estonia – La Vida Veeta

Nestled right where the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland touch tips lies Estonia, a beautiful, compact, thicccly forested, bashful lil’ guy who I honestly knew nothing about prior to visiting.

Flying from Rīga to Tallinn was beautiful itself- the flight passes over beautiful, rolling farmland dotted with patches of trees and crop rows plowed into beautiful geometric shapes matching the irregular borders of each field (I wish I took pictures, but I didn’t want to be THAT annoying homosexual in the aisle seat who leans over to look out the window. I also don’t think that’s a stereotype that exists but goddamnit I’m making one. Call it innovation. This might actually be one of the longest sections of text I’ve ever written which is fully contained by a set of parentheses. Should we see how long I can make it? Ok, here goes. When I was a kid (like, a small kid, probably aged 4-5, also hell yeah double parentheses) I tried to learn how to jump off of a swing because all of the chad alphas in my kindergarten class were doing it. We had a little swingset in the backyard that I used to practice on because I refused to be that LOSER who couldn’t do it, but I was also very afraid of heights. This one time, I went to jump off, however for some reason my brain short circuited and made me launch off of the swing while I was swinging backwards instead of forwards. As a result, I fell almost straight down and hit my head on a wooden beam. That’s the moment I knew I would never be the gymnastic powerhouse I had always dreamed of. That also may have been THE first time I tried to jump off of a swing? Now that I’m thinking about it, I think I can trace a lot of my childhood trauma back to that one moment. In a way, me falling off of that swing was THE moment that the rest of my life diverged from an alternate timeline where I could have been a stacked male model that’s a multibillionaire living in a yacht off the coast of Italy doing whip-its with Belarussian oligarchs. Think of that movie The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher. Remember that shit? Damn, I wish he bets he could go back in time and NOT write that character letter for Danny Masterson. What a piece of shit. Anyways yeah, to all the parents out there, be sure to support your children in all of their swing jumping ventures as it could end up with them literally ruling the world. Hopefully with an iron fist. OMG what if I just gassed someone up to support their child becoming an absolute monster.)

Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, with approximately 450,000 people (about 650,000 in the metro) and honestly is such a picturesque place. The medieval old town is incredibly well preserved, being surrounded by a huge system of fortifying walls and towers. What stood out to me the most is the vibrant sea of red roof tiles (really evident in pictures 1 and 2 in the gallery below). This is probably just a dumb misconception I had, but I always equated red roof tiles to the Mediterranean, however they were super prevalent here, all the way in the Baltic. It really caught me off guard but I was pleasantly surprised (I love the color orange!)

Besides the walls and roofs, Tallinn’s old town is perhaps best defined by the Pikk- or the meandering medieval main street of the city. It’s honestly one of the fucking cutest things I’ve ever seen in my whole fucking life- a narrow, cobblestoned, meandering road flanked by beautiful old buildings. I went out for a walk through town at like 5 AM one morning to watch the sunrise and it was absolutely empty and completely quiet. As the sun rose, a layer of rain clouds lifted from the city, and there was such a profound peacefulness. A rainbow appeared right as I was passing the Russian embassy, and it felt intentional and extremely pointed (I see you Mother Nature. I snapped in approval). It was honestly one of the most beautiful moments of my life, and made me realize just how grateful I am to be alive.

Outside of the old town, I was fortunate enough to be able to explore some areas through Harju County. Harju County encompasses most of the land surrounding Tallinn and includes seaside cliffs, dense forests, several large waterfalls, a network of abandoned Soviet military tunnels, an ex major naval hub for the USSR with several nuclear submarines stationed (now home to a VERY active NATO military base), abandoned prisons, and picturesque hills. It’s honestly an incredibly beautiful and complex landscape and I deeply wish to be able to visit again to explore more thoroughly.

Well, to wrap up this post, I wanted to list some ZaNy eStOnIa FaCtS:

Did you know that due to economic reforms made in the 90’s, Estonia now boasts the highest per capita rate of tech startups in the world?
The Estonian language is incredibly interesting (and has super super fun, goofy spelling of words) and is more related to Finnish and Hungarian than other nearby Baltic or Slavic languages? More on the language- something I found really cool is that they love the use of suffixes to describe nouns. For example, the suffix -iste meants ‘Saint’, so Oliviste translates to ‘Saint Olaf’, Niguliste to ‘Saint Nick’, etc.
Tallinn hosted part of the 1980 Olympics (held in Moscow). Since it was part of the Soviet Union and had access to the Baltic Sea, Tallinn was chosen to host all of the sailing events that year. Linnahall, an imposing, Brutalist amphitheater and events center, was built for the events. It has been abandoned for decades and is in complete disrepair now but it makes for a very scenic and spooky walk.
Tallinn has a FAT ASS