After the charms of the Old Town, sprawling Vabaduse square, with an ugly car park at its heart, is almost shocking. On closer inspection, however, its eclectic muddle of pre- and post-war buildings comprises some of the city’s finest 20th-century architecture. East of Vabaduse are bustling arteries Pärnu maantee and Estonia puiestee, home of the city’s beloved opera house. To the west stands stolid Kaarli Kirik (Charles church), built during the Tsarist period as as strong Estonian answer to the Russian dominance of the Nevsky Cathedral. Many of the more business-oriented hotels and banks can be found between Vabaduse and Liivalaia (Dune street), to the south. The first upmarket department store to arrive in the 1990s, the Finnish-run Stockmann, sprung up here, giving its name to the eastern end of the street. Although the whole area is prosaically labelled Kesklinn (town centre), individual neighbourhoods have more poetic names, such as Onion Village. SightsVabaduse väljak (Freedom Square) In medieval days, this square was a hay and wood market, from which cattle were led through Karja (“herd”) Gate into the Old Town. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Russian rule in 1910, the square was named Peetri plats (Peter Square) and a bronze statue of Peter the Great was erected. Peter was pulled down during the early years of Estonian independence, when the square was renamed Freedom Square, and the base of the statue was used to mint the new republic’s five-cent coins. Most of the buildings on the square date back to the 1920s and 1930s. On the south side, the Gloria Palace Cinema (1926) with its sculpted wreaths, grapes and lions, is now the Russian Drama Theatre. The grimy Palace Hotel, unofficial headquarters for foreign diplomats during the heady early 1990s, was built in the mid-1930s. The clinker-clad, expressionist-style City Government building (number 7), with lantern carriers on the façade, raised brick patterns and sculpted foliage, is stunning at night when the central stairwell is illuminated. On the north side, take a look at the Functionalist Art Building, its simplicity tempered by the protruding square of glass at the centre of its façade, and the neighbouring Stalinist structure, decorated with sculpted flames and now home to the the Association of Artists. The lonesome- looking, apricot-coloured Jaani Kirik (St John’s Church) was built in the 1860s for the Lutheran congregation. The newest building here is the slim, wavy glass-panelled Kawe Plaza. Leading south from Vabaduse is Roosikrantsi (Rosary street), so named because this was where prisoners were led out of town to the gallows. One of the loveliest buildings, halfway down at number 15, is a Jugendstil white-and-orange apartment house with curved balconies. Join traffic-heavy Pärnu maantee and it’s a five-minute walk to Christian Luther’s Villa (number 67), one of the finest examples of Jugendstil in Estonia. Formerly the home of a plywood magnate, it is now the registry office. National library Tõnismägi 2, T 630 7150. Sep-Jun Mon-Fri 1000-2000, Sat 1100-1800, Jul-Aug Mon-Fri 1200-1900. Day pass 5 EEK, free with Tallinn Card. This imposing limestone structure, with tinted window, is a masterpiece of Soviet-Estonian architecture. Although some locals say it’s oppressive and smacks of the Soviet era, it is impressive and uplifting inside, with vaulting giving an intimate feel to its hugeness, and the stained-glass window is arresting. Climbing the smooth broad steps, you’d swear they were marble; they are in fact a polished version of the local limestone, its poor cousin. Kaarli Kirik Toompuiestee 4, T 611 9011. Services in Estonian Sun 1000. The yellowy limestone neo-Romanesque church was completed in 1882 on the site of a former wooden church of the same name. It’s home to the first fresco in Estonian art history, Johann Koler’s “Come to Me”, and to one of the country’s most powerful organs. Museum of Occupations Toompea 8, T 668 0250, http://www.okupatsioon.ee. Sun-Tue 1100-1800. 10 EEK, free with Tallinn Card. This large, modern display traces the country’s history from the 2nd World War to the end of the Soviet occupation in 1991. Boats and piles of suitcases in the hall evoke the flight and deportation of Estonians during the war, but the display cases containing boots, shoes and army uniform paraphernalia are a little old fashioned. The chief draw is the black and white 2nd World War film footage; English commentary is available and is wryly entertaining. Sakala Head back east to Pärnu maantee (a good five minutes’ walk) and south onto Rävala puiestee, where you will be struck by the self-important limestone Sakala Conference Centre (number 12), once the Political Education Centre for the Estonian Communist Party. Incongruously church-like in design, with buttresses and a chunky tower, it was dubbed “Karl’s Cathedral” in Soviet times, after Karl Vaino, the party chief. Sakala leads northeast into Sibulaküla (Onion Village), named after the Russian civil servants who received plots of land here in the 18th century and grew these all-important vegetables here. Islandi Square here is named in honour of Iceland, the first country to recognize Estonia’s renewed independence in 1991. Pank Muuseum (Estonian Bank Museum) Estonia puiestee 11, T 668 0760. Wed-Fri 1200-1700. Free. Housed in the neogothic Bank Building (1902-04), topped with a lion-shaped weather vane and mosaics of Tallinn’s spires on its red-brick façade, this museum is devoted to the various currencies that have been in use in Estonia from Tsarist days to the euro age. The wax figures of those who have appeared on Estonian banknotes are eerily life-like, enough to deceive you into thinking that you are not, as in so many museums in Tallinn, the only visitor. Estonia Theatre and Estonia Concert Hall Estonia puiestee 4, T 626 0260. Box office 1200-1900. These twin cream-and-yellow neoclassical buildings, with pagoda-style green-tiled roofs and decorative urns were erected, despite protests from the Tsarist authorities, with money donated by Estonians, for whom the creation of a national theatre was an enormous boost. An impoverished poet, Juhan Liiv, famously donated his sole possession, the coat from his back, which he reverently laid on the ground outside. The theatre was built on a marketplace where, in 1905, scores of Estonian demonstrators were massacred by Tsarist troops. On nearby Georg Otsa Street there is a monument to the Tallinn teachers and students who lost their lives during the Estonian War of Independence. Destroyed by the Soviets in 1940 (students and teachers who protested were arrested, and some were never seen again), it was replaced in 1993. Estonian Drama Theatre Pärnu maantee 5, T 644 3976, http://www.dramateater.ee. Closed in August. Originally the German Theatre (1910), this lovely venue with green trimmings and stretched oval windows was built in romantic Jugendstil style. Across the way at Pärnu maantee 10 stands a vast bank and apartment building with staggeringly steep entrance steps which was designed by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen. Tatari Head southwest to nearby Tatari, a neighbourhood named after Russian troops who were based here in the 16th century during the Livonian War. Amid the steel and glass that characterizes much of the Kesklinn, the somewhat dilapidated 19th-century wooden houses between Tatari and Süda streets, with peaceful courtyards and gardens, come as something of a relief. It’s a good 10-minute walk down to Liivalaia, where the most interesting sights are at its eastern end near Tartu maantee. Stockmann department store has a lumpen exterior but its bright interior is an eloquent symbol of Estonia’s Scandinavian orientation. Although the street was bombed beyond recognition in the 2nd World War, a handful of wooden buildings give a sense of how beautiful it once was: the house with blue turret on the corner of Liivalaia and Lennuki, and, across the street, the small, green onion- domed Church of Our Lady of Kazan (Liivalaia 38, T 660 7990. 0900-1400), the oldest preserved wooden church in Tallinn, built in 1721. At the corner of Liivalaia and Tartu maantee stands Stalin’s Palace (Tartu maantee 24, built 1954), a pompous and unmistakably Stalinist “wedding cake”, its church-like spire topped with laurel wreath and pointed star.
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