72 hours in TALLINN - Is THIS Europe's MOST BEAUTIFUL old town? (Old town, KGB hotel and MORE)
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- čas přidán 28. 11. 2023
- Country 51 - ESTONIA!
Join us as we explore the capital city Tallinn in 72 hours. We take a look at the medieval old town, enjoy the beauty of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and explore Tallinn's secret Soviet past!
Did you know Tallinn has hosted the Olympics? We head to the abandoned Olympic venue and take a closer look.
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Yes it is
Absolutely love Tallinn. Currently covered in deep snow. Enjoy!
Wow bet it's even more beautiful in the snow! Thanks for watching, hope you enjoyed 😄
@@AshAndDan. I certainly did thank you. Not long until I'm back over there again myself
My favorite town! Just love the place!🇧🇻🇪🇪
Great video! I always check all videos about my beloved hometown, yours is good. It's just that there is so much more in Tallinn to see ))) Hope you will return one day (and better do it in the summer, lol).
Thank you so much! I agree, so much more to see! We will need to come back one day 😀 and yes, for summer for sure 😂 thanks for watching
Thank you so so mhuc For viseting our cuntery!🇪🇪
It was a pleasure! We’d love to have explored even more of Estonia, especially in the summer months. Both Tallinn and Narva were great though 👍 thank you for watching 😀
My favourite thing in Tallin was the Old Pharmacy in the town Hall Square with a small museum and the KGB cells, thanks for showing what you enjoyed. I love those snacks always eat them in the Baltics or wherever I can get them.
Oh we did see both those museums when we were there. Both looked really interesting! We love the snacks also 🤤 thanks for watching 😀
I am a Tallinner. The pharmacy is great. We have a mystery writer who writes a series (already 8 or nine books) of mystery with the crime solver being a mediaeval pharmacist (based on that particular pharmacy although in the book there is different address because he could not have been placed into the Town hall square pharmacy because we know who the owners are from the start). So he solves mysteries here in mediaeval Tallinn. We also get to know his family, wife and children and their lives. And the author goes deep into mediaeval Tallinn, life and laws there. So it is a mixture of popular science of mediaeval Tallinn and mystery solving. This series and this writer is very loved here. He has also been translated, also into English. I recommend his books if you enjoyed the pharmacy and Old town. You also get to know lot about mediaeval medicine and pharmacology and managing a pharmacy in those times. For example I learned from one of the books that every merchant (and a pharmacist was a merchant as well) had to be ready by October at the latest, with their last shipment from the ports. Because from October to April everything stopped. No more ships, nothing coming into the city for the winter, and our winters are long. So what you had by October, you had to manage with until Easter. Also very few travellers by land. But the port was how 90% of everyone entered the city, and the Baltic Sea froze in October. I did not know that before. Imagine living like that now. No more going to a shop after October? What you have is what you have
The author is Indrek Hargla and the series is called "Apothecary Melchior series", in case you are interested and come across it. It exists in English. Maybe not all the books. And 3 of the books have been made into films. Mr Hargla is constantly promising to finish with the series but then writes yet another book after every such promise. Supposedly Melchior has to get too old at some point to solve mysteries but then his son started the same business in Germany. Lübeck. And the series continues there.
It is really nice to go into Old Tallinn in your mind and just learn so much while getting consumed by all the mysteries in the very places I spend time in every god damn day. I really recommend those series if you like mediaeval stuff, pharmacies, Middle Ages, life and laws and medicine at the time. i have learned more history from those 9 books than in all my school and university years. In each book, he places the mystery into a place or community that is important in our history. Once he entered the life a Dominican monastery (extremely important player in our culture. For example, they wrote down the first written texts in Estonian. Once the book goes into a St Brigit monastery (the pharmacist"s daughter became a nun and gave herself to healing by plants and learning about that. One of the books follows the family of a mediaeval executioner, one follows the world of mediaeval book publishing. Etc.
Tallinn City Museum used to do tours along routes that the books cover, or the films. They still do them in Estonian, sometimes they are lead by the author himself. They tried to do them in English also but the series seems to address Estonians and Tallinners mainly. Because it all "happened" here, on the same streets and places that we walk every day.
Nice to so many familiar places. I have been in Tallinn several times, usually only 'one day cruise' from Helsinki.
It’s such a beautiful city! We have heard it’s a very popular day trip from Finland 😀 thanks for watching!
You will not get the feeling of the place, any place, in one day. Tallinn is not about separate sights. I mean, come on, we do not really have anything so great. Like Sagrada Familia or Notre Dam or Egyptian pyramids or the Sultan castle in Istanbul or whatever. Well, the city wall is really precious because it is quite well preserved with the city inside it and all mediaeval. This is rare because most Old towns in the world have been ruined by adding building sin all the later periods and that takes away the specific ambience of any particular era. Like in Riga, for example. In my opinion, they just ruined their Old town. Nowadays I do not know there if I am in a modern city, or mediaeval, or pre-mediaeval, or classical or jugend or what not. Too much stuff all lumped together and no city wall, almost, to contain it. But in Tallinn you have that entirety of the Old city, surrounded by a wall (some of it has not survived, some has been, and some you have to know what to look for). I think Tallinn old town is best explore AS A WHOLE, not by separate sights. To get the feeling of the mediaeval city, to feel the layout and system of streets and how the city functioned. For example, why was Tallinn so well defended, so that it was never taken by storm, ever in history. To get the feeling of all that it is best to take it in as a city, not a list of a few sights that you can squeeze into one day.
And for me the best time to genuinely feel the Old city is at night. Summer nights especially. When it gets dark, the wall is lit (and the lighting is worked out so that it emphasizes different layers of the wall and towers). And there are less people so you can actually believe you walk in history, not in tourist traps and sights.
Yes, it's beautiful and very old. Lindanisa, Rafala, Ravala, Revala - Tallinn. Taani-Linna.
"Arab cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, who described it as "a small town like a large castle" among the towns of 'Astlanda'
It is a very beautiful and picturesque place 😃 we hope you enjoyed our video and thanks for watching 👍
Lovely Tallinn and familiar places. I'm glad to see that you had good time in our neighboring city. I don't even know how many times I have been there because it's so easy and cheap to get there from the opposite shore of the Gulf of Finland. BTW, years agomy friends' band made a music video on top of that soviet era complex Linnahall that as visible after 15 mins.
Tallinn was a beautiful city 😀 we did hear Tallinn was a popular trip from Helsinki even for Finns due to its proximity and also friendly prices vs Helsinki! Oh that’s an interesting fact, not as a good as darude’s video on the steps of Helsinki cathedral though 😂 thanks again for watching 👍
@@AshAndDan. unfortunately the prices aren't very friendly in Tallinn anymore. The tourist blocks are about as expensive as in Helsinki. You can believe that in the 1990s that was very different. I have been driving around Estonia and outside of Tallinn the prices are a little lower, unsurprisingly.
The LINNAHALL building that was build for Olympics by the harbour 1980 has an auditorium for 4.000 and under the roof - You were standing has an ice rink ! I Been there to skate and see some Ice hockey games ! ( 2.000 audience )
That’s really cool! I do think they should do something to return it to an auditorium again 👍 thanks for sharing some information on linnahall and thanks for watching 👍
You should try kohuke with hapukoor (sour cream). :D
Wow that sounds like a combo! We loved the caramel one and not sure sour cream would make this better 😂 however next time we will try this! Thanks for watching 👍
2:52 It is one of the most "iconic" places, which is ironic because it has nearly nothing to do with Estonian culture or traditions and it doesn't really fit in the very German style old town. The cathedral was built in 1900 just as the Russification era in the Russian Empire started and despite objectively being quite a beautiful building it is a site Estonians associate with Russian oppression.
are there any sites Estonians associate with Danish, Swedish or German oppression?
It does stand out a bit but it is an incredible piece of architecture! However, I do understand that it doesn’t fit as well culturally especially with all that is going on at the moment! Thanks for watching and hope you enjoyed the video 😀
@@megaotstoy The cathedral was built during the Russification period i.e. when the Russians were trying to erase the Estonian language and culture, the Danes, Germans and Swedes never did that. In fact, Swedes made it able for peasants to get education IN Estonian.
I am usually more respectful of peoples" opinions but seriously, where exactly do you see the incredible architecture? It is an average, typical, nothing special Russian orthodox church, and in the wrong place. the Dome Church, deeper into Toompea hill, is incredible architecture. All the other churches in our old town are, so much more incredible architecturewise. But of all those you chose this one?
"With all that is going on at the moment?".. No-no. It not a momentary thing. Our country has been f...ed up in every possible way by Russia for centuries, and particularly during the Soviet decades. It has all been lasting sooo much longer than a moment. It has nothing to with what is going on "at the moment". There were official plans to take it down (or move it, I do not remember) twice during the first Estonian republic already (1918-1940). Dislike for it has been lasting since it was built, not as a result of some topical events (in Ukraine for that matter). We are not Ukraine.
We can have all the incredible Russian orthodox churches, Hindu temples, mosques, alien worship centres, devil worshippers...whatever, I care not. But outside of the Gothic!!! Old Town. Even regular modern buildings are not allowed to be built there.
And by the way, churches have always been built with a purpose of showing who is the boss. Churches have never been built just for religious purposes. Come on, it is too expensive to build a huge stone building, when all other buildings were wooden at best, just for worship. It served the purposes like a military parade would today. A church said: "Look, I can afford to build this. So i must have some power for you to respect because otherwise I could not have afforded it" Soviet Union used the demolishing of churches as the show of power, jsut as the Russian empire used the erection of churches to show power.
We even have a notorious politician here (dead now) who had a huge Russian church be built (thank god far from the centre) to get more Russian voters. Well, he lost a lot of Estonian voters for it.
It is exactly because this Russian monster church is so huge (which probably in most peoples" heads equals magnificent) that it is so wrong and out of place there. How arrogant and in bad taste is it to build something that not only fits not but is bigger and higher than everything around it s it would be the first thing you see (and the tourists seem to fall for it). I think that to be "incredible" the building has to fit the surroundings, in style and in size. This monster does neither.
Just saying: anyone who is interested in Russian orthodox churches, real ones, the ones that are much more likely to have been built for just worship, I have a suggestion: there is an island called Kizhi in Lake Ladoga in Russia (actually in Karjala that used to belong to Finland before Russia took it away). That is a really incredible place. They have gathered together 9-10-11 century wooden orthodox churches from all over Russia. This is really amazing. There is nothing else on that island. A boat takes you there, you can have tours there, it is also a UNESCO heritage sight, just like Tallinn Old Town. This is a place worth seeing. Also beautiful nature all around you.
I like tiny orthodox churches, especially wooden ones. There is something very real about them. But the big ones are just like huge fat spiders looming all over a place, as if saying "F---k you all. I am here and nothing else matters"
@@AshAndDan.
Also, and i am not trying to be ironic, honestly: some pronunciation tips in Estonian. Toompea hill is not "Tomb pee hill". OO or O in Estonian is like o in the word "dog", not u like in "look". And PEA. E is like in "yes" and a like in "car". E and a, not ii. In Estonian we have a specific pronunciation for each letter, it never changes, and it is different from English. Every letter is pronounced, nothing is skipped or added. And there is no H after k p t. Not thoom, but toom. Drop all the h-s if you cannot see one written down. And if there is an h in the beginning of a word, you can skip it if you like. So hobune (horse, can be said hobune or obune, does not matter.
16:05 Hey! We heard that! ;)
Hey! When were you in Tallinn:)?
Btw this is going to get views as estonians like watching vlogs about our own country lol😂
Haha! We were in Tallinn at the very start of November 😀 hopefully Estonians do watch our videos not only about Estonia but future videos too 😎 thanks for watching 👍
While you sound so optimistic about Linnahall at 14:25, there's no proper renovation going on. Everything that happened in the last five years are probably a couple of press conferences and putting up the construction fence on the harbor side - and putting it up again if someone puts them down. There is a company that manages this place though, it has officially around 12 employees, though I have no idea what they're doing.
Oh really? We saw lots of fencing but very little people working, basically exactly as you have described! I think with a little bit of work they could turn it into a really cool place to visit whilst still maintaining the history of the building. Thanks for watching 😀
I did enjoy the video. This is why I have commented so much, I have so much to say. Hopefully it is not offending. Here are some more random thoughts I had while watching:
"Humour you associate with eastern Europe and Russia in general" We are not eastern Europe or Russia in general. We are north eastern Europe, but never mind that. But we are definitely not "Russia in general" We arenot in any shape or form Russian. we are not even Slavic. By the way, English is closer to Russian. Bot English and Russian are Indo European people and languages. Estonian is Uralic, a subdivision is Finno Ugric or Baltic Sea Finnic (not Baltic, this is a different group, also Indo European). Estonian and Finnish are the only ones from that language group to have survived as not just languages but as languages of culture, literature, administration, higher education law and science. All others have been swallowed up by Russia and they have been strong enough to resist. Easier to just get caught in the bigger one. We did resist, and the Finns did. And now in the world as a whole there are 49 language that one can get university education in. And Estonian is one of them. One of only 49, out of 6-10 000 languages. That is quite amazing. We survived the Danes and the Swedes and the Germans and the Russians and we still exist better than ever before. SO do not call us "Russian in general". Be vary careful with things like that, you can really be pissing someone in the face with that kind of language.
Estonians and Russian strongly dislike and avoid each other, to put it mildly
Why are people even interested in the KGB? They caused a lot of suffering and torture. People talk about it as if it was some sort of fun
You think 50 cents for two bites is cheap? Kohuke, I mean. I think it is the most sweet we have, considering how little one bar is
And you DID not even give a moment to the Dome church. It yet again got slaughtered by the orthodox monster.
Martsipan was invented much much earlier. Already in Persia. And mediaeval pharmacy in Tallinn sold it as well.
Balti jaam...ha ha. English speaking people do not know what to do with j. So you say it like in "jam". But in Estonian it is basically the same as i, like in "king". No the same but it is ok to pronounce the same. But j does not include d it is. Like I wrote, in Estonian there is one sound for one letter. Not more. If you say j like in jam, then you already are putting two sounds into j: dzh
Balti jaam is the railway station. It used to be and kind of still is a place where a lot of homeless people and alcoholics spend their time. No idea why. maybe because the place is on the way from Old Town to Telliskivi, and in summer on weekends people leave a lot cans and bottles in this area, which they in turn are collecting. We do have homeless shelters....
We were never a part of the Soviet Union. We were its victim. You canot be a victim of a crime and in on it at the same time.
i agree that the Olympic venue place, Linna hall, as we call it (town hall) is the most Soviet thing here. In my opinion it is really ugly and uncosy and should just be done away with. Bet no, they are trying to make it all nice and stuff and treat it as a place of atmospheric value. But so far nobody is doing anything and it just stands there
Thanks for sharing so much on Estonia 🇪🇪 we loved our time in Estonia and really enjoyed exploring both Tallinn and Narva. Tallinn has to be one of the most beautiful old towns in Europe!
As for the Soviet history, it’s very interesting to me (Dan). I don’t know all the history, but I do enjoy visiting places to learn more.
Thanks for watching 👍
Hi! You are lucky that there was no frost this month.
The KGB museum is good here, because the mayor of Tallinn is still a Russian intelligence agent.
Everyone knows this, but nothing can be done.
It was a really good museum! We never realised that about the mayor but hopefully he wasn’t spying on us when we were there 😂 thanks for watching 😀
Rigas old town is :)
It’s a great place for sure! 😎
Hi I'm Estonia work parmit konfam I'm finger konfam I'm go to tallin
Tallinn is really cool! Thanks for watching 😀
Tallin is overhyped 4 me. My baltic fav is vilnius
Tallinn had a very good old town but we did like the vibe in Vilnius! Definitely our top 2 Baltic cities!
16:04 this dude looks like MrBeast lol
Hahah well spotted! You have an eagle eye 😂 thanks for watching and hope you enjoyed the video 👍
We actually do not feel or consider ourselves Baltic. Not offended by it, just that we do not identify with it
The Russian church on Toompea hill is not ONE OF OUR MOST ICONIC SIGHTS. It is one of the most hated sights. Please, please, tourists, learn the basic history behind it and just work it out why it is just a monster in the wrong place. You have Toompea hill: a mediaeval centre of Estonia, and still is. It has a mediaeval castle and and our Parliament building in it. It has our Dome church (this is what you should have started with, not the Russian monster which has nothing to do with anything there), one of the first stone buildings in Estonia. This would be an iconic building. The Russian church there is from 1900-s, has no particular architectural value, was built during the period of and with the aim of russification to show Estonians who the real boss is. So it is the OPPOSITE of our icon. It also does not fit in style and agewise. It is illegal to build new building in our old towns here (probably not the case in Riga, their Old town is all over the place). On a few occasions this monster church has almost been taken down. But then we had mercy on it as it was a place of worship for a lot of Russian orthodox Russians. Our main religion is Lutheran, if anything. Russian orthodox coms second because of the big number of Russians deported here by Stalin (they were also not asked if they want to come here so they are kind of landless and homeless people, having no roots and belonging nowhere and calling no country their own). There are plenty of very nice Russian orthodox churhes in Estonia. Tiny wooden ones, or some more magnificent ones with actually interesting architecture. I personally like the ones in Pärnu. (If you are interested, it is easy to go to if you plan to Riga to Riga. Pärnu is halfway to Riga and the bus stops there. A nice town, different from Tallinn. But yes, there are nice orthodox churches here. But the monster on Toompea hill is really in a wrong places in so many ways. It is also really ugly and has NOTHING to do with anything Estonian. It is sad to see how all the tourists just film that thing and do not even go further into Toompea to even see the actual icon, the Dome church, from afar even.
If someone calls this church our icon it means that they understood nothing of Estonia or Tallinn. It is like calling a Hindu temple or a mosque in London an icon of England just because it looked big and magnificent and where in city centre. This monster has no business being in city centre and the centre of entire Estonia. Just so you do not get me wrong: it is not a monster because it is Russian. Well, it kind of us but that is not the point. It sort of feels for us as a huge statue of Lenin would or a Nazi sculpture would feel like in London city centre, for example. And it IS a fact, very researched by historians, that it was built here by the Russian empire to show Estonians who the boss was. It was a show of power. It was not built for liturgical purposes.
It is NOT an icon of Tallinn.
Estonians hate this cathedral, it was was built by the fucking tsarist rein and now it is a putinist nest.
'''
I can see why! However, the architecture is stunning in my opinion. I hope you enjoyed the video and thanks for watching 😀
How is it stunning? It is a typical orthodox church.
Anyway, if a man came into your home and settled in and made all the rules and I will not even go further with that fantasy, would it be ok as look as he looed stunning?How is the stunningness, even if it exists, but it does not, but if it did, even an argument? @@AshAndDan.
Estonia was not PART of Soviet Union. You should not say that, it is historically and legally incorrect. We were occupied by Russia. Very different thing. If someone rapes you and kills your family and deports you to another place, taking away your house and property and giving it to his family that he took with him... do you become him or a part of him? No. You would be his victim When in countries that fell victim to Soviet Union and Russia, it a very important distinction to make. Unless you want to offed everyone. Even if they are not showing it to you. We are calm and civilised people. We will not point out every mistake someone makes. We are also used to the world knowing our history in a twisted way. But if we are not saying it out loud that please do not make such or such fact mistakes, it does not mean we are not offended by it.
As for Russian architecture, we had Russian immigrants before the Soviet Union. They are our neighbour. And of course they built their churches there. There were also many Estonians in St Petersburg and we built our churches there as well. Probably not many enough for you to feel like you were in Estonia, but still, this worked both ways. Also, there are quite a few orthodox cultures among Estonians. So Orthodoxia is not patented by Russia, it is not an only- Russian thing. Greece is orthodox and so on. In Estonia we even have an Estonian orthodox church and community. It is orthodox but differs from the Russian version and its boss is not in Moscow or anywhere in Russia.
72 hours in Tallinn sounds like a torture
Haha! We loved it in Tallinn 😃 old town is stunning! Hope you enjoyed the video 👍
There is a saying, I remember not by who "All you have when you get to the top of the mountain is what you have in your back bag". I completely agree with that. If your luggage has only torture equipment in it, then everything is a torture. You have no (inner) resources for anything else. In this case, the more homework and pre-knowledge you have about a place, the more you understand the context, the more you will enjoy yourself. So I suggest you come back to Tallinn with some better equipment, mostly probably you lacked it the last time you were there
@@user-zy1vp2sw9c as a matter of fact I've been born and raised in Tallinn and left it when I was 20... my luggage is full of context, knowledge and experience. And I know that 48 hours is more than enough for this place.