Reval-ing in Tallinn's Medieval Beauty

Tallinn contains some of the world’s best-preserved medieval architecture but is also the most modern city in the Baltics (or anywhere in Eastern Europe). Nothing reflects this contrast better than Estonia’s Parliament, which is seeking to expand Tallinn’s system of voting online in local elections for the nationwide poll in 2007…from its perch inside the partially 13th-century Toompea Castle overlooking the city.

Tallinn traces its origins to an Estonian trading settlement established on the site in the 9th century, although archaeological evidence suggests their Finno-Ugric ancestors may well have occupied the area for the previous three millennia. The Estonians built the first stronghold on Toompea, the hill overlooking the city, of wood in the 11th century. This castle fell to the Danes, who subsequently built their own castle in its place in 1219, ushering in seven centuries of foreign rule for Estonia.

Interestingly, the name Tallinn comes from the Estonian words Daani linn, meaning Danish town; however, the Danes, Teutonic Knights, Swedes, and Russians, knew it by the German name Reval, appropriately, considering it was a Hanseatic city. While Reval prospered from trade, the conflict between the knights and bishop (who looked down on the townspeople literally and figuratively from their perches on Toompea) and the people in the merchant town who grew up below it became so intense that the latter literally walled themselves off!

Toompea
Toompea Castle retains three of the towers built by the Knights of the Sword, who briefly wrested the city from the Danes, but primarily dates from the 18th century. It’s closed to the public, but there’s a superb view over the entire city from Kiek-in-de-Kok, a 15th-century tower. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a relic of a late 19th-century Russification campaign, none-too-subtly dominates the hill’s summit, obscuring the older and smaller Lutheran Toomkirik (Dome Church). A sign nearby points out Toompea’s plethora of lookout points on the city.

Lower Town
Northern Europe’s only surviving Gothic town hall has surveyed busy Raekoja Plats (Town Hall Square) since 1404 and contains some good exhibitions, as well as an impressive tower. Most of the lower town’s sights are on Vene (Russian Street), Pikk (Long Street), and Lai (Wide Street), although nearly every building has something to offer. You shouldn’t leave without visiting St. Olaf’s Church (and climbing its 123.7m tower), the City Museum, the Dominican Cloister, and traversing the old city walls.

Quick Tips:

The Estonian kroon (EEK) is fixed at a rate of 15.65 to the euro.

Book as far in advance as possible for accommodation in or near the Old Town (Vanalinn). Fortunately, there’s ample accommodation further out if you’re unable to plan ahead.

Tallinn is such an easy day trip from Helsinki that it has earned the sobriquet "Tallsinki." You can easily see Vanalinn in a single day in a leisurely fashion, but should you wish to see anything beyond the main sights or to explore them in depth, more time is advisable.

The helpful tourist office hands out a good, free map of the city and sells the Tallinn Card, which provides free admission to all sights and public transport. Buy the six-hour card (not the 24-hour card) for a one-day visit (90 EEK), and the 48-hour card for a two-day visit (300 EEK, also includes a free tour).

If you’re staying more than a day, pick up the handy Tallinn In Your Pocket, whose contents and a smaller version that you can download for free are available online.

These notes only cover Vanalinn, not Tallin as a whole.

Best Way To Get Around:

Getting to Tallinn

Ferry: Ferries from Helsinki are the most convenient way to get to Tallinn, and the ferry port is a 10-minute walk to Vanalinn. Hydrofoils run to the Linnahall (one of the few Soviet blights on Tallinn’s cityscape). A taxi from each costs 35-40 EEK.
Bus: The bus station is located about one kilometer south of Vanalinn, but most drivers will drop you off at Viru valjak, which is 200m from Vanalinn. Buses run to the rest of the country and the other Baltic capitals.
Train: Trains run to most major destinations in Estonia and sporadically to neighboring countries. The station is within sight of Vanalinn’s walls.
Air: Tallinn’s compact and efficient airport has flights to other Baltic and Nordic capitals. Bus 2 runs two to three times per hour between the airport and the Viru Hotel in the new city center. A taxi costs 70 EEK.

Getting Around Tallinn The only way to get around Tallinn’s medieval sights is on foot, as most of Vanalinn is pedestrianized. Likewise, there are no elevators in the towers that you can ascend. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, since cobblestones can be difficult to walk on.

Generally, the concept of a medieval restaurant is enough to make my stomach turn. This isn’t because I’m afraid that attempts at historical verisimilitude will result in my being served a plate of barely spiced and nearly rotten meat with only a large piece of very old bread constituting my entire place setting—but rather the assumption that such places are merely an historical type of theme restaurant. Despite recommendations from several friends who had visited Tallinn, the gratuitous "e" in this establishment’s name seemed to confirm this suspicion.

Nevertheless, my sister and I gamely (since wild meat is a specialty of such places) entered and were seated downstairs with a promise that we’d soon be moved upstairs for the live medieval music. The wait, however, made us feel a bit more like the court fools than "honourable guests", although the homemade berry schnapps made the experience rather more bearable. At length, our costumed server returned and informed us that a table upstairs had indeed opened up—but that we could only have it for half an hour, and therefore could only order a single course.

Once seated upstairs, I could understand the restaurant’s popularity a bit better. The Great Hall was sumptuously decorated, and a fairly credible covey of medieval minstrels entertained the audience, which appeared to primarily consist of Finnish tour groups. In the interest of time, we both chose the rather good, thick meat soup, served with homemade spelt bread and cream cheese, which was hearty, though hardly filling, and didn’t really justify its 92 EEK (about €7.50) price tag. The music, however, was the highest point of the evening and consequently, even though our server subsequently told us we could remain longer (after the music was over), we chose to depart rather than sample other, obviously overpriced, dishes.

Judging by the menus that their costumed touts hand out around Raekoja plats, Olde Hansa’s prices appear typical for the medieval restaurants that infest Vanalinn. On the basis of others that we poked our heads into, its atmosphere (though not its service) is incomparable. Consequently, should you choose to indulge in a "medieval" meal while in Tallinn, I’d recommend you do so here, but you’ll find much better food and service at a more reasonable price in almost any of the authentically Estonian restaurants on Vanalinn’s intriguing sidestreets. Unlike its Baltic neighbors, Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union without a single casualty—in 1990, half a million people (over a third of Estonia’s population) gathered for the traditional national Song Festival to demand sovereignty. The festivals have been held roughly quinquennially (the next is 2009) since 1869, playing an important role in the country’s first independence movement and holding an ineffable place in the nation’s heart. While less important, the Eurovision victory by the duo of Tanel Padar and Dave Benton provided Estonia with international exposure and allowed Tallinn to hold the showcase competition in 2002.

The 19th-century church at Vene 16 is of little interest itself, but hiding behind a door in the corner of its courtyard are the remains of a Dominican Monastery, destroyed by both fire and the Reformation. Although it contains the immense (and closed) St. Catherine’s Church, the reason to make a pilgrimage here is for its exquisite collection of medieval and Renaissance stone church carvings, rescued from the ravages of the reformers. The interpreters, in period dress, are extremely helpful, and the pieces are well-described in the English signs that accompany them. Although Tallinn’s (or rather Reval’s) Teutonic heritage is visible throughout Vanalinn, many visitors, myself included, are rather puzzled to hear that it contains a building called Kiek-in-de-Kök. Translating the name from the Low German, which reveals its name as "Peep into the Kitchen," only increases this mystery. In reality, the name derives from the fact that the 38-meter-high tower allegedly allowed the nobles on Toompea to glance into the kitchens of the intransigent townspeople who had walled, and indeed, it still offers the finest views of any of the buildings on Toompea. Its main purpose, however, was defensive—coupled with its position, its four-meter-thick walls made it the sturdiest defensive tower in the Baltics, as the fragments of cannonballs, launched by the forces of Ivan IV ("The Terrible") of Russia during the Livonian War, illustrate. The excellent exhibition inside explains that while Russian artillery seriously damaged the tower, it did not fall.

St. Olaf’s church, with its 124m tower, is the first building most visitors arriving in Tallinn by ferry are able to distinguish, making it a landmark in the very truest sense of the word. This role is neither new nor accidental, as a church has stood on this site since at least 1267, its steeple intended to be a beacon to guide incoming ships to shore. Its steeple was extended to 159m around 1500, making it the world’s tallest building at the time, in an effort to draw attention and trade to the city, as well as to assist mariners in navigation. It also attracted lightning, however, causing the church to burn in a conflagration visible all the way across the Gulf of Finland in Helsinki.

Although the church is officially dedicated to King Olaf II Haraldsson, the Norwegian king, who converted his country to Christianity and is today the patron saint of both Norway and mariners, a local legend has it that it actually owes its name to a more mysterious source. According to this tale, the merchants of the city wanted to build the tallest church in the world but despaired of finding a master builder capable of the task. Suddenly, a stranger appeared, offering to build the church for a more than they cared to pay—but who agreed to waive the fee, provided the citizens had to guess his name.

He worked quickly, keeping to himself, which only increased the anxiety of the city’s leading merchants. Consequently, they sent a spy to find his home, and once there, they found a woman singing to her baby about his father "Olev" (Estonian for Olaf). When they noticed that he was affixing the cross to the steeple crookedly, they called to him by name, causing him to lose his balance in surprise and tumble to the ground. Apparently, a frog and a snake subsequently crawled out of his mouth. One version of the story has it that this indicates he received help from dark powers, while another holds that this indicates that whoever constructed the church was cursed. In any event, it’s memorialized by a carving in the church depicting a skeleton with its head encircled by a snake and a toad on its chest.

There’s no doubt that the church’s tower did serve the dark arts more recently, however, as the KGB operated a surveillance center, while Estonia was under Soviet occupation. Despite this appropriation, the church has since been reconsecrated and plays host to regular Lutheran services. The tower, which offers outstanding views over both Vanalinn and Tallinn as a whole, is open to the public between April and October. Provided you feel like climbing, it’s the main reason to visit the church, whose whitewashed décor reflects the zeal of both Reformers and Communists to efface its most attractive elements and therefore is rather less interesting than the St. Nicholas Church, where decorations spared the attention of their brushes and hammers are displayed.

There aren’t many national capitals that can be visited from another national capital as an easy day trip in the way Tallinn can be from Helsinki. Then again, few capitals derive their names, as Tallinn does, from that of another country. "Tallinn" derives from the Estonian words Daani linn, which mean "Danish town." While Tallinn can’t match Riga’s role as a cosmopolitan business center or Vilnius’s historic importance to speakers of Lithuanian, Polish, and Yiddish alike, Toompea alone contains enough multinational quirks to keep you amused, or at least occupied, for an afternoon’s sightseeing.

Tallinn’s name may be Danish, but Denmark’s flag is in a sense Estonian, both owing to the same battle on June 15, 1219, in which the Danes took Tallinn (or more accurately, the wooden castle the Estonians had built on Toompea). According to legend, the Estonians had routed the Danes, who were commanded by King Valdemar II, when suddenly a red banner divided into four equal quadrants miraculously dropped from the sky. The Danish bishop Anders Sunesen, present because Danish wars of conquest had papal approval as a Crusade to Christianize the pagan Estonians, regarded the fortuitous flag as a divine sign and raised the flag above the troops.

The newly inspired Danes subsequently won the battle, which is to this day celebrated in Denmark as "Valdemar’s Day", the king having also earned the epithet "The Victorious." It seems churlish to point out that this tale, told with equal gusto in Copenhagen and Tallinn alike, is completely fictitious. Nonetheless, it falls upon me to do so, although the subsidiary claim that Dannebrog (literally "red cloth") is considered the world’s oldest national flag (and one of the few to actually be named) is generally regarded as accurate.

Moving from one occupying power to another, it should come as little surprise that Russia sought to assert its power architecturally as well as politically during its lengthy period ruling Estonia (1710-1919). The onion domes of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, designed by Mikhail Preobrazhensky, in 1894 and completed in 1900, were part of a concerted program of Russification around the Empire’s Baltic provinces. Helsinki, Riga, and Vilnius all have rather prominent Orthodox places of worship. For all its impressive interior and exterior, however, the Cathedral sits on shaky ground—legend has it that this owes to its placement above the grave of the Estonian hero Kalevipoeg!

One hero, the location of whose grave on Toompea is not in doubt, however, is Admiral Sir Samuel Greig (1735-1788). As his name suggests, he was a Scot who first distinguished himself in the British navy during the Seven Year’s War (1756-1763) and subsequently took up Catherine the Great’s invitation to oversee the overhauling of Russia’s fleet, which had deteriorated since the reign of Peter the Great. He proved so successful at his task, and in defeating the Turkish fleet in the Mediterranean and the Swedes in the Baltics, that Catherine heaped honors on him, including a knighthood and an admiral’s commission. After defeating the Swedes, however, he died of a severe fever and consequently was given a Protestant burial in Toomkirik, where his body remains to this day.

The quiet streets north of Raekoja Plats (Town Hall Square) contain most of Vanalinn’s finest museums. These institutions are primarily located on Pikk tanav (Long Street) and Vene tanav (Russian Street), which run north-south. The area’s greatest charm, however, lies in the lanes connecting these thoroughfares and popping into whatever building (there are many artists studios) or café seems appealing.

Pikk Tanav
As its name suggests, Pikk tanav is Vanalinn’s longest street, running from the Great Coast Gate up Toompea (where its name changes to Pikk jalg meaning "Long Leg"). As you enter the Great Coast Gate from Raanamae tee, you’ll notice a white cross and a large granite monument inscribed with the names of the 852 people who died when the MS Estonia car ferry between Tallinn and Stockholm sank in the early hours of September 28, 1994, under mysterious circumstances that a contemporary official report ascribed to a leaky bow door. Just 137 of the people onboard survived the disaster, the worst in peacetime European history, and the occasion of its tenth anniversary led to renewed calls for the a reexamination of the evidence.

The Great Coast Gate is the northernmost and best-preserved of Vanalinn’s medieval gates, as well as the closest to its harbor. During the 16th century, it was further fortified by the construction of the so-called "Fat Margaret", a bastion with four-meter-thick walls that today houses Estonia’s Maritime Museum. The major guild halls of the medieval city line Pikk. The Great Guild, which comprised the city’s most prosperous merchants, had was located at number 17, today home to the pre-1850 collections of the State History Museum. The German artisans made do with St. Canutus Guildhall at number 20 (although note that the present structure dates only to the 1860s), while their humbler non-Teutonic counterparts made do with St. Olaus Guildhall at number 26. The Brotherhood of the Blackheads (unmarried merchants) is at number 24 and particularly notable for its fine carved door.

Visible from Pikk but actually located on nearby Lai tanav (Wide Street) is St. Olaf Church, originally built in 1267, whose landmark 123.7m tower once reached to 159m, making it the tallest building in the world. Local legend holds that dark powers were involved in its construction, and as with much in Tallinn, the tourist industry is only too eager to give it credence. (Please see my entry "St. Olaf's Church" for details.) The inside of the church itself is fairly uninteresting; however, the view from its tower is the best vantage point anywhere in the city (including Toompea). Consequently, it’s hardly surprising that the KGB had a surveillance point here! After climbing down, reward yourself with a pastry and coffee at Maiasmokk (Sweet Tooth), Tallinn’s oldest café, dating to 1865. It’s also the city’s finest, so you may have difficulty finding a seat in the beautiful Art Nouveau tea-room.

Vene Tanav
The excellent City Museum at Vene 17 provides an extensive collection, not just of Tallinn but also of Estonia generally. It covers the entire period from the city’s foundation to restoration of independence under a single roof. The building it occupies was once a medieval merchant’s home, which the exhibits make good use of, but its collection of artifacts range from the prehistoric to television monitors showing footage from the "Singing Revolution" and the country’s subsequent Eurovision Song Contest victory in 2001.