TALLINN, ESTONIA

The contrast as we entered the mediaeval city of Tallinn could hardly have been greater! The narrow, irregular, switch-back streets are lined with tall, gabled houses, almost all hundreds of years old and carefully restored. A sprinkling of art deco provides a more modern note. Massive stone walls are dotted with towers that could have been transplanted from Carcassonne. At the top of the old citadel, a strongpoint since at least the 9th century, the pink parliament building faces a large Orthodox church from ca.1900. The walled town centre is full of tourists, and every other house is a shop or restaurant. The area, controlled from the iron-age hill fort, was christianised by the Danes in a crusade around 1219, when the Dannebrog (Danish flag) was sent down from heaven. Construction of the mediaeval town began shortly afterwards. The Olaviste (St Olav) church was, so they say, the tallest building in the world when it was built in the 13th century, over 160 m! After two rebuilds, shorter each time, the spire is now just over 120 m tall and provides great views over the city. The nave roof is also impressively lofty... The Niguliste (St Nicholas) is similar in age and design, tall and spacious with clear glass and light gothic tracery. We went to a concert there of 15-16th century music. This was associated with an exhibition in the city’s main art museum, KUMU, of an exhibition of paintings by Estonian artist Michael Sittow 1469-1525 (look in Wikipedia). He was one of the foremost portrait painters of his age, employed in the Spanish court for 10 years and commissioned to paint - among others - Henry VIII and his sister Mary Rose, and Christian II of Denmark. Walking up to KUMU, I passed Kadriorg Palace built by Peter the Great (in 1718) after he conquered Tallinn from the Swedes during the Great Northern War of 1700-1721. One of Peter’s earliest war aims was to acquire the site on which to build St Petersburg. Mediaeval Tallinn was a Hansa port. Most of the territory that now makes up Estonia and Latvia, apart from the Hansa ports and associated trading towns (most of the cities), consisted of the small or large fiefs of the German land-owning class descended from the Teutonic knights who manned the crusade to convert the region in the C13th. This situation persisted almost up to WW II. The history of the area is incredibly complex, but basically the three Baltic States declared independence in 1918 (like Finland) based on shared linguistic and cultural grounds. Estonian is a Finnougric language distantly related to Finnish; they are not mutually comprehensible. Latvian and Lithuanian are Baltic languages with something in common with the Slav group, but you wouldn’t know it without doing a PhD on the subject. Estonian nationalism started to grow in the C19th, and many of the works in the KUMU reflect how artists (as well as writers, poets, etc.) sought to create a national identity. One striking C19th painting was called “The Sermon on the Mount”. Christ does not appear, just a crowd of Estonian peasants listening... It was remarkably effective.