822 Estonia Today; European Beer

0:00It's an easy ferry ride across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Its well-preserved medieval old town is one of the best in Europe. These buildings that date from 15th, 16th century are still there for us to enjoy. Coming up, Estonia expert Neil Taylor recommends what to see, do, taste, and understand about one of Europe's smaller countries with one of its fastest-growing economies. He'll also explain why most Estonians would rather leave their years under Russian domination as a thing of the past. They want the Soviet Union to be very much in the background.

0:36Plus, Dave Carpenter helps us know what goes into the local beers of Europe, like the stouts they favor in the Baltics and in Ireland. So that's barley that's not been malted, but it's been roasted like coffee, and that's what gives stout its dark color and kind of bittersweet taste. Come along for the hour ahead. It's Travel with Rick Steves.

1:01The Estonians' love of choir music helped to bring about a mostly peaceful end to the Soviet era in their country with what we call the Singing Revolution. In just a minute on Travel with Rick Steves, we'll hear how Estonia is coming along 35 years later. And save room for a well-deserved pint as beer expert Dave Carpenter schools us on the variety of beers, ales, and lagers that have their home in Europe and remain a flavorful part of the local identity. As record crowds pack Europe's top destinations, savvy travelers are increasingly looking to break free from the mobs. And tucked away in the northeast corner of Europe with just over a million people, Estonia offers room to breathe, perhaps in a steam-filled sauna or wandering the back streets of its charming capital, Tallinn.

1:51Long tossed around between Scandinavia and Russia, modern Estonia now stands apart from its neighbors. Its strong identity is rooted in resilience, from singing its way to independence from the USSR to a thriving economy today as a digital pioneer. To take a deeper look at today's Estonia, we're joined by the author of The Brat Guide to Estonia and a book called Estonia, A Modern History. Neil Taylor has been enamored with this Baltic gem since it opened its doors to outsiders back in the early 1990s. Neil, thanks so much for joining us. Delighted to be with you again. So now, you're a Brit from Bristol, way on the west of England, and you are an Estoniophile.

2:38How did this happen? How did a scholar from Britain become so enamored with Estonia? It was during the breakdown of the Soviet Union that we were all, as it were, banned from Estonia, apart from two - or three-day trips to Tallinn, perhaps from Helsinki, and suddenly this country was open, together with its Baltic neighbours, with Latvia and Lithuania, and I was a tour operator at the time, and my considerations were purely commercial. No one had been there for 60 years. It wasn't far from Britain. So let's give it a go. And thank goodness tourism is booming in Estonia right now. Give us a little context before we dig in.

3:15First of all, the Baltics. People refer to the Baltics. Sometimes that's misunderstood here in the United States. What are the Baltics? The Baltics, I think, in this context are the three countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. and let's say Scandinavia is Norway, Sweden and Finland. Another point of confusion for a lot of us is the difference between Scandinavia and Nordic Europe and then Slavic Europe. The Baltics are not Scandinavian ethnically because that's limited to Norway, Sweden and Denmark and Iceland, I think. Are they part of Nordic Europe and part of Slavic Europe? This is very complicated because you could say they're part of both because 20 % of the Estonian population speak Russian.

3:57So they're very Slavic. But the country, of course, is particularly opposed now to the new Russia. It was a reluctant member of the Soviet Union. You could also call it Nordic. Various presidents have preferred that, slightly in competition with their southern neighbours, with Latvia and Lithuania. They felt, well, they're a bit more advanced. So let's call ourselves Nordic because Finland is really our model. Now, we have the three Baltic countries that you mentioned, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. How are these three countries sort of brothers or sisters and how are they different? And how would you sum them up in just a nutshell?

4:35The religion divides them now that religion is allowed. Of course, it wasn't in Soviet times and Estonia is more Protestant, Latvia very mixed, Lithuania much more Catholic. To confuse things, the languages are totally unrelated with each other. I mean, Estonian, for instance, is related to Finnish, but has no links with Latvian, no links with Russian, no links with Swedish. So that distinguishes them. Cuisine can vary quite a bit. And government organisation is getting closer and closer now. If you'd asked me this question in 1993, I could have given a whole list of things which are totally different.

5:12But now being EU members and NATO members, they are being brought together and brought together willingly, not reluctantly, as was the case in Soviet times. They are sort of a package deal, aren't they? The Baltic states, when it comes to NATO and the EU, they sort of come and go together, don't they? Yes, they did. I mean, they joined them both in 2004 and have been regular vociferous members, particularly in the context of course of the Ukraine war, because they're facing up to the Russian frontier. And so they realize what sort of country Russia is, particularly having lived in Soviet times, of course.

5:47And I suppose we could actually trace a lot of their heritage back to Hanseatic days, back before there were a lot of the countries we think of today. There was a trading league that stretched from London to St. Petersburg in Russia, and Tallinn was a big part of that. Can I just interrupt that St. Petersburg didn't exist at that time. It was just a march because Peter the Great founded it because he wanted an outlet to the Baltics. But as a town, It just didn't exist. Okay, so it stretched way up to the Baltics. It stretched way up to Tallinn, yes. And old enough, Novgorod inland was part of it, but not St.

6:25Petersburg. St. Petersburg didn't exist. Thank you for correcting me on that. It is an amazing power in medieval Europe, wasn't it? Oh, absolutely. It's Hanseotically. And we go to Tallinn today. And a very positive one through all those towns. I mean, they traded very effectively for 150, 200 years. Gdańsk, Riga, Tallinn, Bergen, Helsinki, I suppose, Copenhagen, big parts of that trading league. Absolutely, yes. All right. So now we've got sort of the broader context, Neil. And by the way, we're talking with Neil Taylor. And he's dedicated his research and his time to sharing his knowledge and his passion for Estonia and the capital city Tallinn with travelers, especially since Estonia gained its independence in 1991.

7:13Neil's the author of The Brat Guide called Travel Guide to Estonia and he's also written Estonia, A Modern History and that book is recently updated for a third edition. You can find out more about his work in the notes for this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. So Neil, we've sort of given the context here. Let's talk about Estonia itself. In the introduction I mentioned it's just over a million people. Give us a thumbnail description of Estonia. Yes, very wooded from the countryside point of view, very flat, so no mountains, dependent on the Baltics, has been, still is, for a lot of trade, to-ing and fro-ing, of course, and making sure that that is an open sea.

7:56They used rivers for many years for their trade. We forget it was way outside the Roman Empire, so those of us living in Western Europe are used to long straight roads, whether in Sicily or whether on the Scottish border. Well, none of that in Estonia. There weren't any roads until the late 19th century. So rivers were the means of transport in those days. Obviously not now. There are railways and wider roads. Right. But we do have to remember there was a time when shipping was safer and more economic than overland travel. Oh, yes, certainly. I mean, in Britain, the case, you know, boats went from Edinburgh to London.

8:30then that was by far the easiest way to go than from... But Estonia is... Just to think that there's a million people that are native Estonian speakers, that's quite small on the planet. It is, yes. I mean, there are a million native Estonian speakers and about 300 ,000 native Russian speakers. But integrating, because it's advantageous for the Russian speakers to do that, they have to learn... Sorry, for a career, they have to learn Estonian properly. I mean, they can get menial jobs just speaking Russian still, particularly older ones who can speak Russian to older Estonians who remember it.

9:05But the younger generation are learning English because that's the international language and need it for travel, of course. Now, Estonia is dominated like almost no other country that I can... Well, I guess a lot of countries are dominated by their capital city, but Tallinn certainly dominates Estonia from a tourism point of view and probably in a lot of ways. Talk a bit about the dominance of the big city, Tallinn. Yes, well, this was an in-tourist legacy. In Soviet times, you could go to Tallinn briefly, about a two-week tour, Leningrad, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, that's the other two capitals of Latvia and Lithuania, Moscow, and out.

9:44So foreigners saw nothing else. So the feeling was, well, that's all there is. Then suddenly come 1991, you could go where you want. You could hire a car. You didn't need a visa. the rest of the country opened up. And that's taken time, of course, to pass on the message that Tallinn is not Estonia, that there's much more. They're the coastal resorts. And now with climate change, very advantageous going there in August, you won't get burnt. You can enjoy the sunshine without temperatures of 90, 95 degrees. The temperatures will be 75 to 80 degrees, probably. All of Nordic Europe is enjoying a bump as people escape the heat, the unbearable heat of the Mediterranean in the summer thanks to climate change.

10:29So you do point out that for 50 years Tallinn was, or roughly 50 years, Tallinn was part of the USSR and that means, from a tourism point of view, it's in-tourist. And that was the, you know, if there's an authoritarian government in Russia, there's authoritarian tourism also. And tourism was dictated by in-tourist and these trips would just feature the capital cities and nothing more. I guess that might have been a practical thing because they're trying to control people and you just don't want people from the West or from Russia roaming around the entire country. You could pretty much focus them on the big cities.

11:04That's right. Yes, it was easy because the attractive parts from the tourist point of view are small in each of these three capitals. So you kept them there and you had a good tourism product with Tallinn Old Town and the cathedrals and so on. who kept them there just for three days so that they didn't wander out into the suburbs or to other towns, things like that. And that was my first look at Tallinn was back during communism before 1990. And I was struck then and I'm struck now how there's sort of a sister city relationship between Tallinn and Helsinki. And I think if you know where to stand and look at the right time, you can actually see the two cities from a distance on each other.

11:41You can certainly get their radio and TV. And that meant that Tallinn had more of a look at Western freedom during the dark days of communism than almost any other part of the Soviet Union. They were in Finland's media circle. Yes, that's very crucial because the Finns could come to Tallinn again just for two or three days and they stayed in an interest hotel and drink was cheap and one has to say for a lot of people that was all they particularly interested in and they took out their duty-free back home and that was very lucrative for the Soviet Union. It provided hard currency. For Estonians, it was psychologically good that they could actually see foreigners.

12:20Of course, as you say, elsewhere in the USSR, you didn't see foreigners and you didn't travel. And the boat coming was a psychological bond for them. They couldn't take it themselves in the other direction. But at least foreigners were showing an interest in their town. And dissident literature could be smuggled in so they could read much more than people elsewhere in the Soviet Union.

12:59Neil Taylor's been called the world's leading expert to travel to Estonia, and he's with us right now on Travel with Rick Steves. Neil's been awarded the Estonian President's Medal for Services to Tourism and an MBE for contributing to the UK's bilateral relationship with Estonia. The British Guild of Travel Writers gave Neil its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Neil has more advice on what to see and do in Tallinn and out in the countryside as we continue to explore Estonia in just a minute. Neil Taylor's our guide to Estonia right now on Travel with Rick Steves. He helped to pioneer tourism in Estonia as it became independent of the Soviet Union back in 1991.

13:41Neil and his wife divide their time between Estonia and England, and he writes the brat guides to Estonia and to its capital city, Tallinn. His book, Estonia, a Modern History, is out in its recently updated third edition. Neil, when we think about traveling in Tallinn, let's talk just for a minute about Tallinn. If you get to Helsinki in Finland, It's just a two-hour boat rider show across the Baltic Sea. People from Finland actually go to Estonia to get their hair done. Yes, right, just for the day. Yes, it's a day trip from Helsinki. Yes. And it's such a beautiful thing to get off that ferry.

14:17I say if you've got three days in Helsinki, the best thing to do on your third day is go to Tallinn. Oh, absolutely, yes. In fact, I would remind people that it's easy to fly in and out of Tallinn. I've done it many times. It's easy to take big ferry boats from Stockholm or Helsinki over to Tallinn. and when you're thinking about a Scandinavian capitals kind of tour, include Tallinn in that. It's more thrills than you'll get anywhere else from an adventure travel point of view. And Tallinn is like a fairytale medieval town. It's beautifully preserved. It's got these wonderful fairytale turrets and cobbled lanes and it kind of embraces its medieval heritage, doesn't it?

14:55Can you explain to us the charm of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, for us travelers? Well, it is that. Very fortunately, it wasn't bombed extensively. It was bombed on one night, but not extensively in 1944. So you have got this intact medieval city. And of course, in Europe, so many of the cities that we discussed in these programmes were bombed, but Tallinn was spared the worst of bombings. So it has been maintained. Of course, the buildings were stone, so that means they've survived. There were generations, whether the Germans were running the businesses, whether the Swedes were there extensively, whether it was part of the old Russian Empire, these buildings were carefully preserved.

15:38It wasn't the situation that each new regime wanted to tear down the buildings and replace them, and not even in the communist era. So these buildings that date from 15th, 16th century are still there for us to enjoy. In fact, my favorite memories of Tallinn are not blockbuster sights, but just the town as a whole, and to wander through the town with a local guide and just get a walking tour if you can somehow and enjoy the charm and the history wrapped into its beautifully preserved townscape. But there are a few things to do and to see in Tallinn, and if you were helping us design a great day of sightseeing in Tallinn, what would be the must-see sights or attractions for the first-time visitor?

16:19Well, it is very tempting just to stroll, as you said, in the town. But if you want to study a little bit more about Estonia, you want the Kumu, which is the art museum. This is a couple of miles of walking, but interesting walking. Or you can take a tram. Well, of course, for Europeans, perhaps that's an American, trams are very special. We had them in our childhood, but they've disappeared from most European cities now. That's a good point. They're very active in Tallinn. You take the tram out to Kumu and the, shall I say, local imperial palace. It was built by Peter the Great for his wife, but neither of them ever actually used it.

16:57But as a building, it's still there and it's a classical art gallery. But Kumu is a modern art building and the art there is all sort of 20th century. And bearing in mind that most people have no idea what Estonian art is about, a lovely place to have a half an hour introduction. I would remind people, Neil, at Kumu, it's the pride and joy of the arts society in Tallinn. It's such a beautiful museum. There is decades of social realism, which was the propaganda art that was the only art that was allowed during the Soviet period. And I'm fascinated by art as propaganda when you're ruled by a communist dictatorship.

17:37Wouldn't you say that's a good dimension of the collection there at Kumu? Oh, it very much is, yes. So for political historians as well as for art historians, it's worth seeing and also seeing how the Estonians invaded Soviet censorship to some extent. Their flag is blue, black and white. And I mean, they certainly couldn't paint a flag, but they could somehow or other bring those colors into a lot of the artwork. So you see that and the cat and mouse game that they were playing with the Soviet authorities. And they got away with it. There's such a spirit, just a resilient spirit among the Estonians, and it shows itself in many ways, and that includes in its visual arts.

18:17Last time I was there, there was a big development in the old rundown industrial quarter. Isn't it called the Seaplane Harbour or something like that? Yes, that's right, yes. So you have the whole naval history of Estonia, the submarines, and beside it is an old prison which has been reopened and will be developed in various ways, But that gives the grim picture of Soviet and even sort of pre-Soviet life for the prisoners who were actually there. But there's the Sea Museum. And the whole area has been gentrified. So you've got the Sea Museum, as you say, the Sea Harbour Museum. And then you've got modern entertainment with it.

18:53So you could be academic, say, between four and six in the afternoon and then have a very nice meal to follow at the seaside. You've got this edgy world with all sorts of street art and all sorts of avant-garde little galleries, and you've got wonderful artisans, a spirit of freedom and creativity, and you've got wonderful cutting-edge kind of eateries. And it's all in this sort of post-industrial context where you're in these once dilapidated industrial warehouses that have been turned into now thriving and creative cultural and cuisine spots. And with an amazing number of people involved in it.

19:30I couldn't give an exact figure for the number of serious painters there are in Estonia, but out of that million, it is quite extraordinary. And musicians too, classical, modern, and different styles of art. It's a beautiful dimension of a city that could be overwhelmed by its medieval charm. Even back in communist times, the farmer's market over by the train station was always a delight. And you could see the babushkas with their cabbage on sale and their homemade cheese and so on. But now it is a combination of that heritage plus all sorts of trendy, hip, quite affluent market activities. And that's like the gateway to this whole former industrial wasteland that you can tie on to your Tallinn experience.

20:15Very much so. And you've now got the restaurants from the former Central Asian republics, which are now independent countries, of course. There you go. Oh, and you know, in the United States or Britain, when we eat ethnic, we might eat Thai or Chinese or something like that. But in the former Soviet Union, when you eat ethnic, you can eat Kazakh or you can eat Georgian or you can eat different parts of the vast Soviet empire. And that is in the market now, which is particularly surprising. I love it. Yes. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Neil Taylor. He's been traveling to Estonia since it first opened to tourists with the fall of the Soviet Union.

20:52and he's been the longtime author of the Bratt Guidebook to Estonia. His own book, called Estonia, a Modern History, examines this tiny country's long struggle for independence and how it's become a thriving digital pioneer in Europe today. Neil, I'd like to talk about Estonian culture, just beyond the capital even, and just describe this Estonian spirit and what makes Estonians unique compared to their Baltic neighbors. Let's first talk about food. How does food reflect the mix of Nordic and Russian and Baltic influences? Yes, the main influence is still German, interestingly. I mean, they brought their dishes when they came as businessmen, or they would like to say crusaders, in the sort of 14th, 15th century.

21:36And that has stayed. So the pork, the importance of potatoes, the size of the dishes, the very thick soups and sweets. So that has all come really from Germany rather than from Russia or Sweden or Finland. And my favorite memory, I've got to say, is this just cake-like, delicious dark bread. Yes. Oh, yes. What Estonians, when they come to Britain, they can't get it and they're desperately frustrated. It's the first thing I just delight in is that dark bread with, I don't know, it's just so simple, but it's just so organic and beautiful for Estonia. Yes, yes. And I mean, you can eat quantities of it, either with something sweet, with jam, or of course, with savouries.

22:19Yeah. You know, when we think about this corner of Europe, we think of saunas. There's saunas in Sweden and saunas and steam bats and so on in Finland. What is Estonia's sauna tradition? Well, very much so, yes. And for the tourists, of course, they've copied Finland and Sweden and realised that commercially, it's very successful by charging less than the Finns. And of course, people come for a week in the winter when you're almost tied to the sauna because you don't want to go out in the pitch dark normally but you can then have well all day or as much of the evening as you would like in the sauna environment so have the swimming pools as well as the saunas and the spa.

22:57Another dimension of Estonian culture is the music and it's similar with Latvians in Riga and also the Finns, just a love of choral music, of singing. It's a very community-building activity, I think. What is it about music and singing that is so powerful and inspirational about Estonian culture? Well, that brought the Estonian ethnic community together from the end of the 19th century, because the festival's songs were all in Estonian. So that was a way of sort of reminding people of the language of the country, even though it wasn't a country at that time, continued when it became independent after the First World War, logically, because they'd been successful in the 19th century, so every hint why they shouldn't be more successful in the independent country.

23:48And in the communist era, they were a way of battling surreptitiously the Soviet authorities, so smuggling in nationalistic songs. They were so fortunate, of course Estonians, that the Soviets couldn't understand the language. Very, very few native Russian speakers can understand Estonian fluently. So by speaking it fast, by using dialects, old-fashioned words... Well, that's one advantage. That's one great advantage of an obscure little language that almost nobody speaks is you've got your own secret code. It is. It's like the Welsh going abroad. Well, they're not going to be understood except in Patagonia.

24:25Well, when you go to Tallinn, high on the tourist checklist is the Song Festival grounds, right? Yes, yes, and that's where the festival takes it. It's a vast, a vast outdoor, like Hollywood Bowl, but four times as big, and you've got a stage, and historically, half of all the people in the country have gathered there for special days, haven't they? They have, yes, at these festivals. Even now, I mean, in a sense, there isn't the political significance, but the standards of music attract them. And, of course, Estonians living abroad, those who left after the Second World War, those who've emigrated more recently or to-ing and fro-ing, as is possible now, it's a way of really being Estonian for several days.

25:04Well, it's a way to speak up for your culture. I remember my friends in Estonia told me, you know, in the difficult times of the 20th century, we were totally outgunned. We had Germany on one side and Russia and the Soviet Union on the other side, and all we could do was sing to demonstrate that we are here and we're going to stay here, and that showed itself in what was called the Singing Revolution. And I remember the first time I ever watched a movie online was when I was in my hotel in Tallinn, so inspired by this singing revolution. And there's a very dramatic documentary movie called, I believe, The Singing Revolution.

25:40Yes, it is. Yes, yes. And what was that singing revolution, Neil? Well, that was very important in the Perestroika era. The Soviet Union said it was opening up. There were these words, glasnost and perestroika. Yes, those were the two words that people were using. And the Estonians very skillfully used it, pushed the barriers. The flags could appear very gradually. Political comment was more possible in newspapers. People could be just generally a little bit more daring. And where economically, they could tell the Soviets, well, we should have more self-management, more management at the local level, because that'll make people more productive, covering up the fact that that was an excuse for nationalism because it meant if you had local control, Estonians were running their own businesses and weren't asking Moscow if they could buy six paperclips.