Socialist Realism and some Western Fantasies

In Praise of Bad Art

Let’s get the confession out of the way right at the start: I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.

This is not, for once, the precursor to an ill-informed rant about ‘modern art’, it is merely a statement of fact. I studied sciences at school and engineering at university but when I became a teacher I returned to mathematics, always my favourite school subject (and that, no doubt, proves to some that I am, at the very least, odd). I spent my last art lesson, aged 14, as I spent most cleaning brushes and sharpening pencils, I had learned long before that any ‘art’ I produced would be not just bad but embarrassing, so I produced none – and have continued to produce none for the next 58 years. I am not going to change now.

Socialist Realism

But that does not mean I do not appreciate other’s efforts. This post is an appreciation of one, odd, quirky artistic backwater that we have encountered in our travels. Socialist Realism is probably of more interest to students of politics and sociology than of art, but I know what I like – and I like it.

The Leaders

The 1917 Russian Revolution was a major convulsion. The past was over, everything, including art, had to begin again. Many within the artistic community were happy to be co-opted into the new future.

An enormous head of Lenin, Ulan Ude in the Russian far east

Stalin, like Hitler, had no time for decadent artforms, but the idea of Socialist Realism emerged slowly, the term being first used in 1932. In 1934 the four guidelines of Socialist realism were laid out at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party.

Lynne and Uncle Joe, Stalin's birthplace museum, Gori, Georgia

Art must be:

1) Proletarian: art relevant to the workers and understandable to them.
2) Typical: scenes of everyday life of the people.
3) Realistic: in the representational sense.
4) Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and the Party.

Waiting for the firing squad?
Stalin, Lenin, former Albanian leader Enver Hoxha (and some extras) stored in a rarely visited corner of Tirana castle

So how do the works above measure up to the guidelines?

An 8m high, 42 tonne head of Lenin erected in 1970 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth is easily understood by all workers: it says THE PARTY IS IN CHARGE literally (almost) in caps lock. What it means for it to be in situ 30 years after the end of the USSR is another question. The other statues said the same, only more quietly, but their new locations have changed the message. They now say: the party’s over.

All are undoubtedly realistic, Lenin very much so. Stalin looks like he was carved in frozen yoghurt and is now melting, but it is obviously him. The Albanian examples are not such good likenesses, though they have been bashed around and Enver Hoxha is hiding his face with his arm. The stone carving at his feet is actually a good likeness of him, despite the smashed nose – the least he deserved from an ungrateful nation with much to be ungrateful for.

Enver Hoxha with broken nose, Tirana Castle, Albania

That they are partisan is unquestionable, but Guideline 2...?

Peasant Wedding, Peter Breughal the Elder
(public domain)

Well, three out of four is not bad, but Peter Breughel the Elder also scored 3 out 4 - several times. The Peasant Wedding, for example, is proletarian and easily understood, is a scene of everyday life and is realistic. As for supporting the aims of the Party, Breughel died 300 years before 'The Party' was born so could neither support nor oppose. However, he depicts peasants/proletarians as human beings with our well-known virtues and vices, so, I think, too much realism for Socialist Realism.

Perhaps the rulers are not the most distinctive parts of Socialist Realism, I see little intrinsic difference between a statue of Lenin and one of Queen Victoria or Winston Churchill. So, lets have a look at the Proletarian struggle.

The Soldiers

But first, a folk hero. David of Sassoun is the hero of the Rebels of Sassoun an epic Armenian poem of unknown antiquity, first written down in 1873 after a millennium or so of oral transmission. The soviet authorities cautiously approved of national heroes; if they could not be linked to any modern political faction, they could be co-opted to the proletarian cause.

David of Sassoun, Yerevan, Armenia

A statue was erected outside Yerevan station in 1939 to celebrate the (conveniently invented) 1,000th anniversary of the poem. It was destroyed in 1941 when sculptor Yervand Kochar was accused of praising Adolf Hitler, but Kochar survived and kept his gypsum original. In 1959 a new casting was made to belatedly celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Russian revolution. It was in poor condition when visited in 2003.

And the guidelines? Proletarian? Yes, a folk tale is a story of the proletariat. Partisan? Yes, David of Sassoun was officially viewed as a proto-communist. Typical? You cannot have everything! Realistic? Look at those tree-trunk legs!

And here we encounter a problem that runs through all warriors in Socialist Realism. Proletarian soldiers must look impressive, like this chap on guard at Gjirokastër castle in Albania…

Soldier, Gjirokastër Castle, Albania

...or, better still, superhuman like this intimidating group of North Korean heroes. This is realism only for the deluded. The man firing the gun (his forearm like David of Sassoun’s leg) sensibly crouches behind the shield, but the lunatic with flag clearly has a death wish. And the man just behind? A fine physical specimen, maybe, and remarkable clean, as men involved in warfare seldom are, but he is the only North Korean male I have ever seen sporting a side-parting.

Heroic DPRK soldiers, Fatherland War Liberation Museum, Pyongyang

We saw many soldiers during our week in North Korea. They were small, proud men in cheap, poorly made uniforms one size too large. No one below the rank of colonel gets a uniform that fits, or perhaps no one below that rank eats well enough to fill the uniform they are given. None of them looked like any of the group above.

Workers, Peasants, Men, Women and Children, More Fighters, More Leaders

Long Live the Great socialist October Revolution , 31st Anniversary (1948)
City Museum, Tallinn, Estonia

The men above, and the peasants, children etc immediately above and below exemplify the problem of Socialist Realism. Scenes of everyday life (and warfare) must support the aims of the party. So, soldiers must be heroic, and workers must be happy and thriving, and owe that to the party, and know they owe it to the party.

Long live the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, 11th Anniversary
City Museum, Tallinn, Estonia

Somewhere in the corner, Breughal would have included a grumpy git, or somebody cheating in some way, but Socialist Realism cannot allow this, everybody must be cooperating happily. That you cannot please all the people all the time, is an immutable law of human nature and so Socialist Realism can never be realistic. The problem is not with socialism specifically, it is with mandating art to support the government.

When a leader joins his adoring people, realism is missed by an extra notch. Travellers arriving on Puhung metro station (one of the four stations on the Pyongyang metro open to foreigners) are greeted by no less than Kim Il Sung, the DPRK's Eternal Leader.

Kim Il Sung himself, welcomes us to Puhung station on the Pyongyang metro
Notice the miner's foot on the stairs, the DPRK is very keen on trompe l'oeil

Two Favourites

I will finish this section with my two favourites. The first is a mosaic on the façade of Tirana’s Museum of National History.

Albanian Museum of National History, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

It displays the whole of Albanian history, starting with the Illyrians and Thracians on the left before moving seamlessly to the intellectuals of the 19th century Albanian Renaissance. On the right are the workers and peasants who saw off the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century - one woman giving a distrustful backward glance at the intellectuals. All are led into the glorious socialist future by a worker, a soldier and an inappropriately dressed young woman with a right forearm that would not disgrace a blacksmith. She would be terrifying even if she was not carrying a rifle. Such works need to be treasured as many have already disappeared, been painted over or dismantled as Albania deals with its new reality.

Mosaic, Albanian Museum of National History, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

The second is a painting in the lobby of the May 6th Hotel, Sariwon, North Korea which expands the delusion to a whole new level of ‘Realism’. The conceit here is not just that North Korea is a paradise, but that leaders from across the world recognise this and come to admire and seek advice from the great Kim Il Sung himself.

Kim Il Sung meets the people of the world, May 6th Hotel Lobby, Sariwon, North Korea 

Capitalist Realism?

Hitler’s tastes in art were apparently similar to Stalin’s and the Nazis promoted Heroic Realism which has a studied arrogance that Socialist Realism lacks.

"Capitalist realism" has been used to describe the Pop Art of the 1950s and 1960s and the commodity art of the 1980s and 1990s, but as a self-knowing play on "socialist realism". Search for ‘Capitalist Realism Paintings’ on google images and it is difficult to see the theme running through the results, although artwork from the Jehovah’s Witnesses magazine The Watchtower, does come up a few times; it undoubtedly has the style and lack of self-awareness, of the finest Socialist Realism.

But can there a precise western counterpart of Socialist Realism - when you are living the dream, why pretend? Yes, of course, there can, and I have two examples, one American which I call Hollywood realism, the other British, Imperialist Realism, perhaps..

British Imperialist Realism

The neo-Baroque head office of Liverpool's Royal Insurance Company was completed in 1903. It is now the Aloft Hotel where we stayed last year. A remarkable stone frieze sits below one window. The soldier-like figures suggest the British Empire is out there comforting widows and their children, building railways across the wilderness and erecting churches to shine light into the world’s darkest places - and all these activities are protected by the Royal Insurance Company.

Frieze, Aloft Hotel, Liverpool

The British empire was, of course, an unalloyed force for good in the world, spreading the benefits of civilisation and Christianity; it was never about exploiting the wealth or the inhabitants of far-away countries. There were people who believed that then – there are some who believe it now, even some in positions of power and influence.

Hollywood Realism

​In 2013 we flew into North Korea from Beijing, but returned by overnight train. We lunched in Korea, reached the border in late afternoon and rolled across the Yalu River into the Chinese city of Dandong in early evening. North Korea is the only country we have ever left with a feeling of relief and we savoured the welcoming bright lights, bustle and (yes) freedom of China.

We dined on the train after it left Dandong. In Korea food (for us) was plentiful if not particularly interesting and our Chinese dinner was like eating in full colour after our monochrome Korean lunch. But the Korean’s brew good beer, and the only beer available with with our dinner was Pabst, a brew which contributed fully to the USA’s former reputation as a beer drinker’s desert. More interesting than the beer was the artwork on the cans, a set of half a dozen, rather similar pictures, one of them reproduced below.

Pabst beer can - Heroic American Soldier, smiling, friendly and armed to the teeth
A can with bad taste inside and out?

The copyright of the above picture belongs to Interbrand and I have borrowed the artwork from their website. They inform me these special edition cans were made only for the Chinese market. I make no further comment.

Why I like Socialist Realism

I started by saying I liked Socialist Realism, I ought now to explain why.

I am not that keen on the leaders, but I love the cheerful pictures of happy workers, peasants and soldiers. But only a fool takes them at face value, behind every silver lining there is a cloud, a very obvious cloud in the case of the death-defying, North Korean, machine gunners.

Socialist Realism is, of course, fantasy, but it was conceived as realism, the irony in the name is unintentional. Many people are involved in the production of public art. A top-level decision is made to create, say, a mosaic, artists work on designs, a committee will choose the winner, workers will make the pieces and put them in place. I suspect somebody among them will honestly believe in what they are doing, though most will just get on with their jobs. But where is the belief? At the top? Among the workers? Surely not among the artists, or is it?

I love the ambivalence and ambiguity, though I admit they are easier to enjoy when they are safely in the past; some of the North Korean examples – and the American beer can – are more worrying.

…and finally…

The Korean Worker’s Party Monument in Pyongyang is a typical piece of DPRK bombast…

Korean Workers' Party Monument, Pyongyang

…but inside the circle of concrete blocks, just above head height, is a frieze, a relief of women, soldiers, children, aviators and more whose task is, apparently, to outstare the future.

Nobly attempting to outstare the future, Korean Worker's Party Monument, Pyongyang

I cannot believe there was not a knowing hand in here somewhere.

In a Similar Vein

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

The Baltic Capitals: Part 3 Tallinn, Estonia

Estonia

Parnu

We stopped at Parnu on our way to Tallinn. Parnu is Estonia’s most popular seaside resort – so popular that a quarter of the population visit it at least once each year. Parnu has a set of traffic lights, some wooden buildings, some stone buildings, some old people sitting on benches and a flashing sign pointing the way to a sex shop. The reasons for its many thousands of visitors are not vouchsafed to those who drop into and then out of the bus station.

Parnu - the view from the bus station

From the Bus Station to our Hotel

Tallinn

Tallinn bus station is less conveniently sited than those in Vilnius and Riga, but catching a tram to the centre allowed us to see parts of the city that we would not otherwise have bothered with. Estonia was always the richest of the Soviet Republics and our first impression was that nothing had changed. Tallinn, away from the tourist areas, is smarter and more kempt than the other two capitals, the people look wealthier and the buildings more cared for. The Estonian economy was considered sound enough for them to adopt the Euro in January this year, a fact so far unnoticed by the Independent whose international edition told us exactly how many obsolete Kroons we would need to buy a copy in Tallinn. Our only experience of Finland is the inside of Helsinki airport, but Tallinn looks as I would expect Finland to look, and Estonians are the Finns closest relations both ethnically and linguistically.

We leapt from the tram at what we hoped would be an appropriate place and for the second time in a week disagreed on which way to walk. After studying the map I had to admit, again for the second time in a week, that Lynne was right. Either she is developing a sense of direction in her dotage or I am losing mine – or both.

Vadabuse Square and the Freedom Monument

Our hotel was a short walk away and only 50m from the subway into Vabaduse Square, on the edge of the old town. The subway finishes in an expanse of concrete and a set of wide, shallow steps up to the square. The ramp up the middle had probably not been constructed with skateboarders in mind – but the builder’s intentions were of no concern to the local youth. Above, the less frequented areas of the square provide perfect space for roller hockey.

Roller hockey in Vadabuse Square, Tallinn

Over the entrance was a big screen showing the weather or, occasionally, cartoons. We were now further north than the Orkneys, but under a blue sky, the temperature bounced cheerfully into the low twenties – though a sharpness in the breeze reminded us of our northern latitude.

The Freedom Monument stands on the edge of the square. Erected in 2009, it comprises an Estonian cross on a 24m column of dimpled glass. Officially it looks like an ice-sculpture in danger of melting – symbolising how easily freedom can melt away. To my unofficial eye, it looked like a column of cheap plastic blocks. Freedom, perhaps, can be easily thrown away but not so simply recycled.

 

Me spoiling the view of the Freedom Monument, Vadabuse Square, Tallinn

Toompea Hill and Tallinn Castle

From the monument we ascended the limestone outcrop of Toompea Hill. The hill held an Estonian stockade until the Danes arrived in 1219, built a stone castle and founded the city. The present ‘castle’ doubles as the national parliament; it is clearly a much later building and hardly designed as a stronghold. The old town, with its walls still intact – or at least heavily restored - sits at the foot of the hill.



Tallinn Castle

Despite its Scandinavian origins, Tallinn became German after the Livonian knights arrived from the south. A crusading order based in Riga, they had been slaying and/or converting pagans across the Baltic region. Like Riga, Tallinn became a mercantile city and, in 1285, a member of the Hanseatic League. The city was generally known by its German name of Reval until 1920.

The histories of Tallinn and Riga are very similar. Both thrived as Germanic ports for several centuries until, after a period of Swedish rule, they were absorbed into Russia by Peter the Great. As in all three Baltic States, two decades of post-First World War independence was followed in quick succession by soviet occupation, nazi occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union.

The Estonian peasantry, like their Latvian neighbours had been the farm labourers and domestic servants of a German elite.  The 19th century national awakening was an unintended consequence of the attempted Russification of the country. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald’s epic poem ‘Son of Kalev’ was published in 1857. A reworking of folk-tales, it provided a national narrative for the Estonian people. A statue of Linda, wife of Kalev, sits in a sylvan grotto on the shoulder of Toompea Hill. It is hard to imagine the rather genteel lady depicted being the devoted wife of a giant, or single-handedly building Toompea Hill. 

Linda, wife of Kalev, Toompea Hill, Tallinn

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral

Facing the castle is the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Built in 1900, its primary purpose was to remind the Estonians who was in charge. Much of the discussion on the Wikipedia ‘Tallinn’ page concerns the cathedral, and the objections to its picture appearing in the article; it is not really Estonian, the objectors say. What is beyond argument is that the building is there and difficult to ignore.

The Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Tallinn

Outside the cathedral we first encountered what was to be the bane of our stay in Tallinn. Baltic cruising has become very popular and Tallinn is a major port. Cruise passengers trail around the town following their guides in bands of a hundred or more, each with their bus number stuck on their lapel. The ships are vast and dozens of these groups criss-cross the old town and troop up and down Toompea Hill swamping the unfortunate independent tourist. They want to see the place just as I do, so I should not complain but, perhaps hypocritically, I feel like a moan. Also, I cannot understand why anybody pays so much money to be herded around like sheep.

Tallinn's Luthern Cathedral

Nearby is the Lutheran Cathedral, a plain building as are most of Tallinn’s churches. Inside it is more interesting with boxed pews and a glassed off area for the nobility. Photographs were not allowed, but nobody said you could not take them through the open door.



Through the door of the Lutheran Cathedral, Tallinn

The Ramparts and Pikk Jag

From the ramparts we could look out over the old town, and parts of the new town, including the harbour, where we could see the colossal bulk of several cruise ships.



Looking out over the old town, Tallin
(with a cruise ship visible to the left of the church towers)

We descended into the old town by the long cobbled street of Pikk Jag, the wall on its uphill side an impromptu gallery for local artists selling their work.

A glance at the map might suggest we were back in Riga; like Riga, Tallinn has a House of the Blackheads and, instead of the Three Brothers, a set of old houses known as the Three Sisters.

There are, however, few other similarities. Riga is a city of small squares, Tallinn has one main square, containing the Town Hall, and long cobbled streets radiating out from it. And of course Tallinn has its wall with its red-roofed towers. Old Tallinn is twee, perhaps reminiscent of Carcassonne and, like that French city, it is, first and foremost, a tourist trap.

Tallinn - a bit like Carcassonne?

The House of the Blackheads and the Three Sisters

The House of the Blackheads, a late-medieval drinking club for bachelors of the Merchant class, has little architecturally in common with its Riga namesake, though the crest of St Maurice is the same.



The House of the Blackheads, Tallinn

The Three Sisters have been united into one upmarket hotel, though I would hesitate before choosing a hotel continually besieged by tourists attempting to photograph it and being thwarted by their inability to get far enough away.



The Three Sisters, Tallinn

The Olaviste Church

We made our way to the Olaviste Church. The Estonian language is closely related to Finnish. The two of them, along with Hungarian are the sole European survivors of the Uralic language group. Apart from Basque – which has no known relatives – they are the only extant  European languages not of the Indo-European language family. Latin has six noun cases, which was, I found in my schooldays, five more than I could cope with. Estonian has fourteen. Hence, St Olaf’s Church becomes the Olaviste Kirik and St Nicholas’ becomes, rather pleasingly, the Niguliste Kirik. 

King Olaf II of Norway was a 10th century warlord, but a Christian warlord, so was canonised for slaughtering people in a caring Christian way. The most interesting feature of the rather dull church bearing his name is actually outside it – the richly decorated grave of 15th century plague victim Johann Ballivi.



The grave of Johann Ballavi,St Olaf's, Tallinn

The Great Sea Gate, Fat Margaret and the MS Estonia Memorial

Continuing to the Great Sea Gate, we passed the maritime museum, with its plaque commemorating the help given by the British Navy in the Estonian War of Independence, 1918-20.



Commemoration of British assistance in the War of Independence
Tallinn

At one side of the gate is a tower known as Fat Margaret, for at least semi-obvious reasons.

Fat Margaret, Tallinn

Outside the gate is the memorial to the 852 people who died when the ferry ‘Estonia’ sank en route from Tallinn to Stockholm in 1994. The loss of the largest Estonian owned ship in the worst ever peacetime disaster in the Baltic sea was a severe blow to the newly independent country.



Memorial to those who died on the Estonia, Tallinn

Church of the Holy Ghost

We walked along the walls and back towards the centre where we visited the Church of the Holy Ghost.  Once the Town Hall Chapel, it became the church of the Estonian speaking population. Priests here produced an Estonian language catechism in 1535, an important statement at a time when most Estonians were living as serfs.

 

The oldest clock in Tallinn

With Tallinn’s oldest clock, dating from 1680, standing guard over the door, it is by far the city’s most interesting church. Cream walls, dark wooden pews and panelled balconies create a special atmosphere. The altarpiece, Descent of the Holy Ghost, by Bernt Notke (1483), is a masterpiece of medieval woodcarving.



The Descent of the Holy Ghost by Berndt Notke
Church of the Holy Ghost, Tallinn

Less sophisticated are the paintings of biblical scenes on the panels of one of the balconies. Naïve they might be, but their charm is undeniable.



Adam & Eve, waving some rather fine fig leaves
Church of the Holt Ghost, Tallinn

Town Hall Square

From the church an alley leads into the town hall square. The square is surrounded by restaurants and sometimes has a market in the middle. It is a permanently crowded, cheerful false-medieval scene, reinforced by the dress of the serving wenches of the Old Hansa Restaurant, just off the square. To complete the atmosphere they have minstrels inside and a crier dressed in motley, periodically touting for business in Estonian and English.



Town Hall Square

The Reapteek

The only building on the square that is not apparently a restaurant is the Reapteek. The façade is seventeenth century, the building behind at least two hundred years older. It is part museum, part working pharmacy and wholly strange.



Reapteek, Tallinn

 The City Museum

The City Museum is a couple of hundred metres from the square. The good news was it was the first place we had encountered offering senior citizen discounts, the bad news was they gave us the discount without question.

The museum gives a more genuine account of medieval Tallinn, with artefacts, real medieval costumes and a cut-away model of a merchant’s house. We continued upstairs to 19th century interiors with original furnishing, while on the top floor a fascinating collection of posters showed the happy workers and peasant united in their thankfulness to Josef Stalin, who was represented by a stern bust.

Happy workers and peasants love Uncle Joe
Tallinn Museum

St Nicolas' Church and Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre

Our main objectives for the second day were St Nicholas’ Church and the Museum of the Occupation just outside the old town.

St Nicholas was largely destroyed by Soviet bombing in 1944 and subsequently rebuilt as an art gallery and concert hall. It contains a number of notable woodcarvings and paintings, including several late medieval altars, but the star attraction is a fragment of Bernt Notke’s Danse Macabre. Everyone, regardless of wealth or station, must die and we see Death inviting kings, popes and fine ladies to join his dance. It was an immense painting - over 30m long - and the remaining fragment is still a substantial piece of work. It is among the finest surviving examples of this genre. No photographs were allowed in the church so I am borrowing Wikipedia’s. 



Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre
St Nicholas', Tallinn

The Museum of the Occupation

The Museum of the Occupation is housed in a glass box 250m south of the city wall. I would have thought it was ugly if I had not seen the museum in Riga. Like its fellows in Vilnius and Riga, the museum covers the events from 1940 to independence in 1991. The story is much the same catalogue of deportations and repression, but the Tallinn Museum is perhaps the weakest of the three. It is short on artefacts and rather long on video presentations. It would take a stronger man than me to watch six consecutive forty-minute documentaries (in English) on the trials and tribulations of being Estonian.

Perhaps the best part is the basement where they have statues of Stalin, Lenin, and several local leaders, less well known to us. The sculptures are monumental monsters and it is easy to see why the people of Vilnius are so happy with their informal bust of someone as harmless as Frank Zappa – though I suspect Frank Zappa would have been appalled to be called ‘harmless’.

These statues are no longer welcome in the parks and squares of any of the Baltic States, the Lithuanians have even gathered them in a semi-ironic open-air museum near the Belarus border. We found a different situation when we visited Russia in 2007. Lenin remains in his mausoleum in Red Square, while Yekaterinburg and Ulan Ude prominently display his statue, and their main streets - and those of Irkutsk - are still named after Lenin and Marx.

Johan Pitka

On our wanderings we passed this memorial to naval hero Johan Pitka.



Johan Pitka, Tallinn

Two young Italian men were climbing on the statue to stick their heads in the obvious place for a third to photograph. A local man of similar age was shouting at them – in English - to get down. Finding himself ignored he pulled out his phone and said he was calling the police. Still ignoring him, the Italians posed for their photograph and dismounted. The Estonian put his phone away shouted ‘it’s not your country’ and strode angrily away. This may inform us about a) the behaviour of foreign tourists in Estonia (and elsewhere) and b) the reaction of Estonians to them, or it may just tell us about the four individuals involved - I merely record what we saw and heard.

Erie Film, Vadabuse Square 

As we made our way back to the hotel, the big screen over the underpass was showing a documentary. Armoured vehicles rolled across the very square in which we stood, followed by nazi troops goose-stepping and saluting. It made me shiver to watch such events surrounded by exactly the same buildings that surrounded us – apart from a lick of paint the place has hardly changed in seventy years.  But there have been changes, deeper and more fundamental than the facades of the buildings. Given the choice between storm troopers and skateboarders, I will take the skateboarders every time.

Eating and Drinking in Tallinn

If Riga had been more expensive than Vilnius, Tallinn was another step up, indeed restaurant prices in the main square reached the levels you might expect in Western European capitals. Our lunches followed the well-established Baltic pattern of garlicky fried bread and beer. Estonian beer, particularly that of the A. Le Coq brewery, is lighter and gassier than the beer of Latvia and Lithuania. Perhaps for that reason, or maybe just for a change we chose to drink wine in the evenings. We visited one Italian restaurant – complete with genuine Pizza oven and Italian pizza chef, one more regular Estonian establishment and finally gave in to the mock medieval atmosphere and found a free table outside the Peppersack restaurant for our last night. Our ‘Pikeman’s Choice’ was a huge plate for two bearing a leg of smoked pork, roast potatoes, beery sauerkraut, pumpkin, dill pickle, mustard and horseradish. It was good hearty food in the best Baltic tradition, though I doubt any real pikemen fortunate enough to have enjoyed such a meal would have washed it down with a bottle of Chilean Merlot.



Pikeman's Choice, The Peppersack, Tallinn

Having fought our way through the cruise ship passengers we saw little of Tallinn’s other regular visitors, the stag party – though we did once have coffee at the next table to a group of very hungover young men. Our neighbours John and Linda, who lived in the Tallinn’s old town for a year, say they were quite happy to leave the city at weekends. We too left on a Saturday morning and while we were at the airport we observed the arrival of more than several groups of young men. I do not want to sound too po-faced about this (I have a past, dammit) but I was not sorry to miss their company.

An extremely short hop on the shuttle flight to Helsinki, brought our trip to the Baltic States to an end. I am grateful to anyone who has read right though Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn to arrive here. If such a person exists there is probably one burning question they now need to ask. The answer: the Estonian for ‘Harry Potter’ is……well, ‘Harry Potter’. What a let down.

See also

Part 1: Vilnius

Part 2: Riga

A Load of Baltics

The Baltic States and What I Learned from Stanley Gibbon's Stamp Catalogue

Like many children, I collected stamps. I was always envious of my friend Christopher who had a far bigger and better organised collection, but then Christopher received help from his father, who was a proper grown-up philatelist, while my father was only normal.

Every year Christopher’s dad would acquire the new edition of the Stanley Gibbon’s Stamp Catalogue, and the old one would be graciously passed to me. It was such a big and important book it came in its own cardboard box.

I realise now that I was actually more interested in the catalogue than in the stamps. I would spend hours leafing through the book looking for exotic countries I had never heard of. I do not know how many eleven year olds are aware that Ifni, Heligoland and Trieste have, at one time or another, produced their own stamps, but I found it a source of wonder. I located them in my school atlas, but searched in vain for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. I had also discovered a pre-first world war atlas in my grandmother's house which showed dozens of strange countries like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, but even that did not show Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania.

The Baltic States

Estonia

My inability to locate them was unsurprising. The three Baltic states were absorbed into Tsarist Russia in the eighteenth century and only gained independence in 1920 after fighting a three-cornered war with an already defeated Germany and a distracted Soviet Union. Independence lasted two decades and produced the postage stamps I had seen in the Stanley Gibbon’s catalogue. In 1940 they were invaded by the Soviet Union as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and then by Nazi Germany when Hitler abrogated the pact. The defeat of the Nazis involved re-invasion by the Soviet Union, followed, in 1945, by re-absorption. The three small states disappeared from the eyes of anyone not searching a stamp catalogue for countries they had never heard of. They reappeared in 1991, wresting their independence from the crumbling Soviet Union. They all managed the transition from command economy to liberal democracy with relative ease, joined the EU in 2004 and became, almost from nowhere, part of the European mainstream.

Latvia

So now they are easy to visit, indeed the lure of cheap booze have turned Tallinn and Riga into slightly reluctant hosts to a thousand stag and hen parties. Even so I could still not remember which was which until my colleague Mark kindly pointed out that the states are in alphabetical order, north to south, and even then I remained uncertain about which capital belonged to which country.

Lithuania

The Baltic States were places we had never been and knew little about so it seemed a good idea to visit them. So Lynne and I set off to see all three, or at least their capitals, in ten days. They are small countries; on the official measure of small countries, the Wales, Latvia and Lithuania measure 3W, while Estonia is only 2W - though none of them can match Wales’ 3 million people. They also have fewer sheep.

As we travelled from south to north, the next three posts are:

Vilnius, Lithuania
Riga, Latvia
Tallinn, Estonia