Tallinn Like Never Before

We visit Tallinn at least twice a year, but most times, we walk the familiar routes. This time, we agreed to do something different, at least partially.

I neglected to mention earlier that when we visited Zoya, she told us that her village was a part of the Soviet Union for eleven years after the WWII: the Soviet Union leased a big chunk of land for it’s Navy base, and there were actual border control crossing points, and when a passenger train had to pass through this territory, the windows would be boarded for that stretch. She also explained how pretty much everything had to be restored when the Soviet Union abandoned the lease. In Tallinn, Boris wanted to explore one area which he said was closed when he was a child, for a similar reason: it was a Soviet navy base. That being said, when we disembarked, we turned in a direction opposite to how we normally walk from the terminal to the city center.

Boris was fascinated by the fact that the area previously behind the barbed wire was now accessible and had been transformed into a recreation area.

Next, we went to the Monitor Rusalka (Mermaid) monument – I had never been there and didn’t even know it existed! You can read the whole story of Rusalka here.

Boris says it is now even better cared for than during the Soviet times. We walked around reading (and often deciphering the titles) of each person who lost their lives in this tragedy.