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Published: August 15th 2011
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Kumu museum
Outside the Kumu museum, Tallinn Tallinn - City of Surprises
I try to pay the trolley driver for my ticket and he brushes me aside. Later I learn that over as certain age travel free on public transport in Tallinn irrespective of where they come from.
This is just one of many surprises about this best kept medieval city on the Baltic coast . In 1997 The Old Town became a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.
The taxis are another. Although there is an airport bus we opt for a taxi, not wanting to repeat our experience in Naples when we found ourselves deposited late at night in the city centre laden with luggage, not speaking the language and surrounded by some very shifty characters and mountains of rubbish. We were lucky not to be robbed (that came later in our stay).
Tallinn taxis have to be experienced. Once behind the wheel the drivers behave like bats out of hell. No talking..
Just sheer concentration. We cling to our seat belts.
Our taxi driver gave no hint until he started his car that he regarded every journey as a challenge to beat some unknown clock.
Heads installation
Malcolm inside the Kumu museum with the Heads installation Finally he draws up outside the Olevi Residence, a small family run hotel in the heart of the Old Town, and we scramble out relieved to be alive.
A couple of days later we take another taxi, this time to the Kumu museum, thinking that our first experience was just unfortunate. Not a bit of it. The second taxi was not only faster, if that is possible through the crowded city streets but twice as expensive. That’s when we discover that taxis have different rates.
A Russian Solzhenitsyn look-a-like drives our final taxi to the airport. He talks. We ask him why Tallinn taxi drivers go so fast.
“ You should see the Moscow ones,” he says. Rather not.
It comes as no surprise to learn that the third major cause of all deaths in Estonia, after circulatory ones, are accidents, a fact I discovered from the free app “Mini Facts about Estonia” which I downloaded on to my Ipad.
The Old Town of Tallinn in the centre is for walking around and we did plenty of that through the hilly cobbled streets. But Tallinn itself stretches for some twenty kilometers and is
Tallinn Wall
Art installation - of words taken from internet just like any other modern urban sprawl.
We made the mistake of signing up for the three tourist bus tours of the city thinking that this would give us a good overall picture. All it did was to confirm we had got it wrong. The “hop on hop off” buses can’t go through the medieval section so we got a tour of all the outlying suburbs. A few people did get off at places like the zoo and the Botanical Gardens but the majority, like us, stayed put hoping for some medieval wonder to reveal itself around the next corner.
We found the food and service excellent.
Everywhere we went we were met with young smiling faces in cafes, bars and restaurants and they all took a genuine delight in their work.
But hey! Tallinn is all about youth and optimism.
Just as well I packed my iPad though because the reason we had chosen Tallinn for this short break was because it is the European City of C culture 2011 though this is not obvious to the visitors.
I had to ask in the Tourist Information Office if they had a brochure on
it because there were none on view, plenty though for other activities.
The young woman dived behind the counter and handed one to me. A quick flick through referred me to web sites for further information.
And this was the big surprise.
Tallinn has jumped straight into the 21st century after re-gaining independence in 1991 from Russia. The whole town is wi-fi. Computer literacy amongst the under 40s is very high. You can even pay for parking using your mobile phone, surely a hint of what is to come for the rest of us in the future when money and credit cards will be consigned to the history books and we will simply wave our mobile phones in front of a scanner.
How did this small Baltic town make such an innovative digital leap? One theory is that after they got re-independence they reckoned the fastest way to catch up with the west would be to go digital.
Now they are ahead of many of us.
The city is spotless, with not a dog or cat in sight, and the medieval buildings are immaculate thanks to excellent restoration work.
Inside the 14th century
Olevi Residence
We stayed here. Excellent. Holy Spirit church just off the main Town Hall Square is an ensign of the British Royal Navy,
hanging in one of the chapels as a thank you for the contribution made by the British Navy in helping Estonia attain independence in1920s.
The Navy sailed into Tallinn harbour making their presence felt and shortly afterward a charter of independence from Russia was signed. (They were to loose it again with the advent of World War Two).
As for the Kumu museum, one of the reasons for our visit , this is worth seeking for the design alone, for it has been awarded numerous architectural awards.
Designed by the Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori it is the largest in the Baltics and one of the largest in art museums in northern Europe.
It has an excellent cafe and shop though you might find the floors stuffed full of centuries of Estonian paintings a bit oppressive.
But it was the major exhibition, gateways art and networked culture, on the top floor, part of the European City of culture that made our visit to Tallinn worthwhile. Here we saw and got a chance to interact with the latest digital artworks.
The show confims the shift from traditional visual art where you are expected to passively view the object to one where you are required to inter-act with it.
This is what happens when Man and machine come together to create new work never seen in the world before.
And yes, it is exciting. It is the future.
Just watch out for those taxi drivers though.
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