hat night in 1978, at the Lensoviet Theater, he in-troduced himself to young Liudmila, the Aeroflotflight attendant from Kaliningrad who had briefly

dreamed of becoming an actress, as “an expert in humanrelations.”

He was cold and mysterious. But he was unlike most ofSoviet men and she began going out with him. After all,she told a friend, he didn’t drink and he didn’t hit her.

Five years later, in the summer of 1983, she agreed tomarry him. Instead of heading fro the sunny beaches ofYalta and Batumi, Vladimir and Liudmila picked Estoniafor their honeymoon. To them, Tallinn seemed just won-derful.

Just as it had to Dimka, then a restless, 17-year -olddreamer, 22 years before the honeymooners arrived.Dimko is the hero of “Ticket to the Stars,” the late Ak-

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senev Vasily’s best-selling hipster novel set in the Eston-ian capital.

Vodka and rock’n’rollerialized in the monthly magazine Yunost in1961, the year Yuri Gagarin became the first manin space and John F. Kennedy was the American

president, “Ticket to the Stars” is a Bildungsroman thatpaints an indelible portrait of those fascinating but rockytimes. While Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation got its truth-seeking energy from fast cars, heavy drinking and Ben-zedrine, Aksenev portrayed a similar search, but in termsof a journey away from the suffocating life of Moscowsuburbs in search of freedom in the Baltic States, the mostwestern outpost of the Soviet Union.

Tallinn, a two-hour boat trip from Helsinki – and still a

quick weekend tourist destination for Finns – is seen byDimka and his friends as something of a mythical placewhere it’s possible to dispense with the fake cheer im-posed by socialist realism and find a hint of real life in theOld Town. Real life meant reading “Papa Hem” (ErnestHemingway), listening to jazz late into the night, and in-haling the abundant aroma of vodka.

Soviet Tallinnhe feeling of poverty is half-illusion. Life is bet-ter here than anywhere else in the Soviet Union,”wrote British travel writer and novelist Colin

Thubron, who visited Tallinn in 1982. “People are betterdressed, better paid. They enjoy cultural freedoms un-known in Moscow. Conceptual art has made modest in-roads in bookstores. I saw books by Proust, Evelyn

The Secretsof Tallinntext and photos by Massimiliano Di Pasquale

Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is a two-hour

boat ride from Helsinki and still a popular

tourist destination among Finns.

Once upon a time, it had a large and thriving

Russian community that worked in local

shipyards and chemical industries.

But the Baltic country has worked to erase

its links to the Soviet era, even tearing down

a Red Army memorial and producing wrath

in Moscow. But Tallinn has always been

different. It once played host to

a romance involving a man named Putin.

RIGHT Tallinn seen from the top floor of the Hotel Reval.

FACING PAGE A young woman sells souvenirs in the center of town.

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curity concerns. Built to celebrate the Soviet triumph inWorld War II, to many Estonians the monument symbol-ized Soviet oppression. From 1939 to 1944, Estonia wasoccupied first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, and againby the Soviets.

The relocation of the statue, now situate in the Tallinnmilitary cemetery, produced three nights of clashes in thecity. A week later, the Estonian embassy in Moscow founditself under sieges and the country’s government, banksand companies found themselves under cyber attack.

Vladimir, the former “expert in human relations” whotook his wife Liudmila to Tallinn for their honeymoon,had confessed a secret before they wed: He was a KGB a-gent. The agent, whose surname was Putin, now hangshis hat in the Kremlin.

The young skinheads set Tallinn ablaze that year woret-shirts with his emblazoned face. They were tied to theNashi, known in Moscow as Putin Youth. Many Russian-speaking Estonians remain baffled the rampage of thethugs and still express solidarity with the owners whosebusinesses were destroyed during the rioting. Within afew days, the diplomatic crisis between the two countrieswas resolved.

But even four years later, echoes of those crazy days en-dure in the memory of the local population.

The first person I stop to speak with in Raekoja Squareis a young woman dressed in traditional garb who invitesme to sample the house specialty at a place called Old E-stonia. Tension between Estonians and the Russian mi-nority continues, she tells me. “A few weeks ago, on theoccasion of May 9, Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War[World War II], we saw a new sea of young skinheads inthe streets. They sang the praises of communisms andwaved red flags with the hammer and sickle.”

Fortunately, the day passed incident-free, since mostEstonians, mindful of police patrols, chose to stay home.

Up Toompeamuseum? To hell with that! Let’s go to ToompeaHill.” (Vasily Aksenev). Bidding farewell to theyoung women who has just given me a contem-

porary history lesson, I lose myself in a fascinating mazeof narrow streets that lead up the Toompea hill. Panoram-ic views of the city abound.

In 1219, the Danes built the medieval castle here. Large-ly destroyed, it was later rebuilt and now houses the Es-tonian parliament.

The parliament building is a neo-classical structurecolored in soft pastel pink. It stands in front of the Alexan-der Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral, which with its black o-

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Waugh, PG Woodhouse, and Jack Kerouac.” It’s seeingVirginia Woolf’s “Too The Lighthouse” peeping out of thejacket pocket of a man walking through old market squarethat got Thubron to start talking to the locals.

Jan, an emaciated-looking man of about 30, a chemistand a Methodist, agreed to talk the visiting writer aboutlife in the city. Russian immigrants, a mass of facelessworkers, arrived in the city in the 1950s to work in itsshipyards, chemical plants and oil refineries.

“They lived in huge apartment blocks, as filthy as pigs,”Jan told Thubron. “They had money enough, but theyspent almost all of it on booze. They drank because theywere bored. They had nothing to think about, nowhere togo, nothing to do...”

For Jan and his wife, governed by Calvinist rigor, lifewas a hard bargain. Not only was there no drinking orsmoking, but they were also harassed by the party, hav-ing refused, unlike some local Catholics and Orthodox,to conform to Communist beliefs.

Narrow streetsn the flight to Tallinn, this year’s Capital of Euro-pean Culture, a petite woman form Tbilisi tellsme of the friendship that unites the Georgian and

Estonian people. She never mentions politics or Russia.

She confines herself to saying that the Estonian peopleare warm and hospitable, despite the frigid Nordic. I’lllike them, she tells me. And, like her, most likely, fall inlove with the city’s Old Town and its medieval atmos-phere suspended between romance and magic.

A few hours later, putting the centrally-located HotelSanta Barbara where I’m staying behind me, I make myway down Harju Street headed for Raekoja Square. The y-oung woman’s words come to mind as towers; steeples,cobblestone streets and picturesque alleys welcome me tothe ancient heart of this “Danish city” (Taani linn in Es-tonian). The Old City sites contrast nicely with futuristicglass banks, hotels and shopping centers that shape theskyline of the most modern of the three Baltic capitals.

Controversial statuen April 2007, the Estonian decided to removecontroversial bronze statue dedicated to a RedArmy soldier from the center of the city, citing se-

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LEFT Panorama of Tallinn from the Old Town.

ABOVE Liberty Square, near the Russian Embassy.

CENTER The Pirita docks, with the “Moscow 1980” Olympic logo.

RIGHT Stroomi, where the Russian community lives.

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tral Europe and Eastern Europe.. The park is wi-fi friend-ly (Tallinn is one step ahead technologically, Skype’s soft-ward was developed in 2003 by three Estonians AhtiHeinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn) and representsfavorite destinations joggers and bike riders. Tourists tendto prefer prowling the baroque halls of Kadriorg Palace,built in the 1700s and dedicated by the tsar and his wifeCatherine I. They also flock to Kumu (“Kunstimuuse-um”), a spectacular limestone, glass and copper structurethat opened in 2006 and houses the Art Museum of Esto-nia. It was named European Museum of the Year in 2008.The hall dedicated to the local Soviet-era appears to val-idate the title of Thubron’s book on Estonia, “Among TheRussians.” The Estonian artists of the 1970s, includingLudmilla Siim and Yuri Palm not only understood con-ceptual art, but also created more interesting works thanthose produced by the Moscow counterparts.

Pirita Beachhe most famous beach in Tallinn is located in thenorth of the eponymous bay, near a bridge thatcrossed the Pirita River. This area, an estuary of

the Gulf of Finland where the grayish dark green of the

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nion domes is among the city’s most representative sites.The cathedral was built between 1894 and 1900, towardthe end of the tsarist empire, as part of a Russification ef-fort aimed at stifling the growing Estonian nationalistmovement. Once finished, it was dedicated to the Princeof Novgorod and Vladimir, who in the 13th century con-quered much of what the land on which Estonia now sits.

Depeche Mode Barear Raekoja plats I grab a bite Aed, an elegantrestaurant with a retro look and an artsy air. Thevegetable soup and the desserts are delicious

desserts.For beer, I go to the Depeche Mode bar. Founded in

1999 by a fan of the British band and visited by the bandin 2001 during a world tour, the bar is decorated in blackand red, as if to show the extent to which new wave rockhas supplanted Aksenev’s jazz era.

My friend Chicco, who has lived in Tallinn for years,directs nostalgia lovers to Chicago 1933, a lounge bar and1930s-style restaurant. Swing and jazz are on tap, partic-ularly on Friday nights when local beauties show updecked out in breathtaking style.

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Baltic Sea blends with white sands and the green-silverof neighboring birches, once played host to Olympic sail-ing events during the boycott-ridden Summer Games of1980. The Olympic symbol that recalls that event is evi-dent at a private dock near the elegant Yacht Club, whereseveral boats are moored. Thanks to a fortuitous meetingwith a yacht owner I’m able to get close to the dock to takea few pictures that contain these rare vestiges of the Sum-mer Games and Soviet times. The area around the Piritawas also swept clean of Soviet aesthetics, to ensure it hadits own new look.

To find anything remotely similar to what the citymight have been like in Soviet times I have to go to Stroo-mi, the other beach in the capital, which is home to the c-ity’s extensive Russian community. Here, the atmosphereis decidedly different.

Windswept beach full of shrubs are bereft of yachts.There’s little that’s trendy or luxurious. Instead, I find aboat trailer where a man sells hot dogs and drinks. In thebackground are gray apartment blocks, vintage Brezhnev-era structures where the city’s imported Russian workingclass once lived, plying their trade in local shipyards andchemical industries. But those days are gone. .

The Tsar’s parkehind the glass counter of the Mahogany ParkCafé, which could be the envy of any London cof-fee bar, you’ll find an alter to Sacher Tortes, Dan-

ish pastries and pies. My server is a dark-haired pony-beauty whose green eyes transmit both sweetness andsensuality. After walking for a long stretch along NarvaManteo, behind the skyscrapers located near the Old C-ity (the area include the infamous Hotel Viru, once the c-ity’s KGB haunt), I reach Kadriorg Park, one among Tal-linn’s green centerpieces.

The sprawling park was designed Italian architect Nic-colo Michetti on commissioned from Peter the Great, whohad it built immediately after the conquest of Estonia atthe end of the 18th century Great Northern War, in whicha coalition led by the Russian coalition led by the tsar suc-cessfully humbled the Swedish Empire in northern Cen-

LEFT Brotherhood of Blackheads Fraternity Hall.

ABOVE The Alexander Nevsky Orthodox cathedral.

CENTER The Vanalinn medieval towers in the Old Town.

RIGHT The center during the Tallinn Treff Festival.

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