Today I met with my new tour group at hostel in Tallinn in Estonia. An excellent collection of Australians, Americans and one Brit. We started off by meeting the lovely Anna our busabout tour guide who was actually German and has a very funny dry wit and when telling us stories makes them so matter of fact.
We dumped our bags and went on a walking tour of Tallinn which is the capital of Estonia. It was a funny old day sunny but with this freezing cold mist that wafted off the sea.
We walked around the outskirts of the city and saw the old city walls and then into old town. Poor old Estonia had been through the wars, invaded by first the Danish, then the Swedish, then Russians, then Germans and then Russians again. While behind the Iron curtain 1/3 of the population was sent to workers camps and the country was repopulated with Russians. This means there is a heavy Russian influence in the country.
We actually arrived in the middle of their annual folk song festival so there was a fantastic vibe in the city. People were walking around and just randomly singing and in traditional folk dress.
The song festival dates back to when Estonia was under soviet union rule and didn't want to be. Whilst under the soviet rule they weren't allowed to exhibit any of their traditional history and were severely repressed.
In 1987 in act of peaceful resistance 5000 people came to freedom square (called something else back then) and sang their folk songs. Then they did it again in '88 but this time 20,000 people came. Then in 1989 the Baltic Chain was created where 2,000,000 stood in 600km human chain across the 3 Baltic states and held hands in peaceful resistance. This marked the collapse of the soviet union and the eventual freedom of Estonia. So they mark the occasion by having the folk festival.
Tallinn especially gets into the theme of mediaeval times with themed restaurants and archery. They also offer bear on the menu for a fairly exorbitant price.
I befriended to lovely girls from Brisbane both conveniently called Megan and a nice pharmacist from las Vegas called Albert. We went in search of food and found a little cave like restaurant that served elk soup from a big vat, pickles that you could fish for and these delicious pies, golden pastry and plethora of fillings (choices included cow, pig, apple, spinach, apple and elk). The soup was amazing and it cost about €6 for 2 pies and soup and the hilarity of the barmaid who determinedly stayed in character the whole time!
So that was that for Estonia because then it was on to the ferry bound for Finland. We crossed the Baltic sea caught to trams and we were in Helsinki!
Another walking tour and we heard how Finland were under Swedish rule for about 600 years and were unimpressed by that and felt very repressed so they asked the Russians to come in and get rid of the Swede's. The current Russian ruler Alexander II Czar was very benevolent and once in he allowed the Finnish to create their own language, gave them the capital of Helsinki and said go ahead and govern yourselves. The czar was pretty happy with how it was going in Finland and thought about doing that in Russia and was all set to sign the paperwork that would make him just a figurehead and then he was assassinated (survived 8 other attempts but they got him in the end). His son who succeeded him decided to forget his dad's plan and just stay ultimate ruler but that didn't work out either because it marked the beginning of the Russian revolution.
The Finnish broke free of the Russians in 1918 and managed to keep a precocious hold on their country by playing the Germans off the Russians and making pacts that meant they didn't get invaded.
The Finnish are a pretty cool lot, they have a wife carrying festival (if you win you get your wife's weight in beer), a mosquito killing festival (23 is the number to beat in 5 mins) and a mobile phone throwing contest.
After the walking tour we went out for some traditional Finnish food, reindeer and salmon. A drink in a pop up pub and then we ended the night by going to the top floor of a hotel that was reputed to have a toilet with the best view in Finland. It took us awhile to find it but was spectacular especially because we were there in time for the sunset!!
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