Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. A vibrant and youthful city, it has thrived since achieving independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The city remains a popular European tourist destination due to its well-preserved monuments and landmarks, but it has also become a prominent business center due to the development of the Estonian computer and information technology (IT) industries in the early twenty-first century. Estonia become a member of the European Union (EU) in 2004, and entered into the eurozone in 2011. Tallinn's strategic location close to northern Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia should ensure its continued economic growth over the next century.

Landscape

Tallinn sits on the Bay of Finland in the northeast corner of Estonia. The central part of the city is the Toompea Hill, a limestone hill that rises above the city some 40 meters (120 feet). The city of Tallinn is characterized by limestone cliffs and ridges, and the highest point in the city is 64 meters (192 feet) above sea level.

Due to its location on the Bay of Finland, Tallinn has a coastline of 46 kilometers (28.5 miles) and the city spreads across three peninsulas (Kopli, Paljassare, Kakumae). These peninsulas shelter Tallinn from the Arctic winds while at the same time providing a safe harbor for boats. The city receives most of its drinking water from the nearby Lake Ulemiste, which is fed by the Kurna and Pirita Rivers; the city airport is located on the eastern shore of this lake.

Summers in Tallinn are pleasant, with an average temperature of 18.8 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit). Winter temperatures are more severe, however, with the average temperature hovering around –8.2 degrees Celsius (17 degrees Fahrenheit). The climate is generally wet in northern Estonia, and Tallinn receives a fair amount of annual precipitation, with the average rain and snow fall measuring about 667 millimeters (26.3 inches).

Estonia has been significantly impacted by climate change. The temperature has risen more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit over the last thirty years. The temperature increase has risen the most during the winter, from December to February, and the spring, from March to May.

People

A 2022 estimate by the CIA listed Tallinn as having a population of 452,000 inhabitants. It is also one of the European Union (EU) cities with the highest percentage of non-EU nationals living within its municipal limits. This demographic trend is due to the country's absorption into the Soviet Union when large numbers of Russian nationals were encouraged to immigrate to Tallinn and thereby diminish Estonian nationalism. Following independence from the Soviet Union, the Estonian government did not automatically grant these new arrivals Estonian citizenship. More than two-thirds of the population is Estonian while roughly 25 percent of the population is either Russian or Ukrainian.

A further demographic distinction is a result of Tallinn's early history when the city was heavily settled by Baltic German merchants. Culturally distinct from Estonians, these Baltic Germans had a significant influence on Tallinn's composition, most notably in the high percentage of Lutheran churches within the city. Estonian is the language spoken in the streets, but it is not uncommon to hear other languages such as Russian, Finnish, English, or German.

Economy

As the Estonia's capital and largest city, Tallinn serves as the economic center of the country. The city traditionally maintained importance as a key port, which supported the rise of various industries and service sectors. Important industries in the city include fish processing, textiles, and foodstuff production. Government functions have also long played an important role in Tallinn's economy.

In the late twentieth century, Estonia, along with its fellow Baltic republics of Latvia and Lithuania, became part of what economists called the "Baltic Tiger," in reference to the substantial economic growth rates that characterized all three economies into the first decade of the twenty-first century. Nowhere was this growth more evident than in Tallinn. Much of this growth can be attributed to a government emphasis on broad market reforms and privatization in order to distance itself from the Soviet-era command economy; embedded within the Estonian constitution are laws for a balanced budget, low national debt, and a flat-rate income tax. Proponents of free trade, the Estonian government also created near ideal banking conditions within the country.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania enjoyed the highest growth rates in Europe between 2000 and 2007. Fueled by the rapid growth of the IT and software development industries in Tallinn, Estonia recorded the most impressive gains of all the Baltic Tiger republics. Total real growth for Estonian economy between 2000 and 2008 was recorded at roughly 109 percent by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In recognition of these growth rates, the World Bank reclassified the Estonian economy from a upper-middle income economy to a high-income economy in 2007. The global financial crisis caused Estonia's gross domestic product (GDP) to shrink by more than 14 percent in 2009.

Nearly half of all registered companies in Estonia are located in the capital. Government support has enabled Tallinn to expand in the computer and IT fields in particular, making the city known as a "Baltic Silicon Valley." Taking advantage of the country's widespread use of internet and cell phone technology—the vast majority of the population has internet access, and the city has the lowest connection rates in Europe since universal access is guaranteed by Parliament—Tallinn has become a hotspot for numerous technology start-ups. Perhaps the most famous internet venture to arise from Tallinn was Skype, a free Internet open calling service; worldwide investors were surprised when the startup was sold to e-commerce giant eBay for US$2.5 billion in 2005. Tallinn maintained its reputation as a European hotspot for start-ups through the 2010s.

Tourism has increasingly become an important part of Tallinn's economy. By the mid-2010s it was receiving over 4 million visitors per year, including popular cruise services operating out of the passenger port facility. The city is also a national and regional center for finance, energy, and other corporate holdings as well as retail shopping.

Estonia entered a recession after 2021 that lasted until 2024. In 2023, the country's GDP declined 3.4 percent but returned to growth of about 0.3 percent in 2024. The recession was caused by several factors, including more expensive energy production and a weaker demand for transportation. Transit from Russia was also discontinued.

Landmarks

The old city of Tallinn attracts tourists from all across Europe. A primary destination is Toompea, the hill rising above the city which features Toompea Castle, built by Danish crusaders in the mid-thirteenth century. Though heavily rebuilt throughout the centuries, Toompea Castle serves as the seat of the Estonian Parliament and the president's house.

A permanent museum exhibition covering the history of Tallinn is located near Toompea in the Kiek in de Kok ("Peep into the Kitchen") tower. This sixteenth-century cannon tower is an important monument to the military fortifications that once protected Tallinn from invading forces; an imposing 38 meters (114 feet) tall, the tower's walls are over 4 meters (12 feet) thick.

Another popular tourist site is St. Olaf's Church, which was built in the thirteenth century by Scandinavian settlers. During the following three centuries, various towers and spires were added to the church to increase its height and visibility for mariners. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the church spire had reached a height of 159 meters (477 feet), and for close to seventy-five years, it was the tallest building in all of Europe. A lightning strike destroyed the spire in 1625, but reconstruction allowed the church to reach its current height of 124 meters (372 feet).

The Tallinn Town Hall is one of the few surviving pieces of Gothic architecture in Tallinn. Constructed in the thirteenth century, the Town Hall underwent extensive reconstruction between 1402 and 1404. The Town Hall served as the offices for the city magistrate and also as a warehouse for local merchants who gathered to sell their goods at the Town Hall Square outside the building.

The Estonian Museum of History is housed in the Great Guild Hall of Tallinn, which was built in the early fifteenth century and served as an informal seat of power until the nineteenth century. This secular building was the meeting place for the leading merchants of Tallinn and members were responsible for selecting the mayor and city fathers. The Great Guild accepted only local married merchants who owned a house and had a business in Tallinn.

History

The Estonian people were part of great migration of Finnish tribes that settled the Baltic region in the second millennium BCE. Tallinn became a fishing village for the Aestii tribe who were the predecessors of modern-day Estonians.

In 1219, Danish crusaders and the Teutonic Knights of Prussia launched the Northern Crusades against the pagan tribes who inhabited the area of current Estonia. By 1227, the Danes had established a military fortification on Toompea and large-scale German and Danish settlement ensued. Sixty years later, in 1285, Tallinn received a charter as part of the Hanseatic League, a protectionist German trading guild that helped bring significant economic investment to the city.

The Danish kingdom sold Tallinn to the Teutonic Knights in 1346 and they heavily fortified the city. However, the Reformation of the sixteenth century brought major power realignments across Europe, and Tallinn and much of northern Estonia was conquered by Sweden in 1561. Along with political change, the Swedes brought Lutheranism to Tallinn, and much of the population converted to Protestantism during the sixteenth century. The Swedes liberalized much of Tallinn, granting the peasantry greater rights and encouraging the growth of the middle class to serve as a counterweight to the Estonian nobles.

The Great Northern War (1700–21) of the early eighteenth century resulted in the expulsion of the Swedes from Estonia with the Swedish garrison surrendering Tallinn to Russian troops under Tsar Peter the Great in 1710. Tallinn managed to retain a great degree of autonomy under Imperial Russian rule as the Duchy of Estonia. During this period the Baltic Germans of Tallinn became large importers and exporters for the tsarist state.

However, the nineteenth century witnessed Russian political repression against Estonian nationalists advocating independence from Russia. The chaos of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution provided an opportunity for Estonian autonomy, and on February 24, 1918, the Independence Manifesto was published in Tallinn. The Tartu Peace Treaty (1920) recognized Estonian independence, and for the next twenty years Tallinn was the capital for the independent Republic of Estonia.

World War II brought an end to independence when the Soviet Union invaded Estonia in June 1940. In the following year, Nazi Germany expelled the Soviets but brought a new terror to Tallinn with the Holocaust, in which a majority of Tallinn's Jewish community perished. Tallinn was heavily damaged by street fighting between Nazi and Soviet forces in 1944, and the conclusion of the war left Tallinn, and the rest of Estonia, firmly under Soviet control.

The next fifty years saw increased Russian and Ukrainian migration to the city in the hopes of diminishing Estonian nationalism. However, Estonians once again declared independence from the Soviet Union following the failed 1991 military coup in Moscow. The country joined the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004.

Since independence, Tallinn has thrived as an economic leader in the region. Relations with Russia have been problematic and strained, particularly in 2007 after the Estonian government ordered the removal of Soviet World War II memorials from central Tallinn.

Bibliography

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