Thursday, July 20 - Tallin, Estonia
After cruising all night, we finally arrived in Tallin around 10:00am. This wonderfully preserved, ancient walled port city is of the old Hanseatic League, and is protected as a UNESCO Heritage Site.
It is filled with remarkable fortresses, castles, and cathedrals. Medieval Tallinn had six gates, all bastion forts complete with moats and drawbridges.
We went on a city tour to gain insight into Estonia's premier city. Tallin's Old Town is still encircled by city walls, punctuated with many stone towers rising above red-tiled roofs.
Within the city walls, the streets remain much as they were when Danish rulers built them in the 13th century. The historic city center is divided into the Lower Town and the Upper Town.
In the Lower Town, the 600-year-old town hall (best preserved of its kind in Northern Europe) presides dramatically over Town Hall Square (Raejoka plats).
The Upper Town is on Toompea Hill, where two 13th century landmarks still stand: Toompea Castle (now the meeting place for the Estonian Parliament) and the Dome Church (Estonias's largest Lutheran sanctuary).
Many of the city's historic buildings reflect the prosperity it enjoyed between the 14th and 16th centuries. Under German control, Tallinn flourished during these years as a trade port in the Hanseatic league. Later periods of Swedish and Russian rule also left their marks on Tallinn, whose rich layers of history we were able to learn about.
Other sights in town were the Kirk-in-de-Kok (Look into the Kitchen), a bastion built in 1470. At the time, it was the tallest building in Estonia and earned its name because it was said that watchmen would peer into the kitchens of the houses below.
I tried some Estonian Kringles today. This is a twisted sweetbread that is flavored with cardamom or saffron. Raisins may also be added to enhance the sweetness and texture of the bread. VERY GOOD!
Estonian cuisine is simple with seafood popular along the coast, and in the rural areas they like more vegetables and other crops. One third of Estonia is made up of farmland.
Bread, more specifically black bread, is a huge staple of Estonian cuisine. It has been said that bread is so important that if you drop a piece of bread on the ground, do not waste it. Instead, in Estonia it is normal to pick the bread up off the ground, no matter how long it was there, kiss it, and continue using it. Not so sure I would do that!
Here are some things I learned about Estonia:
- Flat tax of 20%; however, when you factor in the medical, education, and other taxes, the government takes 53% of their money.
- Maternity leave is three years and when you come back, your position and pay is there for you to start back up. Technically, you could have a child, take off for three years, get pregnant again and have another child at the end of the first three years, and then off again for another three years, etc. The job and salary would still be there for you when you want to come back to work. Wonder if it would still be there if you had 10 children (30 years of maternity leave!).
- First 18 months of maternity leave, you are paid your salary. The first six months has to be the mom who is taking off time. The rest of the 18 months can be either the mother or the father taking off from work.
- 1991 was the year that unemployment went up to 42%! It stayed only for about two months, and is currently at 6%.
- An Estonian created Skype.
- Estonians are afraid of foreigners and immigrants. They accepted less than 100 refugees; they don't tolerate other cultures. Most of those immigrants left for other countries because they did not feel welcomed in Estonia.
- Everyone votes online. They pay their taxes online. One of the guides said her husband timed how long it took her to pay her taxes online and it came to 39 SECONDS!!!!! She received the extra money back in less than 10 days. But the average time to do your taxes online is 10 minutes.
- If you put the size of Maryland and Connecticut together, you will have the size of Estonia.
- The average wage is $1,200 per month.
- Around 24% of the population in Estonia are ethnic Russians.
- Population is 1,280,000.
- Estonian is a Finns-Ugric language. It has 32 letters and 14 cases. It has no genders, prepositions, or future tenses.
- They have free public transportation. Never have to pay for it. And there is internet access on the buses.
- Going to school is free, up thru college and university.
- Medical care is covered.
- School is out in June, July, and August. That's the way it was many years ago when I was in elementary and high school.
- There is quite a bit of osteoporosis in Estonia because of the lack of sunlight, thus, lack of vitamin D. But there are lots of spas!
- When the country received independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union, many things opened up for them. For instance, Bill Gates (Microsoft) gave every school computers in 1993 in order for the country to get up to date on technology and to help expand their knowledge of the world without the Soviet's influence.
- Thirty percent of the population smoke. Cigarettes are very cheap here.
Here are some Estonian words:
Tere = hello
Aitah = thank you
Terviseks = cheers
Vanapaganarahapada = A pot of gold belonging to the devil
Tonight we cruise to the country of Latvia.
Blogs & Forums
