By David Gourley
Cathy and I commenced serious travel in 1987. The Cold War was by now drawing to a close
but we didn’t know that then. So I never
dreamt that one day we’d be strolling back and forth through the Brandenburg Gate,
where the Berlin Wall had once stood, or that we’d visit a Prague that was once
more the capital of a free country - or that we’d visit the independent states
of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Not
long after the collapse of the Soviet Union we were in New York and visited the
United Nations. In the General Assembly
Hall we observed the name plates for the three Baltic States. In my travel diary I wrote “who would have
thought? ......”
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| Tallinn |
The three countries are often bracketed
together. They are after all smallish
entities, located side by side along the eastern littoral of the Baltic
Sea. But it’s not just that: their
histories over the last century have been very similar, and for all too much of
that time tragic.
Formerly part of the Tsarist Empire, the Baltic
States, along with Finland to the north, managed to break away after the
Bolshevik Revolution. Alas they were to
find themselves sandwiched between two voracious neighbours who would not leave
other countries alone: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. Under the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact,
the two dictators carved the region up between them, with the Soviet Union thus
awarded the Baltic States and Finland as well as a slice of Poland. The Finns gave Stalin a bloody nose but the
Baltic States were invaded and incorporated into the Soviet Union. But it was not long before Hitler launched
Operation Barbarossa and thus seized vast swathes of the Soviet Union,
including the three Baltics. The Soviets
returned in 1944 – and stayed for the next 47 years.
Riina, our lovely Estonian guide who accompanied us
on tour through the Baltics, told us that there was some superstition
surrounding the period of 22 years, the duration of independence first time
round. This was 2011 and the countries
had been independent for 20 years. Now
it is 2014 – phew! At the time of our
visit there was in fact no reason to think that the Russians posed any
threat. It is true that the Estonians blamed
the Russians – without having any hard evidence – for the cyber-attack in 2007
that played havoc with the country’s IT (the country is sometimes known as e-Estonia as it has embraced IT so
enthusiastically that it is in this respect one of the most advanced in the
world). But a land invasion was surely
unthinkable.
But now, with Russia having just helped itself to a
chunk of Ukraine, the Baltics are feeling somewhat jittery. A result of the Soviet occupation is that at
time of independence, around 40% of the population of Estonia, and an even
greater percentage in Latvia, were of Russian origin and, as in Ukraine, Putin appears to see it as his mission
to “protect” Russian speaking people in
former Soviet states. The Baltics have though joined both the EU and NATO, the
latter founded on the principle of an attack on one member being an attack on
all, so have their own powerful protectors.
Estonia, and more recently Latvia, have also joined the Eurozone;
apparently Lithuania is thinking about it.
Whilst in the geopolitical sense the Baltics are very
similar, one should remember that these are separate, and very different,
countries. For example the Latvians and
Lithuanians combine to form a unique ethnic and linguistic group whereas the
Estonians are close kinsfolk of the Finns and are more distantly related to the
Hungarians. On the other hand Estonia
and Latvia are Lutheran whereas Lithuania is staunchly Catholic. Pre-1918, Lithuania had had a previous
existence as an independent state, latterly in union with Poland, whereas the
other two had never been nation states.
Our tour started in Tallinn (Estonia), continuing
through Riga (Latvia) to Vilnius (Lithuania).
We were thus more or less following the route of the human chain that,
in the perestroika era, when people
in the Baltics dared to start hoping that freedom could be regained, had linked
the three capitals. We had been to
Estonia before, a weekend break ten years previously. This was in the middle of winter and normal
people might have headed south. But
what’s so great about being normal? The
beauty of Tallinn was enhanced by the light covering of snow. We had not been
to Latvia or Lithuania. We had three
nights in Tallinn and two nights each in the other capitals.
Our hotel in Tallinn was the Meriton Grand, located
just outside the historic centre. It
was only when we went out for a post-dinner stroll and thought the surroundings
looked rather familiar that the penny dropped: this was the same hotel where
we’d stayed in 2001. Strange as it might
seem, we hadn’t realized. In those days
it was known simply as the Grand.
Estonia of all the former Soviet countries was the most westernized,
even so there was still something of a Soviet-era feel about the hotel. It was practically empty yet we were assigned
a room with a view of the car park. We
managed to get ourselves moved to a room which gave a magical view of the
floodlit Toompea Castle, which houses the country’s parliament. The catering left much to be desired. For breakfast I tried some porridge. I have never eaten Dickensian gruel but would
hazard a guess that this is what it tasted like. Now, some ten years on, the hotel was
transformed. There was a good, if
somewhat quirky, Russian restaurant, Balalaika
– and they served decent porridge.
We had a full day in Tallinn, divided between a walking
tour in the morning and free time in the afternoon. We had a local guide for the tour, another lovely
lady who was maybe a few years older us.
Like Riina and our guide in Riga (but not the one in Vilnius) she spoke
movingly of her country’s history and the experience of Soviet occupation. She wanted to disabuse us of the widespread
notion that people in the Baltics ‘preferred’ the Nazis to the Communists: “how
does one choose between smallpox and bubonic plague?”
I was amazed, when I read through the feedback
section of our tour company’s website, that some old bloke was moaning about
how “wearing” it was to hear the local guides talking about the history of
their countries which, he dismissively added, was “pretty much the same”. I have a masters in Slavonic and Eastern
European History so I would be interested, wouldn’t I, but surely any
intelligent layman would be? This chap
should count himself lucky that he grew up under the benign rule of the
Harolds, Macmillan and Wilson, rather than under the rule of the heirs of
Stalin.
We headed past Toompea Castle, not alas open to the
public, and the huge Orthodox Cathedral, the Alexander Nevsky church. We’d spent a bit of time there last time,
attending for part of a service – it’s fine in an Orthodox church to go in and
out for services tend to be very long and one stands up throughout. I thought it was all a bit ritualistic and preferred
the exuberance of the Lutheran service we attended, which veered towards ‘happy
clappy’. Cathy took the opposite view. A former client had mischievously sent our
guide an Observer travel piece which
informed the reader that “all Estonians love the Alexander Nevsky church”. Not true: its worshippers come from the
Russian speaking population and it is thus, for native Estonians, a symbol of
rule from Moscow.
Tallinn is a lovely city, one of the finest in
Europe, full of nooks and crannies and wonderful old buildings, its centre
being the beautiful Old Town Square.
Something that had surprised me about Tallinn, during our previous
visit, is it doesn’t have the look or feel of a maritime city. The only time we saw the sea was when we went
to a viewing point. In this respect is
quite different from its neighbour across the Gulf of Finland, Helsinki, where
the sea is very much a presence.
In the afternoon we took a tram, as we had done the
previous time, to Kadriorg Park, a mile or so east of the centre. Here one finds the Presidential Palace and a
number of museums. We were this time
able to visit Peter the Great’s House, which had been closed last time as we
were out of season. It is small so
there’s not a lot to see but its historic significance of course makes a visit
well worthwhile. Peter evidently had a
great liking for Reval, as Tallinn was then known, and even toyed with the idea
of making it his capital. Estonians are
no doubt grateful that he instead decided to create a new city, St Petersburg,
on the marshes of Ingria, which like Estonia was land he’d conquered from the Swedes.
We got the tram back and stepped out into torrential
rain which persisted as we made our way through the historic centre to our
hotel on the other side. I was not
thrilled. But Cathy thoroughly enjoyed the
walk, her dictum being that there’s no such thing as wrong weather, just wrong
clothes. But the rain did force a
rethink about where we would dine that evening.
We’d planned to return to Balthazar’s,
a restaurant in Old Town Square that specializes in garlic dishes, as we’d had
good meals there previously. We
postponed this to the next evening and settled for another evening meal in Balalaika.
We had a full day excursion to the Lahemaa National
Park, a chance at last to see something of Estonia beyond its capital. The Park lies about halfway to the Russian
border. We passed through Lasnamae,
which is on the eastern edge of the city, beyond the reach of the trams and
trolleybuses and not much visited by tourists.
Yet approx. a third of Tallinn’s residents live there. Its functional architecture is a product of
the Soviet era, dating back more specifically to the Moscow Olympics when
Tallinn hosted the maritime events, rather as Weymouth did during the London
Olympics.
Tallinn was in a way the Soviet Union’s “Window on
the West” rather as St Petersburg was during the time of Peter the Great and
his successors. But whereas Peter wanted
to embrace western ideas the Soviet leaders wanted to keep them out. However they could not totally succeed. Tallinn was after all geographically close to
the West, with Finland lying just fifty miles or so across the Gulf. There was little the authorities could do to
stop people listening to Finnish radio: “we would listen to Soviet radio”, our
local guide told us, “and then tune to Helsinki so we could learn the
truth”. Estonia, like the other Baltic
States, had a shorter period under Soviet
rule than most of the other Soviet Socialist Republics and the standard
of living was relatively high, though far lower than in Finland albeit before
WW2 it had been roughly the same level in the two countries. After independence, Estonia straight away
formed strong ties with Finland and Sweden; indeed Tallinn has been described
as the sixth Scandinavian capital though that is rather pushing the bounds of
geography.
Our tour of the National Park took in a small
waterfall. We had just a few months
previously been to Niagara so maybe weren’t as impressed as we were expected to
be! We spent some time in the Palmse
Manor, whose various exhibits include a fascinating music machine. A tasty lunch was enjoyed in the agreeably
rustic surrounds of its restaurant. Our
return journey took us through a number of coastal villages. We dined as planned in Balthazar’s. Nothing really
to complain about: good food in lovely surroundings and friendly staff. Yet I wondered if, having now been
successfully established for a number of years, it was resting on its laurels a
bit. Most of the main dishes seemed to have
garlic bulbs just as an accompaniment whereas we love garlic and wanted it to
be an integral part of the cooking. They
were still though serving the garlic ice cream that I’d enjoyed last time. The ice cream is not actually made with
garlic, rather it is served with a garlic and honey sauce. Trust me on this: it works.
We
headed the next day to Riga. Looking at
the map I had assumed we would be alongside the sea for much of the way but, a
bit disappointingly, we were for nearly all the time slightly inland. Even in Parnu, which is known as Estonia’s
Summer Capital, there was not a sight of the sea. We had about an hour in this rather dull
town. We tried to find the main
attraction, the Red Tower, an initiative test which we failed. We recommenced our journey and then
discovered that Parnu does after all have a beach, but it’s about a ten minute
drive from the main centre.
Crossing
the Latvian border, Riina recalled that, in the early days of independence, the
Baltics erected checkpoints on their borders whereas “in our friendly Soviet
Union” there were no such barriers. Subsequently,
all three countries have adhered to the Schengen Agreement so the checkpoints
have come down.
As
we drove into Riga through somewhat unprepossessing suburbs we wondered, rather
as we had done in Prague and in Seville, why this city is considered to one of
Europe’s most beautiful. We were to be
convinced the following day that it is indeed beautiful. Riina gave us a short taster after we’d
checked in to our hotel, taking us past the striking Freedom Monument. This depicts a lady who symbolizes Liberty
and who holds three stars. It was erected
by the newly independent state to honour its war dead. Amazingly, it might be thought, it survived
the Soviet era. The authorities’ spin on
it, though obviously not that of the Latvian people, was that it depicted
Mother Russia protecting the three Baltic republics. It is customary for locals to lay flowers by
the monument. We spoke to a young couple
who had just done so; they told us that that the lady is known to locals as Milda.
As
in Tallinn, our full day in Riga was divided between a walking tour in the
morning, again in the hands of an excellent local guide, and free time in the
afternoon. After a comprehensive tour,
we had a good al fresco lunch near St
Peter’s Church, which we afterwards ascended, getting a wonderful panoramic
view of the city. We used some of our
free time to visit the Occupation Museum, which:
“shows what happened to Latvia, its
land and its people, under two occupying totalitarian regimes from 1940 to
1991”
“reminds the world of the crimes
committed by foreign powers against the state and people of Latvia”
“remembers the victims of the
occupation: those who perished, were persecuted, forcefully deported or fled
the terror of the occupation regimes”.
This
was a moving experience. I bought a
book, There was such a Time, by Ilmar
Knagis, who was born in 1926 and whom the Soviets exiled to Siberia, luckier
than some since he wasn’t sent to a Gulag so could move around reasonably
freely. He founded the “Children of
Siberia” foundation and organizes expeditions to places to which Latvians were
deported. It was not an easy read,
perhaps because of the poor translation, but certainly worth persevering with.
Someone
in our group had discovered that there was a garlic restaurant quite close to
our hotel. So that was our dinner for
tonight sorted. It was smaller and in
less impressive surroundings than Balthazar’s
but I thought it was more true to its purpose and we had a good meal. Here dessert, a parfait, really was made
with garlic rather than just accompanied by a garlic sauce.
We
were back on the road the next day, heading for our third and last capital,
Vilnius. Still in Latvia we spent time
at the Rundale Palace, impressive inside and out, and surrounded by gardens
that are also impressive. Another stop,
just over the border, was at the Hill of Crosses. This is as described, a remarkable and rather
moving collection of crosses, covering a small hill and numbering 100,000 or
more. One traverses this via a pathway. It’s a place of pilgrimage going back
centuries. Not surprisingly, the
Communist authorities had no love for this place and tried more than once too
dismantle it. They didn’t succeed. In 1993, soon after independence, Pope John
Paul II visited the site, declaring it to be a place for hope, peace, love and
sacrifice.
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| Hill of Crosses |
We
carried on to the nearby city of Siauliai, Lithuania’s fourth largest and
surely a rare example of a place name with eight letters but only two
consonants. We passed through the centre
but our lunch stop was in a shopping mall on the outskirts. We continued to Vilnius via the fast motor road. The
capital is located close to the border with another but very different former
Soviet republic, Belarus. This is the
“last dictatorship in Europe”, pro-Russia and anti-West. It is the only European country not to have
signed the European Convention on Human Rights and the onetime KGB is now
called – the KGB.
Lithuania
does not actually have a border with the main part of Russia. It does though border to the west that
curious geopolitical entity, the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad (whose capital
was until the end of WW2 part of Germany and known as Königsberg), which is sandwiched between Lithuania
and Poland. These two fellow members of
the EU and NATO were not always on friendly terms. In the aftermath of WW1 the Poles captured
Vilnius and incorporated it into their country.
Kaunas, now Lithuania’s second city, served as its capital. The Soviets redrew the boundary after WW2.
Our
tour company’s website had indicated that our hotel in Vilnius, the Amberton,
was not of the same standard as those in the other two cities. But we had no complaint: it enjoys an
excellent location in Cathedral Square, right in the heart of the city; our
unusually large room was pleasant; and the restaurant is sufficiently well
thought of to attract locals as well as hotel residents. As in Riga, Riina gave us a brief taster,
taking us up the hill through the Old Town to the Town Hall. She recommended a nearby restaurant, the
historic Lokys. We had dinner there. Always interested in trying out exotic meats,
I ordered, and enjoyed, beaver stew.
Our
walking tour the next morning was led by a local guide who dutifully delivered
his spiel but made no real attempt to engage and did not talk about his
country’s history. From time to time he
was on his mobile: it might be that there was some domestic issue for him to
sort out but courtesy would have dictated an apology. But this did not of course detract from our
enjoyment of the Old Town, one of the largest surviving medieval towns in
Europe. Again we finished at the Town
Hall. We had an al fresco lunch in a restaurant halfway down the hill leading back
to our hotel: Chicken Kiev accompanied by chips and what were described with
commendable honesty as “tinned peas”.
In
the afternoon there was an included tour to Trakei Castle, a few miles west of
the city and scenically located on an island in a lake. According to our original itinerary our
final morning was to have been free in Vilnius, with a flight home in the
afternoon. Unfortunately, direct flights
between London and Vilnius were subsequently discontinued so we instead had to
spend the morning flying to Riga, where we transferred to a direct flight.
First Published in VISA 115 (June 2014)
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