9-3-19 - Tallinn, Estonia - powerful history and walking on the edge
/Day 79.
An observation, albeit a generalization, cafes and coffee shops in Europe the past few countries are generally sloooow. I commend the laid back approach but sloooow + 7 people = no Bueno when we have a lot of see and do in our only full day in Tallinn. For this reason, I have no choice but to bend a knee to the Evil Empire. While McDonalds is still slow by American standards, it is light years faster than the cafes which are sit down service.
Along the way there are expansive flower gardens. I am taking pictures of the flowers when Leanne arises out of the flowers and ends up in my picture. How did that happen? I am so in awe that I have deigned her Leanne, of the houses Pyott and Huebner, first of her name, Queen of the Flowers and protector of Gardens and Parks. She is honored by her Game of Thrones appointment.
First real stop is St. Nicolas Church was founded in the mid-13thcentury by German merchants. The church was dedicated to St. Nicolas, the patron saint of merchants and seafarers. The church houses a collection of ecclesiastical art from the Medieval and Early Modern periods. The best-known work is the painting Danse Macabre, by Bernt Notke at the end of the 15thcentury. The work on display is 7.5 meters long but the original painting was thought to have been 30 meters long. This work is the only surviving Dance of Death in the world painted on canvas.
The Dance of Death invites one to contemplate the transience of life and universality of death. In the Dance of Death, people are lined up according to their social status (starting with pope, emperor and ending with peasants and jesters) and all are dancing with skeletal figures of death. As I stand there looking at it, my most terrifying thought is the Night King and his army of the dead have come to Estonia.
Next stop if the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which is a highly impressive Russian Orthodox Cathedral. John tells us that the Estonians built the cathedral from 1894 – 1900 when they were under imperial Russian rule as a way to impress Russia and that many Estonians joined the Russian Orthodox Church not for any religious reason but purely as a way to curry favor with their Russian rulers. Inside the church, Leanne doesn’t see the sign with a picture of a camera and huge red circle and X through it and takes a picture. The security guard comes charging at her bellowing out “no, no, no!” Ut-oh. This is apparently one of those places where no cameras actually means no cameras (unlike the Russian Folk Show). Visions of Leanne in a Siberian prison camp float in front of me and I suggest that maybe we’ve overstayed our welcome here.
We walk to the Estonian Freedom Square which has a monument that is a tall pillar with a cross on top. I find this a little odd given their lack of religious roots but who am I to tell the Estonians how to celebrate their independence. We than walk to the Estonian National Opera house (which has become a requirement for every city as our family tour guide seems to be a big fan of opera). It is a picture stop as we aren’t allowed inside.
Next up is the Vabamu Museum of Occupation and Freedom which tells the history of Estonia living under Soviet and Germany occupation during WWI, WWII and the cold war. The museum was totally interactive and told the history through the stories of actual people during those times. We think it was extremely well done as it was more moving hearing about from the perspective of the people instead of just reading a factual account of events.
The first one is a woman telling her story of how the Soviets broke into her apartment in the middle of the night, seized her and dragged her away leaving her 7 year old daughter behind. She was sent to Siberia to work in a hard labor camp for 9 years not knowing what happened to her daughter. It turns out that there were mass deportations done in the 1940’s not just in Estonia but Latvia and Lithuania as well. As we walk out of Museum, we talk with the kids about what freedom means and imaging if they lived in their world world where they could be taken and deported, put in prison or killed for doing nothing wrong. Yes, we all appreciate our freedom and yet are saddened by what innocent people had to endure in the previous century.
Next up is Kumu – The Art Museum of Estonia and on the way, we stop at Kadriorg Park where Leanne, the newly crowned Queen of the flowers, poses for pictures with the park’s most magnificent flowers. The paintings are quite enjoyable. I prefer landscapes over portraits and am treated to a number of wonderful landscape scenes. There are paintings by Konrad Magi in the style of Monet and Van Gogh. Then we arrive at a ginormous room with head statues lining an entire wall. OMG – it’s the Many-Faced God – so Game of Thrones. The Kumu just rose several spots in the ranking of art museums we’ve visited.
The final part of the museum is artwork from the Soviet occupied period of 1940 – 1991 where all art had to comply with the ideology of the communist party. There is a section which displayed a number of satirical communist jokes such as - during a lesson, the teacher says, “God sent the crow a little piece of cheese.” The student responds “but teacher, you said God didn’t exist.” “Well, we aren’t allowed to have cheese either so what do you want me to do, dismiss the class?”
Our final activity for the day is the Tallinn TV tower which has an observation tower which is ~75 meters high. We are pretty wiped out from the day so we are relieved to find out they have an elevator and we don’t have to walk 2,000 steps up. As we are standing in the lobby, I realize I don’t have my backpack. On the positive side, it was almost empty and didn’t have anything of value in it. On the other hand, I don’t have my backpack. My amazing wife offers to take an Uber back to the Kumu to see if I left it there. What an angel she is and I take the kids up to the top.
After looking around for a while, we come across a desk and big sign that says “Edge Walk” showing people walking along the edge of the outside of the tower 75 meters high. Justin looks at me and says “dad, we have to do it.” I’m all on board but I respond, “I’m not sure how your mother would feel about us doing it.” Justin proceeds to ask the desk clerk “has anyone ever died doing this?” The desk clerk looks amused and responds, “not that I know of.” Justin turns back to me and says, “that settles it dad, we’re doing it!”
I text Leanne and ask for her blessing (aka permission) to do the Edge Walk. Over the next 5 minutes she sends texts saying how much she loves us and how much she is going to miss us. I’m guessing she wished she didn’t volunteer to get my backpack right about now. Before you (the audience) pick up the phone to report me to child protective services, we are seriously securely harnessed to the side of the tower. No way that thing is ever coming off…
We proceed to do the Edge Walk and in reality, it is totally safe and not even “that” scary. At one point, we sit on the side of the edge with our feet and legs dangling off and get into a discussion with our guide Trinn about life in Tallinn. She says that she is from Tartu which is their university city which she would much prefer to live in but there are too few jobs relative to Tallinn so she moved here a year ago. I’m guessing there was no Edge Walk guide job posting in Tartu. Leanne even takes pictures as she urges us to hurry up, finish the walk and get the hell inside which we do and another adventure box is checked. Although I must say that the cliff jumping in Dubrovnik and black water rafting in New Zealand were way scarier.
Outside the TV Tower, there is a park with a zipline swing about 10 meters long. Everyone takes turn on the zip swing as we take slow-motion videos.We end the night eating at a pizza restaurant on the square right outside our Airbnb.
