Tallinn, Tuesday, September 29

History and Art Day! Our day began with the kindness of strangers. Since nothing seems to open before 10 am, we were strolling around Old Town. A woman who was setting up the display at a bakery saw us admiring the huge two-tone chocolate megachip cookies. As we turned to leave, she called out to us with a bag in her hand! A freebie to take with us on our day! We were so touched! We snacked on it later and it was as good as it looked!

We arrived for opening at the Estonian History Museum at the Great Guild Hall. The building itself, built in the early 1400s, was originally a club for merchants. We were particularly interested in the exhibit about the Hanseatic League, having learned a bit about this in Bergen. We were not disappointed! There was so much to learn about the German influence, particularly from Lübeck, as well as about the specific cargos (such as wax, timber, salt etc) and the trade routes. We also learned about the everyday life of merchant families. The Hanseatic League functioned as the major trading consortium for 500 years from the mid 1100s to the mid 1600s!  https://www.hanse.org/en/the-medieval-hanseatic-league

A treat of a beautiful handpainted marzipan butterfly from the Kalev Marzipan Museum Room gave us energy to continue deepening our knowledge at our next stop!

The Estonian Maritime Museum is cleverly located in the Fat Margaret Tower. Visitors make their way round each level and fittingly use the spiral staircase to ascend to the next level. We were very purposeful in our mission though. We wanted to see a Hanseatic cog—a single-mast, square-sailed cargo workhorse. This ship wrecked off the coast of Tallinn in the 1300s! It was unearthed in 2015 during a construction project. It was in remarkably good condition and included ~700 artifacts! We learned that since then, an even larger one has been found and is being conserved while another has been left buried for future exploration. https://meremuuseum.ee/paksmargareeta/en/for-history-and-maritime-buffs/the-cog/

We left Old Town in the afternoon to explore the Tallinn coast and walk through the neighborhood of Kalamaja. We stopped by another craft brewery, Põhjala Tap Room, where we had a nice selection to taste.

The last part of our day was spent at Fotografiska Museum. https://tallinn.fotografiska.com/en There were two exhibits. Level one featured work by Vivian Maier. During her life, she was a nanny who traveled the world. Her work was discovered after her death and she is now considered one of the greatest street photographers of the 20th century. https://tallinn.fotografiska.com/en/exhibitions/vivian-maier The second floor was devoted to Latvian photographer, Inta Ruka. This display captivated both of us. The series, My Country People, focused on a small Latvian village bordering Russia in the Balvi region. She returned to this canvas repeatedly for 20 years. It felt like a scavenger hunt once we realized that we were seeing the same people in later or earlier years. In Amalijas Street 5 a, her focus was on the residents of an apartment building in Riga..Her portraits showed hardship, determination, and small moments of joy. They were like an unfinished story for which you were yearning to know the end. Very powerful work. We watched this great documentary about her work: https://youtu.be/bG9IATOpptE?is=kXML4UiEtP44dJSS. Just as we were about to leave, John realized that Inta Ruka was speaking in one of the galleries! Even though we only heard the end of her talk, we felt like we had won a prize!