from Tartu, Estonia: winter ramble

Estonia’s “red white and blue” is “blue black and white.” They are powerful words here – symbols of nationhood and patriotism. I’m not sure how the Estonian flag came to have those colors. They look a little severe. Maybe it’s all that was left. Estonia, after all, was sadly late in getting its independence.

Tallinn is the capital, but they say that Tartu is the soul. The cultural center of Estonia. Tartu is in the south and it is a major university town. It’s also very small for a city that claims soul-hood (100,000). But I know all about old university cities that feel a great cultural preeminence (Krakow comes to mind) and so I am sympathetic.

I’m sitting on a bus, heading out to Tartu. Estonia is a rare European bird in that it does not have much of a rail system. It hasn’t much of a highway system either. I assume that an Estonian, placed on a German autobahn, would freak.

But the bus is nice. Of course, I get it all wrong. I can’t read the schedule properly, I sit in the wrong seat (who knew that they would assign) and, embarrassingly, on the ride back, I try to evict a nice old lady from a seat I think really is properly mine (another, wiser Estonian tells me: just sit somewhere else; seating rules must be broken if an older lady digs in her sensible black shoes; I nod and move elsewhere).

I am eager to see the countryside. If Tallinn is the capital and Tartu is the soul, I want also the heart of the country – the towns and villages that make up its core.

But I see no town or village. Two hundred kilometers of road that passes through not a single cluster of houses.

I do note the forests. Beautiful forests of birches and pines…





…and a rare farmstead. And, almost every farm has evidence of a bird that we, in Poland, and obviously here as well, regard as somewhat of a regional treasure: the stork. The graceful, wonderful, bundle-bearing creature that comes in spring and leaves at the end of summer.





And suddenly, we are in Tartu. The bus depot is to the side and I follow others toward what I hope will be the center. The streets are wet and muddy. It’s not raining, not at all, but there is undeniable slush everywhere and if you ever doubt that money spent on street cleaning is a good investment, you need only travel to Poland or Estonia in the winter and walk down streets that haven’t had this spray of luxury in a while.

Tartu is very different from Tallinn. I see it right away. Assertive. Bold. If I thought Estonians are reserved, I’ll change my mind here. Toward the center, you’ll find this monument:





The sculptor depicted himself and his one and a half year old son – to commemorate Children’s Day in the year 2004.

Or, on the main square, you’ll find this, placed here on the eve of the new millennium:





Note her short skirt, his tight embrace. The Tartu residents mocked it for being too modern for this neo-classical square, but it’s come to appear on nearly every picture symbolizing this city.

About the square. It’s supremely lovely, but you have to also love Christmas (and I do) to appreciate it now. Here, take a look:





I am, however, hungry for a walk in the country. And I know there’s a path along the river bank that heads way up, away from the town. I find it and set out. I have only a handful of hours before it gets dark. The gray skies do little to take away from the beauty of a cluster of birches, or of the grand sweep of willows. Spend a quiet moment with me on this walk:
























I get lost in thought and photos and I hardly notice the time. I’ve run into a man and his mutt and another guy fishing. No one else. And yet, Estonia feels as safe to me as Poland did in my childhood days. My sister tells me things have changed (in Poland), and yet, I continue to feel safe, in ways that I rarely do when walking alone on deserted city streets or country paths on the other side of the ocean.

I see the lights of Tartu in the distance. I turn around and head back.






In Tartu, I pause at the legendary Wilde Café. It’s a play on words. It’s Vilde, the Estonian, juxtaposed with Wilde, the Irishman. Here they are, in front of the café, engaged in banter:





It’s lovely inside. Deeply comfortable chairs, old printing presses, an adjacent bookstore. And warm tea and “grandma’s cake:” apple raspberry, with whipped cream. Okay, so they were generous with the cream:





Very late in the evening, I am back in Tallinn. I am keeping to the deeply Estonian mood of the day and so I head to Grandma’s Place – a small cellar restaurant that has been serving Estonian food to Estonians and tourists for years.





It is a warm place and the waitress, who has been part of the establishment for a long time, absolutely blows away the image of the staid Tallinnian. (If I want staid and solid, I'll look to the Estonian couple on the other side of the room. They don't smile. At all. Ever.)





My waitress is not from Tallinn, but from the south. She is all smiles and she is efficient and warm and I let her pick out the truly Estonian dishes, even as I know what I am in for, because I see most other Estonians in the room eating the same (pork and sauerkraut).



herring, onions and sour cream



pork, sauerkraut, potatoes

I am not a fan of pork because it recalls the decades where Polish restaurants (to which we were exiled on our summer trips back home before finally moving back to Warsaw in the sixties) had nothing but pork. Oh sure, there would be other menu items on lists, but if you asked for any of them, you would get the famous “nie ma” (we don’t have any of it). But I eat the pork now, with the familiar beet salad and horseradish and pickled onions (and potatoes, never forget the potatoes) and I even enjoy it in the way that you do when you know you don’t have to have it for another… several years.

I leave in the glow of a warm dinner, finished off by a baked apple and a glass of Estonian apple wine.





I hardly notice the cold dampness of the empty streets. Comfort foods make you forget the weather. For a while.

from Tallinn, Estonia: Russian moments

Clouds roll in, then retreat. Time to go outside, to walk, up and down well beaten Tallinn paths and to think about it all. Especially about the Russian presence here.

It’s Sunday and so I set out for a park. A big deal park here: the Kadriorg Park, along with the 18th century Kadriorg Palace—a gift from Peter the Great to his sweetie. She was to become an empress eventually, but you have to wonder if it was worth it, considering the sleeping around she had to do (not of her own choice) to rise from servant to empress. Life is about finding ways to cope.

I take the tram to its last stop. I know I must buy a ticket on the tram, but where? I walk back and forth in search of a conductor. No such person. The tram driver sits behind a glass partition. I ask one of the passengers – sorry, but where are the tickets? A finger points to the driver. I hand over 15 KR and she slips me a ticket. Next challenge: where do I “cancel” it? This is standard East Europe stuff: cancel, or risk arrest. Or huge fines. Or both.

I slip my ticket into what appears to be a cancelling machine. Nothing happens. Flip it over. Nothing. Everyone in the entire tram is staring at me. I shrug and rehearse the “I tried” defense in case a controller hops on board.

Only at the very end of the ride do I figure out that I used the wrong cancelling machine. Should’ve aimed for the other one. Who knew.




Have I mentioned that Estonian people appear to be…reserved?

The park is nearly empty. And so less significant than, Warsaw’s Lazienki! But, maybe that’s me, jostling for my own people and their contributions to posterity in this corner of Europe.





Katerina’s little nest egg is lovely though. It’s a museum now, with international art. Nice paintings. Best are the portraits of the Tsar-folk, including Katerina and her Peter.

A group of young girls is having a museum birthday party. Cool! Better than Fast Forward (Madison’s roller skating venue)! A museum person enchants them with Katerina’s treasure trove of essentials. They giggle. I giggle. They move on. I linger.





The little palace is close to the sea and so I take a stroll toward the water. There is a monument, with an inscription in Russian. I read the words, but I cannot place the commemoration. Ships? Lost hope? On the part of the Russians? Here? I ask someone nearby and he explains: it’s a monument to commemorate the loss of the Russian war vessel that traveled between here and Helsinki in 1893. Sinking ships, sinking powers of dictatorships, is that all in the past?





The Baltic waves hit the shore gently. The water looks unwelcoming. I know this is unfair. It’s the Baltic, for God’s sake, not the Mediterranean. And it’s December. And a gray December at that.





The birds jump waves, artfully, playfully. I watch. In a few days the deep freeze is coming. I’ll be gone by then. In any event, this is plenty cold for me.




On my way out, I pause at the old Coffee House (it’s part of the estate. So it’s old). I drink a good Russian style tea and eat with great pleasure a poppy seed pastry. Better than great! A flood of sweet childhood memories hits me. Of dense, sweet poppyseeds, of warm cafés, of life in this part of the world.





I head back to the Old Town. Or rather, new Tallinn in old quarters. I pass children skating in the shadows of St. Nicolas church.





And still, there is the Alexander Nevsky cathedral, looming over us all. Staring down at the city that dared defy the Russians. And now, a Santa dangles from a townhouse and children skate and the indications are that all’s well here, in Estonia. Leadership crises and political corruption notwithstanding. I should talk... I’m from Poland after all.





I want to spend the afternoon at the Museum of the Occupation. When I first heard of it, I thought, incorrectly: oh, it’s about World War II. I’ve since found out that the museum documents the Soviet occupation – from 1940 until 1991.

But I cannot find the Museum. I ask one Estonian looking couple. No, we’re not Estonian. No clue. I ask an older woman. Surely she is a local. She is that. She answers in stern Russian – ya nye ponyemayu ( I don’t understand). She walks on. I could have persevered, in Russian. I’m okay with that much of it, but I let it go.

Is it hard to be Russian in Estonia? What if you once believed in the Soviet Union? What if the ideology (if not its leadership) appealed to your sense of fairplay? My family was like that. It was a long time before they gave up and walked away from it all. I had left home by then.

The Museum is so painful! An independent nation (finally!), vowing neutrality during the war, then aligning itself with the Nazis with the hope of preserving its nationhood, then finding that not Germany nor the Red Army would support a free state. The war years and those immediately after are like a confusing nightmare where you don’t know which person will stab you first. Except we know the real outcome – Estonia becomes part of the Soviet Union. At the very beginning of the war, the Germans struck a deal with Stalin. Sort of like handing over Katerina to Peter the Great. Here, you take Estonia.

I watch news clips. Survivors, recalling this period of occupation. It’s not the Russians we despise. It’s the government!

Well yes, sure, I understand the distinction. And yet, the Russian families came to this place to find a better life in this conquered land. They didn’t come to Estonia. They came to the Soviet state of Estonia. Who can sort this stuff out now?

I look at the row of suitcases.





They once held the belongings of those who sought to escape. From the Germans, the Russians…

And in the basement, I see the old statues. Torn down from the streets of Tallinn just in the last decade. Fallen heroes of the Soviet Union.






I walk back to the old town. A trolley bus rattles past. That and the tram cars – staples of transportation in post-war Poland as well. The buildings I pass – Same design, same windows. Same street signs, too, as those back home.





I’m back at the Christmas Market now. And now I hear it everywhere. Russian. Only Russian. Yesterday, my ears were picking out Estonian. Today it’s Russian.





A Russian here must learn Estonian to gain citizenship. A vast number remains here without citizenship. Estonian citizenship brings freedom of travel abroad. But Estonian citizenship means that you need a visa to enter Russia. What if your friends and relatives live in Russia?

I head for a sauna at a nearby hotel. So uncontroversial. I sit and I count the minutes. Saunas always make me feel as if I am one step from suffocating. I walk out when I can’t take any more of it. Maybe it is why I find them so comforting. I survived. Still breathing. Yay.

But there’s one more chapter to this day. I have picked Troika, a Russian restaurant, for dinner.

A woman croons the melodic ballads of Russia. Vodka? The waitress asks. I deliberate, then pass. I’ll drink the Georgian wine from Tbilisi, I tell her. I traveled there once. With my father and mother. When that country, too, was a Soviet state.

I eat meat dumplings and Vladivostock catfish. And boiled potatoes. I ask for some veggies or a salad and I’m given a huge plate of pickles, with honey and sour cream for dipping.













Yes, I eat it all. It’s food as I remember it. The food of Eastern Europe. Some drown their worries in vodka. Me, I eat dumplings and catfish and pickles.

from Tallinn, Estonia: generations

It really is blustery out by the sea. I’m prepared. Hearty breakfast,




…warm outerwear, an umbrella… But it’s tough going. The wind inverts my umbrella, rain pellets spray my photo lens.

I walk to the shore, to see another face of Tallinn. A factory, an old theater with a sadly neglected open space leading toward the water. A group of girls, out for a Saturday morning away from family. They don’t mind the weather. Indeed, no one here seems to mind it. It could be so much worse.










In the distance I see the ferry boats. There’s a frequent run to Helsinki and a somewhat less frequent run to Stockholm.

Run to Stockholm. How could you not choke on that one? In 1994, the huge ferry ship, the Estonia, sank off shore, on her way to Stockholm. More than 850 died. There is a memorial to this tragedy. He is lost in thought as he looks the “broken line” monument. Did he know someone? Does he remember?





I walk back toward the old town. Colorful. That's its joy -- the brightness, even on a gray, wet day.





The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral went up during a period of intense "Russification" of this country. I try the door. Closed. They say Russians come here in packs. If they do, they may be the last of the church goers. Estonia is one of the least religious contries in Europe. Fewer than a third claim any religious affiliation at all.




It's quiet in these hilly parts of old Tallinn. You can think about this city from up here. The roofs spill out to the sea on one end (yes, the ferries are in, collecting passangers for Finland and Sweden)...





...and onto new Tallinn at the other end. Recent buildings. The higher the better.





Down the hill again. I'm drawn to the commercial heart of the old town. That's where you pick up the fragments of daily life. In the rose this guy buys for his wife:





...in the animated yet very private conversation of four old Russian women, looking over the wicker baskets at the market:




...in an appetite for blood sausage and cabbage:





At the Christmas market I watch a group of children getting ready to go on a small stage.




And now, finally, I hear laughter. Parents, looking at the precious young things, adjusting a cap, pulling up a mitten, waving, taking pictures. The sweet faces of young families. Children born in Estonia. They'll hear stories of past invadors. History lessons. Its not the story of their generation.

They climb on stage and give in to the joy of music. No Russian songs -- all Estonian. With an American thrown in. Hip-hop Christmas. Watch the show for a dfew seconds through this handful of photos:





















This is the kind of stuff that makes my eyes spill over. Kids, happy kids, cared for, fussed over, but just a little. A pat on the shoulder, a chuckle and a treat of a cookie at Santa's (though for the Estonian Santa, a kid has to recite or sing something before spilling out a wish or asking for a cookie).





Families. Tourists. Hot wine and hot pea soup. Roasted chocolate covered almonds. And to really warm up, go in to the coffee shops. I do. Over my cappucino and pound cake, I watch the others. A mixture. Young and old.






Back at my hotel, the fireplace is heating me from the outside. A glass of rosé does the trick on the inside.









Leave this to search for dinner? Not a chance. I eat at the hotel: fish soup and duck meat in lingonberry (!)sauce. Hearty and very good. Only the price of it will push me out in search of other foods tomorrow.