Day 60

June 19

Tallinn- Estonia

Fred, the Australian owner of the hostel has been living in Estonia for a number of years and was able to tell me some interesting stories which I will go into in a minute. Estonia has almost never been a free country. Today I saw a short movie about its history. After the nomadic people decided to stay put and the inhabitants built their first fortified place to live in,(which grew into the city of Tallinn) they were soon invaded by the Danes which stayed for many hundreds of years. A small city was established and when they became prosperous they were invaded by the Swedes after which the Danes took over again. The next invaders where the Germans. Then in the Russions in the early 1920's followed again by the Germans in 1940 and again by the Russian in 1945.

When the Russian invaded in the 1920’s they confiscated private landholdings which were henceforth owned by the state. Early 1990 everything changed and Estonia became a free country in its own right. They wasted no time securing their independence and joined the European union shortly afterwards . A few years later they adapted the Euro as their monetary system.

Now here it comes. All property was returned to their rightful owners or their families in the early 90’s. (The properties that belonged to these owners in the 1920.)

So it could well be that say a 60 years old person was born in a certain house where their parents had lived a few decades as well when suddenly they were give a month notice to leave as the property would be returned to the family of the rightful owners. This would often come as a shock to the persons/family who lived in the house. Often a similar shock was received by the now new rightful owner who possibly did not even realize that their family had owned a property. So surprises and shock all round. It caused a lot of hassles. In those days (early nineties ) you could buy properties really cheap as a particular house or land may be worth say $ 500.000. A buyer may come around and offer say $ 100.000 instead. As the new owners often had not expected that their family actually owned a property they were happy with their $100.000 dollar offerand were suddenly "rich"

Fred, the owner of the Hostel had bought the Hostel as a simple building and had to do extensive renovations. He is not making money of this business as yet but more or less provide something which gives him a lot of pleasure . The tourist season is very short and lasts from May until Sept. Once he opened during the winter but that cost him a lot of money due to the heating costs.

I would love to have a place like this but not in a country which was is subject to seasonal changes.

The Tallinn tourist information offers a free two hour walking tour, daily at 12 noon for. Many interesting facts were explained and a lot about the history of the town which make it more pleasurable to experience the town.

The city walls have a Bastions every 100 meters or so. Under the bastions there are usually tunnels which connects them and makes it possible to move people and armament from one place to another with being observed by a possible enemy. The largest Bastion in Tallinn serves as the entrance to the tunnels and is called “Kiek in the kuuk. (this sounds like Dutch for “Kijk in de keuken” or English “Look into the kitchen”. This exactly what it he name means. From the city bastions the soldiers could see into the kitchens of the houses below. Over the last few hundred years many of the underground tunnels had caved in or had been flooded, however the dry sections were used during the second world war for people to hide in, then later other sections were used by the KGB to incarcerate and/or to torture the local inhabitant.

After independence was declared and some people suddenly lost their house it became a living area for the homeless. Now 400 meters has been restored for tourism and more is being planned for further restoration in the near future.

After the tunnels visit I went to the Occupation Museum. I had seen it on the city map and had thought what the meaning of this was, perhaps they showed different occupations form the past or something. After reading some brochures I found out that the museum was dedicated to the time of occupation by the Soviets Communists and the German Fascist. All interesting stuff but you should not try absorb too much of all that because it is generally a bit depressing. I have come to the conclusion the everything that ends with 'ism” has some domineering power behind them which restrict people’s logic reasoning and thinking.

I’m am leaving Tallinn and Estonia behind me and again have learned a lot about another part of the world and the way people live.

Next destination Riga in Latvia.