Tallinn (Estonia)
07 AUG - 09 AUG
Recycling was the way of the old Soviet Union, it was their methodology and in some ways it made a lot of sense, well now days in any case. If something could be used for another purpose, changed, altered, melted down, cut up, taped, glued, whatever, it was done so without even a hint of sentimentality.They were the atheistic McGyver crew. On the other hand this was not typically the Estonian mentality but a borrowed one.
It can be visibly noticed around outside the old town of Tallinn and it's the reason why in old factories, powerplants, nuclear silos etc, if they can't find a way of fixing the space, morphing it, or using the spare parts for anything particularly interesting, well then it's free game for concerts and dance parties. So the saying in Estonia goes, 'If you can't fix it, then rock it!'. I really like that philosophy. There's something a little indie or punk about the whole thing but I like the attitude. 'So it won't work, yeah, why don't we rock it!'. Something that we should learn to adopt back home rather than building grand car parks or deliberating for 30 years as to Sydney needs to upgrade it's rail infrastructure. Imagine 'rocking' a train! How damn good would that be!
Tallinn Old Town
Alexsander Nevsky Cathedral - Toompea Hill - Tallinn
Tallinn Old Town - with the town hall spire in the middle
Onto something else, another amusing story that was told to me the other day. I was in a discussion with a guy that explained to me that people from the northen part of Estonia are strangely particularly adept at speaking Finnish, or at least, have the capacity to understand it to a reasonably complex high level. Let me also add that Finnish is not the easiest language in the world to understand or speak, it ranks right up there with Chinese and Hungarian. As for the Finns, well the same does not however work in the converse, meaning that Finns will usually not understand a word of Estonian, no matter how slowly the poor Estonian pronounces their words or how widely they gesticulate. The hypothesis for 'why this is so' is a little amusing and works a little something like this. Back in the middle to late 60's the Finns built huge television towers on their coastline to transmit TV signals within a predetermined circumference. This capital investment,not just inspired by Finnish ambition and power but also sponsored kindly with the aid of CIA dollars also meant that the TV signals transmitting from TV central Helsinki could also quite easily traverse the Gulf of Finland via the Baltic Sea and make it to a little place 60kms to the the south called Tallinn in Soviet occupied Estonia. The Estonians, picking up on this little oddity were able to point their sattelite dishes in the direction of Helsinki and receive news of the western world in the Finnish language, thus allowing a generation of Estonians to easily pick up on their Finnish language skills...this however is not where the story ends....
...It was however an offence in Soviet Estonia to be caught with your 'Finnish pants down', so to speak. Meaning that you weren't legally allowed to tune into Finnish TV and the accompanying western propaganda that these infedels transmitted . Whilst punishment for covert tuning into Finnish broadcasts existed, they (the punishments), weren't actually as extreme as some people might have imagined. Meaning that you weren't going to end up in the gulag somewhere in the middle of Siberia for catching Juka and Silvie discuss their finances in a home made sauna.The reasoning behind this however was more interesting than the actual circumstance. Apparently the KGB used Tallinn as a type of 'test environment', a rat laboratory if you will, in order to see how 'Soviets' would behave or respond to western influences, ideas, etc. Whilst there were 'poxy' attempts by Moscow to scramble incoming Finnish TV signals, over time the Soviets accepted its existence and did not crack down on households as stringently as one might have expected of the state. In an even more interesting and kind of odd sidenote to this event, which stangely enough relates back to THE HOFF!, doesn't everything!? The local Tallinn police, during the time that Knight Rider was being aired, were asked to keep a look out for kids on the street talking into their wrists near 'good looking vehicles', aka, in 'THE HOFF' Knight Rider fashion. In those instances they were then asked to follow the kids to their homes as those residences were 'more than likely' to be the ones pointing their antennas/satellite dishes to the north and tuning into good 'ole Finnish broadcasts. Seriously, I think just busting kids with light sabres would have been far easier, or even just listening particularly intently for Wookie impersonations!
Apparently it's quite continental, and a little sado-masochistic
In another, totally unrelated Estonian story that I found as amusing, apparently the CSI equivalent here in Tallinn, the Crime Enforement Agency or something close to that has been storying drugs form various busts over a number of years. It had somehow leaked out that in a certain amount of time, call it 3 yrs or so, that over 100kg of drugs had gone missing. When the agency were asked to provide an explanation to the media
as to what had eventuated their 'official explanation' was that 'it had simply vaporised'!? Man, imagine working in an environment where that quantity of drugs was just floating in the atmosphere around you, how off your head would you be? When the director of the agency was asked to provide a more detailed explanation his successful spin doctoring turned up this little gem, 'There's far more serious issues to be concerned about then 100kg of drugs disappearing from our agency'!? Who the freakin' hell are you dude!? Muhammed Saeed (Iraqi Information Minister during the early days of the USA occupation). He'd say such ludicrous things that you couldn't help just be amused!
The old and the new
Town hall
There's something a little 'Pink Floyd' in this
All this somehow brings me to my time in Tallinn, which has been amusing, fascinating and a lot of fun, which thus far on this trip I've had a lot of luck with. The Old Town of Tallinn, whilst being a tourist mecca, is beautiful and one that you can easily stroll around for hours and not get bored with its cobble stone streets and 14th-15th century medieval feel.. What's more, the prices in Estonia ,(well in Tallinn at least) , are significantly cheaper than those in other Scandanavian countries. EverywhereI went in Helsinki I felt that there was some Finnish guy in a backroom laughing hysterically and saying in Finnish, 'He paid what for a cappucino!?'. Admittedly I've a caffeine addict and habits like that are hard to break but when some geek throws up 5 euros for a coffee then he bloody well need to explain his way out of it! The only way that I'd accept a coffee at that mark was whilst sitting on the Champs Elysees, that I can't understand, but if I'm in downtown Helsinki with nothing on going around me except a drunken Finn called Niko telling me Australian jokes, well, I need to know, WTF? ANYWAY, Tallinn is not Helsinki, it's got it's prices in order and head screwed on and I'm liking it.
In'spired'
Cool little place in the town hall
It's my shadow dedication to Brett Holman - yeah, it's all good Brett
OK, so now to the last of the Tallinn oddities and one that I believe it generally well known. It's fair to say that when God decided upon conceiving the Estonian race, he messed with genetics, BIG TIME. All the genes for the good looking part of the population went to the females, I mean seriously, out of all the countries that I've been to they outrank all comers on the looks scale by a fair margin. How these poor females put up with their skin head ,flat headed, mutated, bright polyester suited partners, I have no idea! I mean, it's not even a secret that's 'generally' known, this is discussed out in the open. For some reason the Estonian or Soviet male feels that to show his masculinity he needs to crop his hair to army regiment levels, suit himself up in the gaudiest garb possible, and then all of a sudden he's Riko Suave...(perhaps Riko Suave of the Albanian mafia). I really 'get' why this town has been 'invaded' by males of all other nations, their of picking up something very attractive increases 100 fold once they touchdown on Estonian soil. I have to say from a completely biased perspective, Estonian men, keep doing what it is you're doing, the rest of the world love you for it!!
...and finally, the JJ guest book bombing serious continues, this comes from the funky Tallinn bike tour
BOOM!
