How do you care for a city that’s centuries old? Do you preserve it for tourists and purists, or fix it to suit those who live there? The people of Tallinn seem to have got the balance just right. The old city center of the Estonian capital, which dates to the twelfth century, was happily preserved behind the iron curtain and is now a thriving tourist destination. There are little winding streets and a big public square and stone buildings with steep tiled roofs, all of which seem (to an American at least) older than time. And there are, everywhere, bars, cafes and curio shops and, just inside one of town’s gates, a big, bustling McDonalds. Yet the charm of the city shines through. Unlike the Old Town in Stockholm, which feels polished and preserved to the point of sterility, Tallinn felt like a real place where real people live.
Certainly the city could take its preservation work more seriously. I saw places where ancient stone copings had been replaced with clumsy tin flashing, and cobbled walks with asphalt. But however awkward these modernizations were, they never felt egregious. Instead they felt like a proof of life, that people living here make the place their own. What I liked best about Tallinn were the teenagers dressed in historically correct period costumes manning the entrances at some of the restaurants and bars. While they were friendly enough they looked just like teenagers everywhere else – slouching, sluggish and sullen. One girl wore ostentatiously unlaced Doc Martens with her court jester’s hose, and one boy had rolled back the sleeves of his horsehair cape to show off his tats. While the center of Tallinn is very, very pretty it’s a city where people live and, to some extent, rely on tourists for their livelihood. In that sense it’s like a much more genuine, much more spectacular Medieval Times.