"a land of eeks and baars"

Well, here we are in Tallinn, birthplace of the composer Arvo Pärt, home of the DM Baar and site of the so-called Singing Revolution.

I want to tell you about that last thing, because it's really quite impressive. A couple of kms outside Tallinn's city centre, there's an enormous arena that hosts the Estonian Song Festivals every five years. This might sound like a giant snore – thousands of people jigging about to folk tunes and so forth – and indeed it may well be. But here's the first remarkable thing: the arena holds 150,000 people, and the actual stage holds 33,000. So these Song Festivals really do celebrate the 'music of the people' since, with only about one million ethnic Estonians in the country (along with about half a million Russians), you can fit a decent % of the entire Estonian population onto the stage, and a fair chunk of it into the arena.

The main reason I mention this, though, is that these Song Festivals have occasionally witnessed (or even made) history. In 1990 the usual massive crowds doubled in size, and somehow the Tallinn Song Bowl was forced to accommodate 300,000 singing Estonians. They were there to "sing themselves free", to use a popular local turn of phrase. That year, the festival became a giant protest vote calling for independence from the Soviet Union.

Of course, this all happened during the period when the USSR was beginning to crack open like a gigantic geopolitical walnut in the nutcracker of history. [Bwwahahahahaa, feel my awesome metaphor-making power and quake, tiny humans!] Its façade of functionality was getting thinner by the day. Historically, Estonia had endured several periods of occupation by Russia, of which the most recent was half a century of harsh and incompetent Soviet rule. It'd been a very dark period in Estonian history, characterised by aggressive cultural suppression, deportations, gulags and so on.

The people were fed up with being pushed around by their occupiers and, as the eighties drew to a close, they saw their chance to act. So what did they do? They opened their mouths and began to sing. They sang, quite literally, for a couple of years. And the Song Festival in 1990 was the culmination of this, their Singing Revolution.

Reads as though I'm making it all up, doesn't it? But guess what: the story gets even more fanciful from here. See, the really unlikely thing is that the Singing Revolution actually worked. It happened soon after the 'Baltic Chain' event in 1989, when two million people joined hands across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. That had been the largest protest ever in Eastern Europe, and had drawn the eyes of the world media to the region. So when Soviet tanks began rolling around Estonia, trying to attack television and radio stations that were broadcasting pro-independence views (and jaunty folk songs), they were forced to pay attention to the human shields blocking their path. Why? Because all-of-a-sudden the BBC, CNN and their ilk were eyeing off the Red Army something awful. Bastards must've hated that!

Anyway, the Soviets failed to quell the folk-singing rabble. There was a referendum, in which almost 80% of the population voted "yes" to secession. (That may not seem overwhelmingly high, but bear in mind that 1/3 of people in Estonia are ethnically Russian.) Then there was a prefunctory little border skirmish, after which Estonia's independence was recognised.

So on our first full day in Tallinn, we went and saw the Song Bowl. It was pretty damn impressive, I must say. However, that was just a brief stop on a morning tour; most of the day we spent gawping at Vana Tallinna (the Old Town), sampling the local cuisine and trying to psyche ourselves up to hire a car in a foreign country.

Before I tell you about our adventure in the Estonian countryside, let me salivate about Vana Tallinna for a bit. I can't think of a better way to introduce the subject than to say that the entire city is UNESCO World Heritage listed. That's how cool it is. A stroll along its twisting alleyways and across its medieval squares is enough to make you appreciate why the UN would make the effort to protect this place. There really is no denying that Vana Tallinna rocks. Hard.

Outside in the new town, modern life goes on as normal, but there are few signs of it here; its World Heritage status has protected Vana Tallinna (mostly) from the grabbing hands* of property developers. All of which would make this more or less the perfect location for a 6-12 month sojourn, just to rinse the bustle of metropolis out of your skull for a while.

I've taken a ton of photos while we've been staying here, as one does. A few of them have been creeping up your screen while you've been reading this. 

To briefly explain these shots: Raekoja Plats is the Town Square, where the usual bizarre assortment of stuff has taken place over the generations – including the be-heading of a priest in the 17th Century, after he axed a waitress to death in a café on the square's perimeter because she served him an omelette that was "as hard as a shoe". Pikk Jalg is a street that runs part way around the edge of Vana Tallinna; its name means "long leg" or "long boot". Vana Turg is another of the many side streets running off the main square, lined with shops that have elaborate displays on their awnings.

The streets of Vana Tallinna radiate out from Raekoja Plats towards another pretty marvellous piece of UNESCO-listed architectural goo: namely, one of Europe's best preserved town walls. Actually, for historical and geographical reasons there are two walls here. See, in most periods of its development Tallinn has been divided into 'upper' and 'lower' sections. The city's occupiers – of which there have been many, thanks to Tallinn's seaside location on major East-West trade routes – have usually lived in the upper town, while local merchants and so forth lived down below. And of course, if you're an occupying power in a foreign land, you want your own set of fortifications to protect you not just from raiders but also from the townsfolk themselves. Result: it's wall-to-wall walls here! You rarely go too far without bumping into one (sometimes literally if you're as unco as me).

Because Tallinn has passed through so many hands, an almost ridiculous number of towers have been built into its walls at various times. There are 34 currently standing, many with odd-sounding names like Neitistorn (Virgin's Tower – once a prison for prostitutes), Paks Margareeta (Fat Margaret) and Kiek in de Kök ("peep into the kitchen"). The last of those was named because it's so damn tall and located at one of the wall's highest points. When Tallinn was part of the Hanseatic League, watchmen could stand on the tower and see "into the kitchens" of lower Tallinn – meaning it was the best point from which to observe any revolutionary ferment that might be brewing among the plebs.

Much later, the KGB had their own ideas about the best vantage points in Tallinn. They set up their local HQ at Pikk 71 (not far from the wall) and joked witlessly that it was the tallest building in the world because, from the cells in its basement, you could see Siberia. To which, of course, the correct response is "Oh you funny, funny Cold Warriors, you".

Right next to the wall, on a street called Nunne, a small sign marks the entrance to a modest little theme bar. As theme bars go, this is probably as close as I'll ever come to finding the 'perfect' one for me. See, the whole interior of this place is devoted to the English band Depeche Mode, who provided Anthony with a fair chunk of the soundtrack to his life during the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. They play only Depeche Mode on the sound system here, serve DM-themed cocktails, and their walls are plastered with memorabilia and photos of the band's frequent visits to their establishment.

This, in fact, is none other than the 'DM Baar', a near-obsessive shrine to one of my all-time favourite bands. I was a little surprised to learn that DM are actually more popular in the Baltics than they are in any other part of the world, in terms of chart positions and albums sold per capita. When you consider that this is the band who continually breaks records for "largest ever crowds at a gig headlined by an independent band", that's quite remarkable.

Anyway, I probably don't have to tell you that, having been informed of this place's existence, there was no way I could visit Tallinn without popping in for a drink. And I'm very glad I did. It was kinda silly, but nonetheless an important thing to do. (And thanks to Michelle for giving me the heads-up, btw – I would've been crushed if I'd only heard about it afterwards.)

And so, yet again I've rambled on for way longer than I meant to. And I didn't even get to the part where Maya and I headed out into the picturesque Baltic wilderness, went for a stroll on the frozen ocean, and sang our "Estonia" song at some trees.

("Estonia, Estonia

A few short days I've known ya

Estonia, Estonia,

Oh how I'd like to oooooooownnnnn ... yaaaa!!!!)

Hmmm ... okay, maybe that'll have to wait for a separate entry. I'm sure you're all feeling well and truly Tallinnated by now :-)

Right then. Bye!

 

* Maya dubbed Estonia "a land of eeks and baars" on our first day here, and the phrase lodged in my brain immediately. The "EEK" is the local currency, the Eesti Krone or Estonian Crown. And the "baar"? No, not a misspelling; they really spell it with an extra "a" here. Almost as you would in your head at the end of a relentlessly awful day: "Mmmm, baaaaaar ...". Hehe.

rolling northwest

Since I started keeping a travel journal of sorts, I've sometimes imagined how cool it would be if I could 'phone in' each entry from some new and exciting location. Unfortunately, that just isn't possible. I mean, I'm not actually travelling at all now, so much as just living somewhere else. So in truth, 95% of everything I've published on Ranting Manor has been phoned in from ... well, from the bedroom of my flat.

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself right now though, 'cause tonight's entry is a bit different.

As I type, I'm rolling north-westward in a first class sleeper cabin on service number 54 from Moscow to St. Petersburg. It's about 4am (I think), it's pitch black outside and I've got the feeling that I'm making my way through a vast, icy expanse of almost-nothingness. I love that feeling! In the 'ideal lifestyle' I sometimes imagine for myself, it's something I get to feel at least once in every calendar month.

Some words about my present environs: I was kinda nervous about long-distance rail travel in Russia, especially in regard to safety. Turns out that I needn't have worried. We're hermetically sealed into this cabin by electronic security; the only way to open the door is to wave a pass card in front of it until a piercing little beep announces that the heavy invisible latch has been released.

Inside, you get the feeling that you're in the lap of luxury; the décor is all plush crimson with gold trim, there's endless gadgetry embedded into the walls (including a power point and phone jack for me to plug my laptop into) and a little dinner is provided to boarding passengers, complete with fancy chocolates and jars of red caviar. Waiters come around and helpfully offer to top you up with cognac, shampanskoye and other intoxicating goodies from the extensive drinks menu as your journey gets underway.

However, out in the vestibule area, where the myesta dlya kooreniya ("place for smoking") is situated, it's a different story. The ridiculously efficient heating system that's slowly broiling us alive in our cabin doesn't operate in the lonely vestibule, and it's below freezing out there. You can see your breath plainly, and a thick crust of ice makes the windows almost entirely opaque. (That's ice on the inside, by the way.) Plus, there's a draught at floor level that's cold enough to make you think about frostbite.

All in all, I think this would have to be one of the funnest rail journeys of my life so far.

On the chilling side of things, a short while ago I was standing out in the hallway, just squinting into the pitch-black and moonless night (as you do), and we passed through a village where I saw a building on fire in the main street. It looked like someone's dacha. Most dachas are made of wood, and I'm thinking they'd be at greatest risk of catching fire whilst inhabited, since gas lamps, cigarette ends, open fires and so on are all ideal means of ignition. So whoever owns the dacha was probably staying there when it went up.

Everything I've read and been told about these country homes suggests that they're a kind of 'spiritual centre' of Russian life. So I'm finding it difficult to imagine just how heart-wrenching it would be, waking up in the middle of the night to find your beloved dacha burning down around you, then having to gather up your stuff and make a run for it into the frozen laneway. Out here, I seriously doubt there'd be any prospect of a fire brigade turning up to help you salvage some of your pride and joy. There'd be nothing you could do but stand back and watch the flames destroying your dream, then try to find some other means of sheltering yourself from the bitter (-15C) cold.

But moving on from that rather depressing little tangent: I've managed to get four weeks off work, so now it's adventure time. And I'm joined in this adventure by Maya, who flew all the way here from Sydney last week to visit me, and to get acquainted with some Russian and Northern European beauty spots. Pretty cool, don't you think?


Obviously the first place to explore was Moscow, and since my guest turned up a week ago, it's been doing its usual oscillate-wildly-between-extremes trick. One minute you're feeling awed by the stunning Metro, or losing yourself in the beauty of winter's fine detail, or immersing in the outdoor market experience, or gawping at the famous landmarks and so forth. The next you're being barked at by apoplectic cashiers because you don't have a ten kopeck (0.5 cent) coin on you, or feeling the day slip through your fingers courtesy of Moscow's absurd unnavigability, or seeing a corpse being guarded by militsia in the foyer of a railway station, while outside other Muscovites try their hardest to join him in the next world by flinging themselves face first at the pavement.

Or else, you know, you're just hating the food and the coffee.

The highlight was probably seeing the interior of St. Basil's. It was very different to how I'd imagined it, and quite strikingly beautiful. It departs from the 'normal' layout and design of a church in some pretty significant ways - for example, there's no central hall, just nine small chapels on different levels. They're all connected by winding hallways and staircases, which makes you feel as though you could be exploring a medieval merchant's house rather than a cathedral. Also, the walls are covered with brightly-coloured, mostly non-figurative designs, which lends the whole place a vaguely mosque-like feel. The accoutrements (lanterns and so on) are surprisingly tasteful, too, compared to the clutter of iconography that plasters every surface in most Orthodox churches. I'm really glad I went in and had a look; had Maya not been visiting, I probably wouldn't have bothered.

But anyway, tonight was "farewell" to Moscow, at least for a couple of weeks. Obviously I'll fill you in on how our holiday turns out; expect a bunch of rants in the not-too-distant. For the time being, though, guess I'll just keep on rollin'. Exactly like Johnny Cash. Except that Johnny wasn't actually on the train; he was stuck in Fulsome Prison, feelin' blue as he listened to those big steel wheels roll past his tiny world, remindin' him of how time drags when you're in the Big House. Hmmm ... guess I'll try not to be like Johnny Cash, then.

I need some sleep. Can you tell?