20 August: Tallinn
There was a definite sense of anticipation as we made our way to the West Harbour to board the ferry for the four hour trip to Tallinn. The ship, which is what it should be called, was twice the size of the current Bass Strait ferries. As we have yet to take delivery of the latest Spirit of Tasmania, I can’t tell you now they compare. However, to cross the Gulf of Finland in something of that size, with scores of vehicles and a couple of thousand other people, in just four hours, was something completely outside our experience.
Tallinn itself was an interesting place, with a nice tension between the Old Town, the remains of the Soviet Era, and new developments by public and private money. What we hadn’t counted in was that today was a national holiday: the anniversary of the agreement between Estonia and the new Soviet Union in 1917. Clearly, that wasn’t to Stalin’s taste, as the Baltic Republica were quickly swallowed up at the outbreak of the Second World War and Estonia did not regain its independence until the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin is surely eyeing off Estonia again, as it has a population of only 1.5 million people. That’s not counting the descendants of the ‘beautiful Balts’ who were the first non-English speaking refugees allowed into Australia under Arthur Calwell’s watch—and good on him for the first chink in the White Australia Policy!
We had to get our skates on to walk from the ferry to the square in the old town, outside the medieval town hall. It was surrounded by the usual tourist-teap restaurants, but it was better than most and the buildings were authentic, at least according to our tour guide, who compared Helsinki unfavourably with the more authentically Hanseatic atmosphere of Tallinn. Like Helsinki, we were surprised by the number of tourists, but that might have been inflated by the public holiday. Apparently, the number of cruise ships have fallen by 75 per cent since Putin’s Ukrainian excursion, as no one wants to visit St Petersburg.
Most of the museums were closed, but we enjoyed wandering around and found an interesting selection of street food downhill from the old town. It was nice to know that we were able to go back to Helsinki and our free evening meal! So far we have been very lucky with the weather and it has made travelling (and photographing) very easy.
