An aristocratic seaside resort in Tsarist times, this leafy district has a dignified, even haughty, air, as befits the site of Peter the Great’s summer palace and the Estonian president’s official residence. It is home to several foreign embassies as well as to some of Tallinn’s wealthiest businessmen. Come the weekend, Tallinners flock to ‘Catherine’s Vale’ (named after Peter’s wife, Catherine I) to amble through romantic parkland and groves of lindens and limes, or admire the painted wooden houses and streamlined Functionalist Art Deco apartment blocks. Adding to the refined feel, several streets are named after leading cultural figures, some of whom lived here and are honoured in local museums. By 2005, Kadriorg will be one of the city’s cultural hubs, with a vast new art museum and a museum devoted to Russian culture in Estonia. It’s also the site of the huge Song Festival Grounds, one of the cradles of the Singing Revolution. Gettiing there: take tram #1 or #3 to Kadriorg Park or bus 35 and 34 from Viru väljak to J Poska. Song Grounds Lighthouse and Grounds Narva maantee 95, T 611 2102, http://www.lauluvaljak.ee. Free. Buses 1, 1A, 5, 8, 34, 38 to Lauluvaljak stop; buses 1,19, 29, 35, 44, 60, 63 to Lasnamägi stop. Every Estonian town has its song bowl, but none has anything to compare with this vast venue, where 300,000 people gave voice to their discontent at Soviet occupation in 1988, sparking the Singing Revolution. The stage, with its imposing shell of pinewood and steel, can hold up to 30,000 singers and faces a steepish slope from where there are fine sea views. The National Song and Dance Festival only takes place once every four years, so the venue is also used for rock and classical concerts, the popular summer Beer Festival and several fairs. Kadriorg Palace Weizenbergi 37, T 606 6400, http://www.ekm.ee/kadriorg">http://www.ekm.ee/kadriorg. Tue-Sun 1000-1700, closed Mon also on Tue Oct-Apr. 35 EEK, free with Tallinn Card, 45 EEK joint ticket for Mikkel Museum. Tram 1 and 3. Designed in 1718 for Peter the Great by Italian architect Nicolo Michetti (of St Petersburg’s Versailles-esque Peterhof Palace), this mulberry-coloured building with cream pillars and graceful oval windows is modest, sober baroque at its best. It is thought that Peter may have laid the first stone. Today, it houses the Estonian Art Museum’s foreign section. The collection includes works by Breughel the Younger, Cuyp and Cranach, as well as Russian portraiture, academic realist paintings and modernist works. There’s also a superb collection of drawings by some of the 20th century’s biggest names. The setting is as fine as the collection, in particular the festive hall, with its sculpted seashells, fruits and garlands of oak leaves, as well as a relief depicting Poseidon (believed to be a representation of the Tsar, who won access to the Baltic Sea), as well as the glazed black-and-white tiled baroque heating stoves in the rooms. Mikkel Museum Weizenbergi 28, T 601 5844, http://www.ekm.ee. Wed-Sun 1100-1800. Closed Mon-Tue. 15 EEK, free with Tallinn Card. Born in 1907, Johannes Mikkel began amassing art treasures in pre-war Estonia, many left in the country when the Baltic Germans and Russian nobles fled the country in 1917-18; in the post-war era, he continued to collect, despite the obvious hurdles posed by the oppressive communist regime, by cultivating contacts all over the Soviet Union, notably in Georgia. “Art,” he rather innocently put it, “has the magical ability of wandering to where it is loved.” In 1995, Mikkel donated his collection to the Estonian Art Museum and it is now displayed in the palace’s former kitchen. Highlights include etchings by Rembrandt and Piranesi, a woodcut by Dürer and a fine collection of porcelain, including 18th-century decorative Chinese plates. Peter I House Museum Mäekalda 2, T 644 6553, http://www.linnamuuseum.ee. May-Sep, Wed-Sun 1030-1730. 10 EEK, children 5 EEK, free with Tallinn Card. The great Tsar stayed in what he called his “cottage in the woods” before work on the much grander palace began. Inside, the modest living room, bedroom, dining room and kitchen are furnished with period items and a few of Peter’s possessions. The pink-and-white neoclassical Residence of the President (30a Weizenbergi) lies behind the palace. Further up and to the right stands the peeling orange former school building that is to house the new Russian Museum. Eduard Vilde Memorial Museum Roheline aas 3, T 601 3181. Wed-Mon 1100-1800. 10 EEK, free with Tallinn Card. Housed in the pink palace governor’s home, a kind of bonsai version of the Palace, this museum celebrates the life and work of the one of the nation’s greatest writers. Post-independence, the inter-war government gave him the house where he spent the last years of his life, in recognition of his work. Anton Hansen Tammsaare Museum Koidula 12a, T 601 3232. Wed-Sun 1100-1800. 10 EEK, free with Tallinn Card. This romantic, slightly tumbledown green wooden villa was the last residence of Tammsaare, best known for the five-part epic Truth and Justice. A bust in the garden shows the retiring writer looking characteristically reflective. Inside, you can visit his modest family flat, one of four in the building. You can see the maid’s room, the 1930s-style dining room, the author’s study and the lovely verandah, where, owing to stomach complications, Tammsaare would write standing up. Some of the exhibits are wonderfully evocative of pre-war Estonia, including the menu and orchestra programme for an evening at the celebrated Kuldlovi (Golden Lion) hotel, destroyed in the Soviet bombing raid of March 1944. Russalka monument This moving sculpture of an angel looking out to sea commemorates the loss of 177 soldiers who drowned when the Russalka (’Mermaid’) sank on its way to Finland in 1893. The rough rocks around the pedestal evoke waves on a stormy sea. In July 2003, the wreck of the vessel was found near Finland in the Finnish Gulf.
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