Small nations often have long memories and complicated identities, especially ones that have survived for centuries at the crossroads of the world’s great empires. When you’re much smaller than your neighbours, how do you define your distinct culture and language and funny quirks and treasured values to the world — and to yourself?
It’s a question that hangs in the air one evening at Heldeke, a theatre-bar in Tallinn, the compact capital of Estonia. The place sits in Kalamaja, a neighbourhood of colourful 19th-century wooden homes, built to house workers when waterfront factories here cranked out goods for the Romanov Empire. The funky theatre-bar is slightly subterranean, a few steps down from the street, and a one-stop shop for slightly off-beat cultural happenings, from stand-up comedy to cabaret.
Tonight is a bring-your-own vinyl evening. “This is what Estonian guys in the 1970s thought country and western sounded like,” says Renno Pille, a Gen Z local I meet, sporting a hipster T-shirt and huge earphones that never leave his head. He flips on a record, and the music that comes out is somewhere between Dwight Yoakam and the polka beats my German grandmother used to love. Off the back of the room, there’s a sauna, and a naked man keeps walking past the open door. Nobody else seems to notice.
A bird’s-eye view of Tallinn, the compact capital of Estonia.
During my previous visit to Estonia, more than a decade ago, people distanced themselves from the country’s decades-long period as part of the Soviet Union, which annexed and began occupying the country in 1940. But there’s none of that tonight, as a group of 20-something Estonians gather around and suggest I visit old buildings left over from that era, including the now-derelict ziggurat of the Linnahall, once known as the V.I. Lenin Palace of Culture and Sport.
But these young people also speak about Estonia’s place in Europe, about Estonian art and music and all the new opportunities opening up, and about the new prosperity here. “I hope Tallinn never gets too popular,” says Pille. “It’s the Baltics’ best-kept secret.”
Within this small country of about 1.4 million people, tourism is growing quickly. In the city of Tallinn, cranes whir and swing, constructing new hotels and redeveloping the formerly industrial waterfront, and building capacity for even more tech enterprises. The Tallinn Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site surrounded by 13th-century walls, has never felt more charming.
While linked geographically with Latvia and Lithuania, and historically with Russia, Estonia sees itself as the last, lost Nordic country. Linguistically, its closest cousin is Finnish, and ferries to Helsinki make the trip across the Gulf of Finland in a little more than two hours. They share a passion for many of the things most valued in Scandinavia.
Including, of course, the sauna. Ubiquitous in Finland (where even many hotel rooms have small ones) and beloved in Sweden, the steamy ritual is also embraced by Estonians. “For me, it’s my tradition, my family. We always did it,” says Freti Rapa, manager at a modern sauna park called Iglupark. “It gets my blood pumping.” Rapa is giving me a tour of the cedar sauna igloos lining the harbourfront. Ladders lead right into the water. “The temperature contrast, it’s good for your health,” he says.
At Iglupark, in Port Noblessner, guests follow their steamy sauna sessions with a dip in the cold harbour water.
While sauna going is a popular activity for both tourists and locals — many of the latter buy monthly passes and attend the morning communal sessions — I don’t partake here. (I do, later, at my hotel.) Instead, I stroll the rest of this former industrial area, the old smokestacks and warehouses originally erected back in 1912 to build Russian submarines bound for the First World War.
Now the tall masts of sailboats sit in marinas, and food trucks serve fish and chips and aquavit along the boardwalk and wharves at Port Noblessner. The centrepiece is the fabulous Estonian Maritime Museum.
It is mostly housed in a massive former seaplane hangar. An elevated wooden walkway takes me past dozens of boats and other seafaring items, suspended from the soaring domes of the roof. There’s even a full-sized submarine, the Lembit, launched in 1936.
I’m surprised to find that you can climb down the hatch
and get inside to explore the various chambers, from torpedo room to crew quarters. I don’t envy the submariners who spent months on board — in addition to the natural claustrophobia, a plaque describes a “complicated eight-part” process to flush the toilet.
The Estonian Maritime Museum, home to about 70 ship models and nearly 700 items, chronicles the history of the country’s seafaring culture.
The price of admission includes getting below deck on two ships moored outside at the docks. The most impressive is the icebreaker Suur Toll, which served Russia, Finland, the Soviet Union and Estonia, mostly importantly keeping the waterways open between Tallinn and Helsinki. On the recommendation of a guy at my hotel, I wander over to the nearby Pohjala Brewery.
While (almost) every country now has microbreweries, this one got its start making a distinctly Estonian beverage: 19th-century Baltic porter. “It has a special place in our hearts, this dark beer,” says co-founder Peeter Keek when we meet upon my arrival. “We wanted to tell the world about it.”
It’s a strong brew, more potent than traditional British porters, with an ABV of 10.5 per cent. “Winters are cold here. We needed something stronger,” Keek explains, after I help him wrestle and pour a heavy bag of hops into a big stainless-steel tank. Wanting to partake in this part of their heritage, Estonians from all over the world began ordering the beer. Exports soon made up the majority of Pohjala’s sales. The brewery expanded rapidly, eventually restored a former warehouse in the shipyard and moving in.
We head up to the stylish taproom, which has a scratch-kitchen restaurant and — of course — a sauna. Ordering a couple of porters, we talk about Estonian history. “Finland was our role model,” says Keek. “But now we’re making our own way.”
A big part of that was the Tiigrihüpe (or “Tiger Leap”)‚ a government-led initiative begun in the 1990s that invested heavily in technological infrastructure and education. Many tech companies were started or have since moved here, bringing prosperity to the country. Skype was founded in Estonia, for example, and one of their execs was an early investor in Pohjala Brewery. “Now Estonia has four or five (tech) unicorns,” says Keek.
It’s a golden late afternoon by the time I make my way back to my hotel. People are out enjoying the fresh air on bikes and walking their dogs. I navigate through the leafy parks and wander by one of Europe’s best-preserved Old Towns, thinking about the sense of history here.
The past wasn’t easy in Estonia. But that history is driving the country forward, evolving identities and building strength. Despite Pille’s worries about too many tourists, the transformation is quite a thing to witness — and worth the trip to Tallinn.
Tim Johnson travelled as a guest of Visit Estonia, which did not review or approve this article.
