Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
• Leaving the church, turn left and hook around the back of the building. You'll pass the
slanted tree and the big, green, former noblemen's clubhouse on your right (vacated when
Germans left Estonia in the 1930s), then go down cobbled Rahukohtu lane. Government
offices and embassies have moved into the buildings and spruced up the neighborhood.
But as you pass under the yellow Patkuli Vaateplats arch, notice a surviving ramshackle
bit of the 1980s. Just a few years ago, the entire city looked like this.
Belly up to the grand...
Patkuli Viewpoint: Survey the scene. On the far left, the Neoclassical facade of
the executive branch of Estonia's government enjoys the view. Below you, a bit of the old
moat remains. The Group sign marks Tallinn's tiny train station, and the clutter of stalls
behind that is the rustic market. Out on the water, ferries shuttle to and from Helsinki (just
50 miles away). Beyond the lower town's medieval wall and towers stands the green spire
of St. Olav's Church, once 98 feet taller and, locals claim, the world's tallest tower in 1492.
Far in the distance is the 985-foot-tall TV tower (much appreciated by Estonians for hero-
ically keeping the people's airwaves open during the harrowing days when they won inde-
pendence from the USSR). During Soviet domination, though, Finnish TV was even more
important, as it gave Estonians their only look at Western lifestyles. Imagine: In the 1980s,
many locals had never seen a banana or pineapple—except on TV. People still talk of the
day that Finland broadcast the soft-porn movie Emmanuelle . A historic migration of Esto-
nians purportedly flocked from the countryside to Tallinn to get within rabbit-ear's distance
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