fortifications of ancient Tallinn

Peter Casts a Huge Shadow

Peter the Great of Russia annexed Estonia in 1710 and began making visits.

In 1713 he purchased the land for Kadriorg Palace and an already antique 17th-century cottage nearby. The house, with a kitchen and four rooms, is pretty much the way it was when Peter used it. It includes a small dining room with an extra-tall chair for the Czar.

Peter was about six-foot eight-inches tall, huge for the time. But just for good measure, Peter sometimes traveled with dwarves to accentuate his size.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church on the hill

Sprouts of Freedom

The Estonians were under the thumb of so many invaders, but to their credit the people were constantly looking for a way to push through a sprout of freedom.

In the 19th Century came a period called the National Awakening, spread by the evils that come with schools, literacy, books, and newspapers.

Taking advantage of the chaos in Russia caused by World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, Estonia declared independence on February 24, 1918.

That did not last long.

Within days, Germany took over.

And then in November of the same year, Germany capitulated and the Soviets moved back in.

In the Tartu Peace Treaty, signed February 2, 1920, Soviet Russia renounced claims to Estonia and Finland “for all time.”

Good luck with that.

In 1921 the Republic of Estonia was accepted into the League of Nations.

But as war again raged across Europe in 1939, Hitler and Stalin engineered the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact, a treaty that carved spheres of influence between Germany and the Soviet Union.

On June 16, 1940, Stalin accused the Baltic states of aggression and demanded the right to occupy them. And then the Soviets came back to take hold.

The peace between Hitler and Stalin ended abruptly on June 22, 1941 when Germany invaded Russia and its occupied states.Germany occupied Estonia for three years.

By September 1944 the Germans retreated.And so Estonia declared itself an independent Republic once again on September 18.

That lasted just four days before Soviet forces reached Tallinn.

Estonia would not regain its independence for fifty years, a mostly unwilling member of the USSR until 1991.Life in Estonia took on the repressive, bureaucratic culture of much of the rest of the Soviet Union.

On February 24, 1977 a small act of rebellion: the blue-black-white Estonian flag was briefly raised in Tartu to mark the 59th anniversary of the first Estonian Republic.

Ten years later, a series of environmental protests began a second National Awakening.

The Song Grounds in Kadriorg, completed in 1960, was considered an achievement in Modernism.

Meant to celebrate all things Soviet, the song festivals held here in the 1980s became an important part of Estonia’s independence movement, the Singing Revolution.

In June 1988, more than a hundred thousand people packed the Song Festival Grounds.

The Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn

A few months later the crowd was three hundred thousand and they heard the first public demand for independence.

On August 23, 1989 some two million people joined hands along the 600 kilometer road between Tallinn and Vilnius.

On August 20, 1991 Estonia declared its independence. Three days later, Lenin’s statue came down in Tallinn.

A musician places a modern recreation of a medieval lute. The instrument combines a bit of the lute and a viola. It does not have a modern name in Estonia: think of it as a violut.

In November 1999, Estonia joined the World Trade Organization. Membership in NATO and the European Union followed in 2004. In January of 2011, Estonia made the switch to the Euro, and that is now the official currency.

An Estonian told me, “Some people ask why we would sign on to the sinking Titanic with the Euro.

“We joined NATO, the European Union, and the Euro Zone so that people would remember that Estonia exists and is now independent.”

It is a worthy hope.

Around the World with Corey Sandler

Tag Archives: Estonia

21 June 2014: Tallinn, Estonia

18 June 2014: Tallinn, Estonia

September 2013: Out to Sea Again to Tallinn, Saint Petersburg, and Helsinki

8 July 2013 Tallinn, Estonia: Free at Last. . .

Cruise Photos and Stories by Corey Sandler