Tallinn, Estonia

I think I forgot to mention that as part of our Grand Voyage we are entitled to have a newspaper of our choice delivered to the room.  We've chosen the Wall Street Journal.  Now that we are 8 hours ahead of New York, we don't get it until late morning or early afternoon.  But they print some other papers including the New York Times and it is usually available in the library in the morning.  I guess the NYT is published around midnight.

We've been to Tallinn before and did a walking tour of the old town, so this time we elected to do the History of the Soviet Era tour.  Our guide was a bit disorganized and repetitive, but she tried hard.  Most of the time we drove around town, which was actually pretty interesting.  In a nutshell, Estonia was first Dutch, then Russian for 100 years or so, then German from 1940-44, then Russian again until the Estonians finally declared independence in 1991.  There has been a lot of building since 1991, especially in the last 15 years or so.  They joined the EU and NATO in 2004 and have done well ever since.  There are only 1.3 million people and 1/3 of them live in Tallinn.  There is a considerable Russian-speaking population (about 20%), but so far there aren't any problems.  Estonians are understandably concerned with the world situation right now, especially since they share a border with Russia and Putin seems to be interested in getting back those areas that were once Russian.  Being in NATO helps Estonia, but I think makes it a bit more problematic for the rest of us.  

We made a stop in the Old Town where there is a "museum" dedicated to the Estonians who were imprisoned and tortured by the KGB after WWII.  It was in the basement of a large apartment building that the KGB took over for their officers.  They've put different displays in the various cells that were used.  There were over 8,000 Estonians who were rounded up and either shot directly or sent to Siberia to die.  I didn't really feel comfortable so didn't stay down there too long.  I liked it better just waiting on the pretty street people watching until the group was ready to go.  The building is now an upscale apartment building, but I don't think I'd want to live there.

This is a new welcome center completed in 2021

Beautiful flower arrangement outside Old Town

A typical street in Old Town

After the KGB place, we went to the new museum at the Seaport.  It's a beautiful, modern museum dedicated to the seafaring side of Estonia.  The most amazing thing was the submarine that was built in 1937 by the British for Estonia.  The museum was quite dark, but I tried to get a photo with Michael in it for perspective.  Unfortunately, the sub was brown as was the background.  You could walk on top of the sub and go down inside if you wanted to, which I didn't.  A little too confined in these times for me.

We didn't have internet for most of the afternoon so I couldn't get a headstart on my blog.  Trivia was another disaster (who the devil knows that the first British telephone directory was printed in 1880?) so no points for us.  We had another fun dinner with the gang and then went to the show.  Tonight was "Tuxedo" performed by the ship's cast.  It's a good show, but I'd love to ask the drummer to keep it down.  When he drowns out the singers, it's a bit annoying.  

Tonight we turn our clocks back one hour, which is most welcome.  And tomorrow is a rare sea day.  I must admit I'm not sorry to be sailing away from Russia.  We've been a bit too close for comfort.