Stalin and Pickles

19052019

(NOTE: I am writing this retroactively, the internet on the ship was horrendous so it wont be as fresh)

Tallinn was a sleeper hit. I really wasn't expecting that much, and it turned out to be a really cool city, before we even get to the really cool tour we did.

Our tour wasn't until the afternoon, so we all got off the ship as early as we could to walk around the city. We took the quick shuttle to the center of town and were very surprised. The old part of Tallinn is all enclosed in the old Medieval wall of the city. It reminded me very much of Český Krumlov (https://danswritingsonnonsense.blogspot.com/2012/05/not-vienna-but-still-awesome-medieval.html). We wandered around a little and found a medieval wall to climb into.

Inside the wall they had pictures from the last 100 years of Tallinn's history, it was mostly a climb-up-and-see-the-city thing for 2 euro, but you also got a little recent (as the town has been around for 800 years, the last 100 year history is recent)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallinn

The old medieval part of the city is actually a UNESCO site.

We had to head back to the ship to catch our shore excursion, but not before laura and I grabbed a few bottles of beer, and a bottle of wine. Our intention was to drink the beer before getting on the ship and bringing the wine to our cabin for later, but the beer was so tasty we managed to finish it before the bus even got to back to the ship.

We made it back, snuck on our wine, and then headed out for the tour. I was originally skeptical, as it was pitched as a "Memory of Soviet Times" excursion that felt like it could be hokey. But it was pretty neat. The tour guide was dressed in an old Soviet Uniform and demanded our passports as we got on the bus, and searched our bags for recording devices. and when we got on the old beat up bus he held up a picture of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin as we all did (disappointingly small) shots of vodka and ate a pickle.

He then broke out of the character to explain that he infact hated the Soviets, and then discussed with us what it was like under the Soviets, and how things have changed.

The bus then took us to the naval museum area, mostly to dump us off with a view of the city, so he could point things off, and tell us about the prison that was nearby and how he had friends disappeared at this prison. From here we drove to have a picnic by the marina, here we had kali (which is their version of kvass, which I only now realize is what I was drinking on that homestay in Saint Petersburg way back when, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass ) and viineripirukas (pigs in a blanket). Really the whole excursion was an opportunity to talk to a local that lived through the Soviet Satellite state Estonia and the conversion to todays Estonia.

As I have discussed before, and may have failed to discuss this time around; cruises are dominated by older people. This cruise being a little bit more premium meant that it was almost exclusively old-moneyed-white Americans. This leads to various issues that I/Laura have with going on cruises, and it will likely be a while before we go on another one. I will try to get into that in my the final cruise day post, as I need to think about it some more.

I digress, being that all of the other people on our excursion *also* lived through the Cold War, they had questions about what it was like, and how Estonia can be doing so well now. The US/West had its own propaganda about how terrible it is in the east/Soviet world, and many of them havent kicked this mindset. I think they were expected ex-Soviet states to be shitholes, and were surprised that Estonia is doing great, cranking out programmers/developers/IT people in general. So it was interesting listening to the questions these people had, and the guide was happy to answer them, but I would have appreciated a smaller conversation over a beer to see what Estonia is really like, and what it meant for him/his family to go through the post-communist transition, and the accession to the EU. But alas, I wasnt going to be that asshole that dominates the tourguides time.

After the picnic the bus took us back to the ship, a little bit late, but not so late they left without us. We climbed the gangplank, and went to the top deck for the sail away ceremony.

Apparently many of the cruise lines other ships actually have sails, so the sail away ceremony is cool as there are actual sails being set and ropes doing things, but on this ship, that burns awful bunker fuel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil its basically what is left when you make all the good petrochemical products, its like one step above raw crude), all they do is fly a little pennant and blare the music.

We had some drinks, we chatted with other cruise guests, and we watched Tallinn fade away. I very much think Laura and I will visit again.

Maybe when I early retire, my Dad and I will take a vacation through Old Medieval towns, Tallinn included.

We eventually ate a good but not great dinner, retired to my parents cabin, drank some of that wine while half-watching On Her Majesty's Secret Service and chatting about the trip.