WHY TALLINN?

A medieval Old Town unrivaled in authenticity, a Gothic city on the sea where free WiFi is a human right.

The winding cobblestone streets of Tallinn’s Old Town lead you past massive stone Gothic strongholds and churches. Perched around Town Hall Square you see the limestone arches of the Old Town Hall with the statue of Vana Toomas peering down on you from the weathervane, the skinny structure of the Reapteek pharmacy, still dispensing medicine after 600 years, the imposing Great Guild Hall daring you to say a word against it, and the ornately decorated House of the Blackheads, home to bachelor-nobles in its day. What you see has been standing since the Medieval times and nowhere else in Europe can you have such an authentic Gothic experience. But some things have changed. Connectivity is everywhere, so you can download your emails as you walk or stop in a café and Skype home for free.

History is always present, but Estonia is on the cutting edge in terms of technology and innovations. Not only is this the hometown of Skype, but also of the NATO Center of Excellence for Cooperative Cyber Defense to ‚counter the disruption or penetration of information and communications systems‘. Logical, since Tallinn has put itself on the list of „Intelligent Communities“ worldwide that have dived into the Information Age: business and government level e-conferences, e-school platforms, e-banking…they’ve been doing that here for over a decade. Estonia has plans for ‚dispercity‘, a neologism that refers to infusing dispersed settlements with urban life quality. If anyone can do it, the Estonians can.

Unlike other key coastal cities, Tallinn is not at the mouth of a major river, but its river, the little Pirita, is an exceptionally beautiful locale and the valley around it is protected. This gorgeous place attracts not only family vacationers, but also spiritual seekers and celebrities like bees to a pot of honey. And, Estonians also know how to party. Tallinn has been known for its spirited nightlife for several generations. Post-modern artistry is in evidence here, hung on walls and nestled in display cases, and also decorating the fashion conscious that walk the cobblestones; again, this art blends all available resources with a great simplicity that still somehow brings out what is new and true today.

Old history is much more in evidence in the architectural landscape of Tallinn than in St. Petersburg, which has no buildings over three centuries old, or even in a place like Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany, where much of the old architecture is still intact, but the atmosphere feels sterile.  The Aleksander Nevski cathedral shapes the panorama of the Old Town on Toompea Hill. This is where it all started. The first fortress was built here in 1050 and later the cathedral that gave Toompea, or Cathedral Hill, its name. The architecture that grew up around the hill reflect the fortunes of the city through the centuries: the trade-based prosperity of the 14^th to the 16^th centuries, the Tsarist partiality to Classic and Baroque facades, inspired Functionalism and Modernity from the first period of independence, and then the Neo-functionalism that was a very Estonian response to soulless Soviet architectural monstrosities. The Estonian genius somehow manages to integrate each new development so that the past remains unscathed and intact at its Gothic core.