Tallinn: Goodbye Soviets, Hello Scandanavia

After spending the first day in Tallinn exploring the old town, we had planned to go to Helsinki for a day. Unfortunately the weather was terrible and the ferry had been cancelled.

We instead decided to explore the city outside of the old town, and had a great time doing so. The extra day of exploration really allowed us to get a look at the more recent influences in Tallinn, being the Soviet influences and the more modern, Scandinavian influences. Modern Estonia is certainly positioning itself to be seen as a part of Scandinavia as far as I could tell, and they seemed to be doing a good job of it. It’s a great, modern, high-tech, design conscious place.

tallinn modern architecture

tallinn modern architecture

tallinn modern architecture

Upon learning that our ferry to Helsinki had been cancelled, we decided to walk to the Defence Forces Cemetery of Tallinn. Tallinn is a very small town, so after less than 2 hours (about 3km walk) we’d reached the Cemetery and were almost at the airport!

tallinn modern architecture

tallinn modern architecture

tallinn modern architecture

tallinn modern architecture

These really cool colour changing Christmas decorations were hanging on trees all over the city centre.

tallinn modern architecture

I was really struck by “something” about this building. I just found it fascinating.

tallinn modern architecture

tallinn modern architecture

Lots of council blocks in this part of town, just outside of the Cemetery (which is right next to an operating military base).

tallinn modern architecture

A sign of the times. EU funded high speed rail being built.

The “Bronze Soldier of Tallinn” was originally built by the Soviets in a park in the city centre and called “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn”. There has always been a lot of controversy around it, and since the fall of the USSR, it was trashed several times. In 2007 the government decided to rename it and move it to its current location.

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