Welcome to Soviet Tallinn

Yes, it may now be a casino, but the building still has Stalin's tower and star on the roof. If you know where to look, Tallinn provides plenty for the seeker of retro-Soviet chic.

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By Kaja Kunnas in Tallinn
     
      In crisp, frosty weather, with the temperature well below zero, we climb the long flight of steps up to Tallinn's City Concert Hall. In the harbour, located next to the heliport, this huge box-like building, slightly resembling a ziggurat, was known until a decade or two ago as the V.I. Lenin Palace of Sports and Culture.
      The Concert Hall comples, which also contains an ice-hall and more besides, was designed by Raine Karp and Riina Altmäe and completed in time for the Moscow Olympics of 1980 - when Tallinn hosted the sailing events. Raine Karp was also responsible for the Central Post Office and for the National Library in Tõnismäe.
      The hall is a splendid example of the fact that the Soviet style has not completely disappeared from Tallinn and the modern independent free-market Estonia. To be fair, in recent years there has been much discussion of the sale and demolition of the City Concert Hall, which sprawls over a prime piece of waterfront real estate that developers would love to get their hands on.
     
The capital of the former Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic still offers a whole host of authentic sights from the Soviet era.
      So let us go back in time a few years. Our guide is Indrek Tarand, a former Tallinn political dissident and now the Director of the National War Museum.
      Trams 1 and 2 run from the City Concert Hall to the centre of Tallinn. Alongside the road heading southwards (Mere puiestee) is the former Officers' Building, now the Russian Cultural Centre. Externally and architecturally it does not really represent the Soviet era, but the edifice is regarded as the hub of pro-Russian sentiment in Tallinn.
      What do represent the period under Moscow, on the other hand, are a collection of symbols to be seen even in the very heart of Tallinn, rubbing shoulders with the new glass and steel skyscraper blocks: above the casino located opposite the Stockmann department store is a tower and a star from the time of Josef Stalin.
      Near to the Olympia Hotel, at the foot of some of those tall tower blocks, is a long row of private lock-ups for cars, an old Garaazzikoperatiiv or "garage cooperative".
     
Right in the modern centre, one can get a whiff of the past at the Narva Café, where some of the items on the confectionery menu are quite unchanged from the early 1980s.
      The mood is also set by a heavy dark-brown décor and a thick haze of cigarette smoke. There are fewer staff these days, but the a la carte menu in the dining room is at least a good deal more comprehensive than it was.
      In addition to little pocket-shaped pastries filled with quark [soft, white, unripened, cow's milk cheese with the texture and flavor of sour cream], the "Capital Salad" has lasted the test of time, as has a bouillon-type soup served with an egg in it, and on the dessert side there is fruit salad and ice cream and Sovyetskoye sparkling wine.
     
Even after Independence in 1991, some official Soviet-era monuments have remained standing. Most are memorials to the fallen in past wars.
      The Monument to the Liberators, also known as "The Bronze Soldier", was put up to commemorate those Soviet Army troops who died in liberating the capital from the Germans. Until Independence it was often viewed rather as a symbol of occupation than of liberation, but now it is a common war memorial to all those who died in the conflict of the 1940s.
      The statue is a particularly rich sight on former Soviet holidays, when one can see elderly Red Army veterans in their uniforms and medals. The biggest such event is of course May 9th, celebrated in Russia as Victory Day.
     
A statue in honour of the Estonian trade union movement was erected to commemorate the deaths of union men "murdered by the bourgeoisie". It stands on the street now known as Toompuiestee, which formerly carried the name of Soviet cosmonaut-hero Yuri Gagarin. The monument still serves as meeting point for the trade union movement today.
      The huge, sprawling Monument to Heroes of the Soviet Army is to be found along the shoreline boulevard in the Pirita district of town.
      The hill of Maarjamäe on which it is set used to feature a partly burnt tree. According to the Soviet version of history, the tree was blackened when the Fascists burned one Yevgeni Nikonov alive while he was bound to the trunk with ropes. Nikonov went to his death without revealing the military secrets of the Red Army.
      Indrek Tarand shrugs a little and says: "Of course Nikonov was one of those invented Soviet hroes. He was living perfectly happily in Moscow at the time and did not know anything about this. These days the Maarjamäe site is a memorial to all war dead, but nobody actually knows this."
     
Some less dramatic details of recent history can be found from a walk in the Kopli district of town, by the sea, north-west from the centre.
      Kopli was an industrial suburb, and it was also where the first immigrants from other parts of the USSR were brought in and resettled. The Soviet flag last flew here in this still predominantly Russian-speaking area in 1993.
      "A Soviet fence in all its glory", says our guide drily as we pass the Volta Electronics Works. When the consignment of grey bricks for the wall had run out, the next level was in white brick, then in a slightly larger size of brick, and then the edifice was topped with barbed-wire.
     
People in the Soviet Socialist Republic were also offered cultural fare. In the Kalamaja district of town is the former Jaan Tombi Palace of Culture, now the Salme Cultural Centre, a building in much the same style as Kino Sõprus or the former "Friendship Cinema" in the Old Town.
     
No Soviet-retro trip to Tallinn would be complete without a visit to the residential suburb of Lasnamäe.
      Gigantic by any standards, this workers' paradise dormitory for 100,000 went up in the early 1980s for people resettled in the Estonian SSR from other parts of the Union.
      It has more inhabitants than Estonia's second-largest city, Tartu, and is still predominantly Russian by population. A slightly surreal experience.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 11.3.2006


Links:
  Tallinn Tourist Office
  Tallinn´s Soviet Legacy
  An architectural site about the City Concert Hall
  Tallinn (Wikipedia)

KAJA KUNNAS / Helsingin Sanomat
kajakunnas@hotmail.com