The plaza in old town""RT
This is Hilary Clinton's favorite Talinn Restaurant - it is called "Grandma's" - we couldn't get a reservation
Talinn Church - mostly Lutheran in this country
View of Tallinn from highest point
Gate dividing high town from low town - medieval times
The pavillion where the "Singing Revolution" happened
Main Plaza in Tallinn old town
Our bike ride along the water - it was invigorating and lots of fun - just Mike, Judy, & me.It is now Monday and we are on a bus heading to Russia. We’ve had two wonderful days in Tallinn, the Capitol of Estonia. Estonia is a place I’d love to come back to. It gives you a very positive feeling due to its beauty and especially because of its incredible people. We’ve learned much about their history and the role that Estonia played in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Most impressive is that it was nonviolent and that music played a central role. I will summarize it to the best of my ability.
Estonia is a small country (only 1 M) the most northern of the Baltics and has an excellent port (making it very attractive to invaders). The area has been inhabited for 5,000 years by Nordic people. Although it has maintained its cultural heritage and unique language over hundreds of years it has been invaded and occupied repeatedly – Germany, Poland, Russia (many times), etc. Ivan the Terrible came here in the 1800s and Estonia was part of Russia during the Tsarist period. Then after the WWI it became an independent country and thrived.
In 1939 Stalin and Hitler got together and made a pact which gave Estonia to Russia – very bad news and the Soviets, in their usual manner, either took the government officials, the intellectuals, etc. and either killed them or sent them to forced labor in Siberia. If this wasn’t bad enough in 1941 the Nazis invaded and fought back the Soviets and Germany occupied Estonia for the remainder of WWII (and so the small Jewish population was then eliminated as wel).
At the end of WWII Churchill, Roosvelt, and Stalin chopped up Europe and gave Estonia to the Soviet Union (Stalin promised it would have some autonomy and free elections – he lied of course). So for the next 50 years Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. Our tour guide, Mina, has described these times as she remembers them growing up behind the Iron Curtain. Estonians were very repressed and afraid to express their views. They felt safe only at home. The economy was bad. Because they were so close to Scandanavia they were able to get some news from the western world. The saddest thing is that just like Lithuania they believed that the rest of the world was aware of their plight and that surely the USA would come and rescue them.
Music is very important to Estonians. They have a tradition of singing together and have the largest number of folk songs in the world. For the last 100 years they had an annual choral event where choruses from all over Estonia and sing as a single large group in Tallinn in an amphitheater with excellent acoustics. This continued even in Soviet times although they were required to sing Soviet approved songs.
One year (I think around 1980) during this annual event, a man who had composed a beautiful song about Estonia the fatherland (composed prior to the Soviet occupation) took the stage and led the huge throng of several hundred thousands in this song. The Soviet guards could do nothing to stop it. This song became their “revolutionary” anthem. The next few years when they had this singing event, when the Estonians song this song, they brought out old Estonian flags (blue, black, and white) and waved them.
After Gorbachav came into power and glasnost and perestroika began, the Estonians were the first to start speaking out publicly in support of independence. Soon Estonians were becoming more and more vocal, and the other Baltic states were too. At one point, citizens of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania formed a human chain from the northernmost point in Estonia to the southernmost in Lithuania demonstrating their desire for independence – this attracted international attention to the plight of the Baltics.
Estonia declared itself as independent and cited the old treaty ceding Estonia to Russia as illegal. Further they set up their own internal government and began
Eventually the Soviets in Russia decided enough was enough with Gorbachov and put him under house arrest. In Estonia, the many Russian citizens now living there decided to take things into their own hands. They marched to the new Estonian Parliament building and surrounded it bent upon taking it back over. Inside the Estonian president broadcasted their situation over the radio. Thousands of Estonians in Tallinn poured into street and ran to Parliament carrying weapons such as kitchen knives. Once they got there and surrounded the Russians they used restraint and chanted “out”, “out,”out”. The Russians realizing they were far outnumbered asked for mercy and the Estonians formed an opening and let them escape.
Elsewhere in the Batics there was a more violent turnover of power with many injuries and a few deaths.
Days later Boris Yeltsin, signed a document for the withdrawal of Russia from the Soviet Union and so it goes…..
Estonia is a small country (only 1 M) the most northern of the Baltics and has an excellent port (making it very attractive to invaders). The area has been inhabited for 5,000 years by Nordic people. Although it has maintained its cultural heritage and unique language over hundreds of years it has been invaded and occupied repeatedly – Germany, Poland, Russia (many times), etc. Ivan the Terrible came here in the 1800s and Estonia was part of Russia during the Tsarist period. Then after the WWI it became an independent country and thrived.
In 1939 Stalin and Hitler got together and made a pact which gave Estonia to Russia – very bad news and the Soviets, in their usual manner, either took the government officials, the intellectuals, etc. and either killed them or sent them to forced labor in Siberia. If this wasn’t bad enough in 1941 the Nazis invaded and fought back the Soviets and Germany occupied Estonia for the remainder of WWII (and so the small Jewish population was then eliminated as wel).
At the end of WWII Churchill, Roosvelt, and Stalin chopped up Europe and gave Estonia to the Soviet Union (Stalin promised it would have some autonomy and free elections – he lied of course). So for the next 50 years Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. Our tour guide, Mina, has described these times as she remembers them growing up behind the Iron Curtain. Estonians were very repressed and afraid to express their views. They felt safe only at home. The economy was bad. Because they were so close to Scandanavia they were able to get some news from the western world. The saddest thing is that just like Lithuania they believed that the rest of the world was aware of their plight and that surely the USA would come and rescue them.
Music is very important to Estonians. They have a tradition of singing together and have the largest number of folk songs in the world. For the last 100 years they had an annual choral event where choruses from all over Estonia and sing as a single large group in Tallinn in an amphitheater with excellent acoustics. This continued even in Soviet times although they were required to sing Soviet approved songs.
One year (I think around 1980) during this annual event, a man who had composed a beautiful song about Estonia the fatherland (composed prior to the Soviet occupation) took the stage and led the huge throng of several hundred thousands in this song. The Soviet guards could do nothing to stop it. This song became their “revolutionary” anthem. The next few years when they had this singing event, when the Estonians song this song, they brought out old Estonian flags (blue, black, and white) and waved them.
After Gorbachav came into power and glasnost and perestroika began, the Estonians were the first to start speaking out publicly in support of independence. Soon Estonians were becoming more and more vocal, and the other Baltic states were too. At one point, citizens of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania formed a human chain from the northernmost point in Estonia to the southernmost in Lithuania demonstrating their desire for independence – this attracted international attention to the plight of the Baltics.
Estonia declared itself as independent and cited the old treaty ceding Estonia to Russia as illegal. Further they set up their own internal government and began
Eventually the Soviets in Russia decided enough was enough with Gorbachov and put him under house arrest. In Estonia, the many Russian citizens now living there decided to take things into their own hands. They marched to the new Estonian Parliament building and surrounded it bent upon taking it back over. Inside the Estonian president broadcasted their situation over the radio. Thousands of Estonians in Tallinn poured into street and ran to Parliament carrying weapons such as kitchen knives. Once they got there and surrounded the Russians they used restraint and chanted “out”, “out,”out”. The Russians realizing they were far outnumbered asked for mercy and the Estonians formed an opening and let them escape.
Elsewhere in the Batics there was a more violent turnover of power with many injuries and a few deaths.
Days later Boris Yeltsin, signed a document for the withdrawal of Russia from the Soviet Union and so it goes…..
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