Before settling in Tallinn, I came here a few times, mostly during summertime. So I knew how Tallinn looked like. As a visitor. You know what there is to visit, what there is to see, but you don't know much about how people spend their time and how they enjoy themselves.
Cafés and malls
During my short visits I had noticed Tallinn had a great café culture, certainly because it is so much different from Brussels. It reminds me of the Balkans in this perspective. There are lots of cafés, with comfortable seats, you choose by yourself where to sit and you can stay as long as you want, even if the place is busy (which is rare). You can also occupy a table for 4 on your own, no one will tell you anything. Nothing comparable with Belgium, where they have a turnover target and they tend to push you out as soon as you finish your drink. Moreover in most places, you have a free wifi!
I also noticed that the focus of urban life were the shopping malls. It is something typical of very cold or very hot countries, such as Malaysia and the Middle East. I imagine, it is so much nicer to do all your shopping in the shelter of a mall, hopping from the mobile phone provider to the supermarket, and going through the bookshop where you often also find a café. There is not much room for the proximity shops (so valuable to the inhabitants of Brussels), except the emergency pood or kauplus where people rush to buy missing ingredients or a last alcoholic drink in the evening (after 22:00, it is forbidden to sell alcohol unless you are a pub with an official authorisation).
Beyond that, I knew not much about life in Tallinn.
The air and the sea
Tallinn is a seaside town, a port for passenger and freight. And as such, it has also beaches. As in any other seaside town, you should go a bit away to find the nicest beaches. But it is nice to be a few steps away from the sea. The sea air always feels fresh and clean. And when I get there, I always have a though for what my family doctor told (when I was a kid) when asked what to do about my allergies: "you should spend more time at the seaside, the maritime air is good for you".
Interesting facts about the sea and the air here. The Baltic sea has a salinity which is significantly lower than the ocean. If you want to know why, you can read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Sea#Salinity. I remember it every time I swim in it (after being frozen to death for a while): contrarily to the Mediterranean, you don't feel the urge to have a clean water shower after coming out of the Baltic sea, because your body is not covered in salt.
And the air. According to a recent study (which reference I need to track back), the average quality of the air in Estonia is among the best in the world, i.e. the least polluted, second only to Canada. You can feel it and you can see it. Even in Tallinn, the sky is BLUE... when there are no clouds. The sky in big cities is never blue, it is always slightly grey or white, due to the air pollution. Even though Estonia's main domestic resource is oil shale (not shale oil, but oil shale), which is a very polluting energy source (I will have to blog about it, some day). The air in Estonia is clean!
Beaches
So, back to beaches. The Stroomi beach is the closest to the centre. And for me, it is just 20 minutes by foot from home. To date, it is rather preserved from development: it is isolated from the first building by Merimets (the wood by the sea), a rather wild green area - yes, it does not suffer much from the proximity to town - which hides the town from the beach, and vice versa. Today! yes, because it is very likely that the city government will concede more and more developments and tall buildings might grow like mushrooms in the future. This area is so valuable and the city population is growing (Estonia is witnessing a diaspora, young people leave the countryside and come to town).
In the meantime, I enjoy the place. Stroomi is not a bad beach. There is a good stretch of pleasant sand and it is - like most Estonian beaches - equipped with changing cabins. It is located alongside the Kopli peninsula, famous for its industrial ports and for its historically poor population. Things are evolving, though, and it has a huge potential: Kopli has sea on both sides and it is not far from the city centre (there is a direct tram connection).
Because of its location, Stroomi is never empty. There are always people strolling around, running, or walking their dog (even if it is forbidden on the beach), and I even met a couple walking their domestic pig... yes, pig, cute isn't it? And when weather is fine, there are groups meeting for a barbecue (even if it is forbidden outside the designated places) and - of course - some noisy groups of odd people, drunk at any time of the day, mostly middle-aged men (I will have to blog about drunk people, too). I didn't swim in Sroomi (yet): it is not that much inviting. You need to walk long in the sea before leaving shallow waters - it is the norm in the Baltic -, and the sea bottom seems a bit muddy.
Stroomi is not the only beach in Tallinn. There is also Pirita beach, in the Tallinn bay, to the East from town. It is wider and longer, with a lovely green promenade at the back. It is bit more upscale with respect to Stroomi. A bus ride of 15 minutes from town takes you there.
With a car, you can leave town and reach in 30 minutes the beautiful beach of Vääna-Jõesuu, 20 km West of Tallinn. We went there twice for a Friday evening swim and sunset walk, it was divine. In any case, the Northen coast of Estonia is usually known for cold water. If you want warm seawater, you must head to Pärnu, the summer capital of Estonia, in the South-West.
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| The beach of Vääna-Jõesuu, 20 km West of Tallinn. Large spaces, good sand, no buildings in sight. |
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| A Friday afternoon at Stroomi beach, in Tallinn. In the distance, the West end of the city, with the Estonian open air museum and the Rocca al Mare shopping centre (where the tall building is located). |
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| Sunset at Stroomi beach, in Tallinn. You can see the industrial installations of the Kopli peninsula on the Eastern side of the Tallinn bay. |
The food
Food in Estonia is something to experience continuously. It is a combination of various influences from both West and East and it is in constant evolution. I am not a food blogger and I am not even a foodie. Nevertheless, when you open your eyes and your ears (and mouth), you notice things.
Last night, we were out for dinner with a couple of friends from Brussels. The place we wanted to go was closed, due to the National holiday (it was the anniversary of the Restoration of Independence, marking the freedom from the Soviet union on 20 August 1991), so we went to Lendav Taldrik (the flying saucer). This rather recent place is, according to the other guests, one of the good restaurant in the area of Põhja-Tallinn (the area between the station Balti Jaam and the Kopli peninsula) and it has an actual Indian chef. We were there for a few minutes when we saw another couple of Estonians living in Brussels entering the restaurant. I was quite surprised. The others were not. They were used to come to Tallinn a couple of times a year for nearly 10 years, now, and the explanation is quite simple: "There are not many good restaurants with decent prices in Tallinn, so we often end up in the same places. But it is improving."
They told me that, 10 years ago, there was nothing. Nothing except the very touristy stuff in the old town, not affordable for a casual dinner. There was no restaurant where you would leave thinking, "I will come again". And even in supermarkets, it was difficult to find what you were looking for, the choice of ingredients and products was scarce. A wake of the Soviet communist area?
So, yes, today one can be satisfied. And if one is not, he might think about where the country was a couple of decades ago. I often had good experiences in restaurants. In the countryside, I know I will mostly have to settle for a Russian style soup, a seljanka or a borsht (I like it, but it often feels like fast food). But in town, there is an increasing variety.
What I actually miss here, is cheese. I always have a look at the cheese section in markets and supermarkets. You actually find foreign cheese in the largest ones: something from France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland (nothing from Belgium, even though we have wonderful cheeses)... but mostly at outrageous prices. Moreover, the variety is low. And I will have to get used to not having the large choice of tasty beers I had back home.
Estonians are big meat eaters. They love barbecue, and there is always barbecue smell in the air during dry, summer evenings. You can also taste some animals that you rarely see at the menu, like the bear and the beaver, which are local species here. Both are killed in quotas every year: the quota was 40 bears last year, and 38 were actually shot, there are bigger quotas for most other animals. Bear is expensive, because not all animals give good meat (some have parasites). Not many restaurants serve it, and in general they don't have it all year round.
I tried bear at the Sagadi manor house, in Lahemaa. It was pricey, 40 eur for the dish! Since the hunting season was long over, I guess it was bear from the previous season, preserved in the freezer and prepared in the oven. The meat was dark and tasty, I would say similar to game. I would not be able to tell it was bear if the waitress did not confirm it was (I asked twice, to be sure).
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| Eating bear at the Sagadi manor house in Lahemaa National Park |
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