Tag: Tallinn

Steve found this rather decadent food option for breakfast and it was near to where we needed to get our tram from. The queue wasn’t too bad when we got there, but at times it’s evidently a victim of its own success with a shifting line that sometimes snaked outside the door and onto the pavement.

The breakfast selection.

My blurry photo of the kitchen, but it’ll have to do. The cafe is cosy but modern, not an easy design model to be able to deliver. There’s also some high seating, which is my personal favourite arrangement for being comfortable, although I’m aware that others vary in that opinion.

And my cardamom pastry, which was actually really rather lovely and had a depth of flavour to it. The top was crispy, the cardamon was aromatic and sweet, although it might not have been the healthiest of breakfasts. To be fair, I often don’t prioritise the most healthy of breakfasts though, there’s a need for balance in life.

I can understand their logic here, it’s a small bakery which is very busy and has a fast turnover of customers. There are better options for people like me who like to see for ages with a laptop where it’s easier to get a second drink and where there’s simply more space. I noticed they’ve had a little push-back about this on-line, but cafes such as this aren’t equipped to be offices for those who want to spend three hours working in exchange for the purchase of a single espresso.

It’s all very on-trend, functional and welcoming, a rather good choice from Steve and we were unanimous in that. To be able to maintain an average of 4.8 on Google Reviews really is very impressive though in such a high volume business. We left feeling more alive and a little more caffeinated.

I didn’t bother with my usual three choices for everyone to pick from for this evening’s food, as I wanted to go to Pohjala Brewery’s Taproom and so that’s where we were going. I can be quite demanding like that, but my friends generally like my beer-fuelled odysseys even if they’re not the most hardcore of beer drinkers.

Anticipation increasing…..

Views over the taproom. Pohjala are the largest craft brewery in the Baltics and they’ve been trading since 2011, known (well, known by me at least) for their range of dark beers.

I was excited and delighted to see that were flights for €15 which included 100ml of five different beers, just look at the almost sacred text of the craft beer board. I noticed that there were some exceptions and I expected to be told that the high ABV beers were excluded. Fortunately, the only beer that was excluded was the Brewdog they had imported, the only beer that I didn’t really need to try in Estonia. It did mean that I could go for the beers that were over 10%, some true behemoths of craft excellence that I just knew would be the decadent treat I needed.

I was surprised and delighted by the breadth of the choices and it soon became evident to me that I was going to need two flights. The bar was busy, with what looked and sounded like plenty of British ex-pats, the lingua franca was very much English.

The first flight. The second one from the left is the Tallinn at Dawn, rich tasting with chocolate, coffee, roasty flavour and delicious, with an alcoholic kick at the end although that was unsurprising as it was 11%. The one at the far right is the Dark Engineering from the Cellar Series, flavours of whisky, oatmeal, cherry, vanilla, chocolate and coffee, all making for a proper warming beer which was my standout of the evening.

I was pleased with this, although we were all bemused as to why the chips were quite a small portion for the price, whilst other elements seemed generous. The chicken was tender and I liked that the skin was crispy, I can’t be doing with the soggy disappointment of flabby chicken skin, the culinary equivalent of a wet blanket.

The second flight. The one on the right is Cosy Nights, smooth, sweet and chocolately, a suitable way to end the evening.

Bev and Susanna were excited by this lovely beer visit. They were a bit excited by the lagers, as was Ross, and at least it wasn’t mass-produced rubbish even if they didn’t veer into the more liquid symphony of flavours of beers that Steve and I were enjoying.

And walking back to the tram. A marvellous evening and Pohjala have gone up a notch in my list of favourite breweries, there was a little bit of magic to the surroundings and I could leave with a warm glow. We might have had a slight wobble in our step when leaving, but that to me was just testament to the quality of the beer and potency of those Estonian hops.

The views from the top of the Fat Margaret Museum. There was a slight element of déjà vu as we had already climbed a number of tall buildings in the city, and I never failed to be brave of course, but it was interesting to see the range of architectural styles. I partly hoped that there would be something just a little different at the top, maybe a petting zoo or a bouncy castle, although perhaps the latter isn’t the best thing to put at the top of a building. The medieval city was visible with bits of the ancient walls and I’m sure that I saw a squirrel jumping around on a nearby roof, but it was probably an athletic rat. There was a lift up and down this tower, not something I benefited from later in the week when I quite exhausted myself climbing a church tower, but more of that soon…..

This is the sort of random stuff that appeals to me and as a quick backdrop to this, the museum is built in an old building which has some historic interiors. And this seventeenth century cobblestone pavement was at ground level in what is described as the “frontal fortification zone”. The museum notes that this is “probably the oldest cobblestone preserved cobblestone pavement in Tallinn, which is stacked so as to form a rainwater drain”. There were hardly any archaeological finds when this area was excavated, the information board said that “order prevailed in the military site and the courtyard was kept clean”.

This whole thing only makes sense to someone not there by looking at https://arheoloogia.ee/ave2019/AVE2019_15_Reppo-Kadakas.pdf, the second page of that document (noted 178 at the top), this pavement is the uppermost cobblestone pavement in the bottom right of the plan. There’s a photo of the pavement on page 7 (noted 183) when it was being excavated. It’s all been neatly and carefully incorporated into the museum.

More of the old structures.

A part of the old city wall.

A drainage channel for sewage and rainwater, dating to the seventeenth century.

I’m conscious that I must have reached a certain age where I find inspecting old brickwork to be something notable, but I’m more into moss covered castles than modern art museums. You know where you are with old stones…..

Carrying on with my little series of posts about what I considered to be interesting things at the Fat Margaret Museum.

What is evidently a rather fascinating discovery provided something of a unique window into the city’s maritime past and it’s this old boat, which I accept is a little past its best. During construction work near the Old City Harbour, this 700-year-old cog, a type of merchant vessel prevalent during the Hanseatic League era, was unearthed. Dating back to the 1360s, the ship’s remarkable preservation offered new insights into medieval shipbuilding and trade.

Viewed from underneath, the cog, which is 24.5 metres long and 9 metres wide, was carefully excavated and is now on display at the museum. Its construction, using overlapping oak planks (a technique known as clinker building) sealed with animal hair and tar, is rather a testament to the craftsmanship of medieval shipbuilders given that it hasn’t fallen apart. The vessel’s flat bottom and single mast made it ideal for navigating the shallow waters and varied conditions of the Baltic Sea trade routes, which extended from the North Sea to Russia. I was going to see what Bev and Susanna thought about the arrangement, but they were around five rooms behind me reading every word they could find. Ross had already gone back to the hotel, worn out from museums.

This particular cog is particularly significant (I obviously didn’t know this, it’s written on the information board) because it may represent a previously undocumented Scandinavian design. While initially thought to be a transitional form between a cog and a hulk (apparently a larger vessel with two masts), further research suggests it may be unique to the region. The ship’s cargo hold contained a wealth of artefacts, including everyday items like leather shoes and wooden spoons, as well as tools and even the skeletal remains of two rats. They even discovered a functioning dry compass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_compass#Dry_compass), the oldest of its kind found in Europe, highlighting the advanced navigational technology of the time. The Tallinn cog is now something of a highlight of the museum’s collections and it’s not the most subtle of little things, being the first thing visitors see when they enter.

The next few posts will be some things that I thought were interested from the Fat Margaret museum (that’s the name of the tower that the maritime museum is located in).

This is the life buoy from the cargo steamer Regulus, found on the shore of the Kopu Peninsula before the Second World War. The ship was made in Rotterdam for a Finnish company, being completed on 28 April 1921. It was surrendered to the USSR as war reparations in January 1945 and then renamed Parnu. And this is what particularly interested me, I hadn’t realised that Finland had to pay war reparations to the Soviet Union, but they did and it was worth around $6.5 billion in today’s money (although around a third wasn’t paid as the matter was later renegotiated). Finland had fought alongside Germany against the Soviet Union during the Second World War, something of an extension of the Winter War fought between Finland and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1940. The Regulus wasn’t a one-off either, Finland had to give the Soviet Union 500 new sea vessels and an additional 119 used ones. I’m not sure quite why this life buoy was lost from the ship, I can only imagine that this story has been lost to history.

The people of Tallinn remember Russian rule in their nation and although I’m sure there are some who have fond memories of it, it’s been firmly rejected now. In the 1991 referendum, over 78% voted to be independent and free from Russian control and in 2003, 67% voted to join the European Union.

The staff of the Russian Embassy in Tallinn look out on this series of posters and banners, in what is seemingly a permanent installation. Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption leader, is mentioned frequently.

A memorial to the children who have died in Ukraine.

The Second Winter of the War, hoping once again for peace in Ukraine.

And a poster to sign. There is currently no Russian Ambassador in post in Tallinn and I’m not sure that there will be for some time.

I’ve decided to post entirely out of order of how events actually unfolded during Tallinn, but as no-one will know other than the people there, I feel that it’s unlikely to concern my two loyal blog readers. I thought that doing an AI tour would be a marvellous idea, as the cost was included in the Tallinn Card that we had all purchased. I looked vaguely brave here, although I probably wouldn’t go much further than that.

It’s fair to say that none of us were really quite aware what the tour would entail and I know a few of us thought that it would take place in a closed environment. However, we were walked to the main square and positioned in one place to be given a brief introduction. Three of our party were doing the 1944 tour, the other two as well as someone we didn’t know, were doing the 1939 tour. I privately hoped that no-one would notice us, but I suspect that we were hard to avoid noticing.

Bev and Susanna were having a lovely time. There were four AI parts to each tour and we moved position each time to a new location. Sometimes this made more sense than others, but they had to tie two different tours together.

I was impressed that Steve had managed to video them both, simultaneously watching the fourth part of the 1944 tour and videoing them. The tour Bev and Susanna went on involved more interaction and looking odd, so I was glad that I picked the tour that I did.

As it was included in the Tallinn Card, I’d say that this was an interesting experience as I’ve never done anything with AI before. It was an intriguing use of the technology, although there was perhaps a limited need to actually be outside in the actual location at times. On the AI itself, it was all rather exciting as I hadn’t done it before and it is an all encompassing visual and audio experience, there’s no way of knowing what is happening around without taking the headset off.

I thought that one of the four sequences we saw was less exciting than others, but the first one which showed the Nazi guards walking about before the 1944 bombing was particularly sobering as to a great degree, it did feel like being there. There have been attempts made to ensure accuracy and seeing the bombed street at the end was also something that I’ll remember. It’s possible to get one of the tours free with the Tallinn card, and you can pick which one, then pay to try the other one. I can imagine just how much this will all be developed in future years and suspect that it will become more common in museums and tourist attractions to try and engage visitors.

The first evening’s meal was at Vana Villem. We had the usual system that I chose three places that seemed excellent (and that I wanted to go to) and everyone then chooses between them. It’s a win-win, I get what I want and everyone gets a classy dining experience. This is really my benevolent dictator style of leadership, like a king giving his subjects some appearance of choice. This option was only a ten minute walk from the hotel and had a traditional feel to it, so proved the most popular.

It was certainly atmospheric. It wasn’t clear whether this was a modern recreation or an old building, we suspected the former.

There were some Oktoberfest options and I went for two of the German food choices. I didn’t feel that I needed a litre of German beer.

The beer selection was more substantial that I had expected. This is the Abstraction from Tanker Brewery, a fruity, juicy and hoppy beer. I couldn’t identify what sort of fruit it was, my palate isn’t that advanced.

I went for two starters from the German menu, sausage soup with sour cream and bread. It had some depth to it, it was hot and the flavours were pleasant.

And the second starter, potato salad with a sausage, which was rather less meaty than perhaps would have been ideal, but the salad was creamy.

Some of the decorative features.

The dessert of chocolate fondant worked nicely, it was runny inside and the pomegranate seeds added texture. The drink is Sauna Session from Tanker Brewery, apparently it was birchy (auto-correct is trying desperately to change that to bitchy) but I don’t know birch tastes or smells like. It had a slight herbal and medicinal edge to the beer.

The payment process was smooth and the waitress was able to remember what we’d all had to put together five different receipts, quite a forensic achievement. I hadn’t expected this, but it transpired to be something that was commonplace in Tallinn, I was suitably impressed as I can imagine I would have wilted at such a request at the end of a meal. Bev only had a few minor complaints and Susanna sent her main course back so it didn’t get cold whilst she had her starters, but Ross, Steve and I experienced no issues. To be honest, we are the three unsung heroes when ordering food, like culinary commandos trying to deliver a smooth and timely dining experience for all.