Estonian travel facts and trivia

Saaremaa, Tallinn, Setumaa, Otepaa & the Broken Line Monument

Mar 9, 2007 David Whitley

Estonia: Information and statistics on the Olympic Yachting Centre, Setu people, holy lake, gothic town hall, flag museum, cheap beer, ferry disasters and more.

Estonia is the most northerly of the three Baltic republics, and is fast becoming a popular tourist destination. Here are some snippets that you perhaps didn’t know about the country.

1. The name of the Estonian capital, Tallinn, originally comes from a Danish word meaning “Danish castle”
2. At Saaremaa, you can find the biggest meteorite crater in Europe. Obviously it is a result of a giant rock falling out of the asteroid belt and into the earth’s atmosphere, but local legend has it that the great, big hole in the ground is the sun’s grave.
3. The Setu people of Setumaa are a distinct race, albeit one that is unfortunately dying out. Little is understood about the Setu by outsiders, although they do have some bizarre singing rituals.
4. The Estonian language is part of the Finno-Ugric language group, and is closely related to Finnish and Hungarian. It is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, so it’s a good job that most of the visitors to the country are Finns. A time-honoured tradition is ferry-loads of Finns coming over from Helsinki to take advantage of much cheaper beer in Tallinn. Indeed, many don’t even bother getting off the ferry, as the prices are also much cheaper on board.
5. In Otepaa there is a museum devoted to the Estonian flag, which was first created in one of the town’s churches.
6. Otepaa is also home to a lake that is regarded as holy. It was once blessed by that notorious rampaging hothead, the Dalai Lama.
7. The town hall in Tallinn has a unique distinction – it is the only town hall left in Europe that is designed in the Gothic style. All the others have either been replaced, burned down or bombed.
8. You may think is strange that there is an Olympic Yachting Centre in Tallinn. After all, Estonia has never hosted the Olympics, surely? The title is actually a throwback to the Moscow Olympics, when Estonia was a begrudging part of the Soviet Union. With Moscow not being exactly renowned for its vast lakes and great seas, all the waterborne competitions were held in Tallinn – a considerable distance away.
9. Tallinn is also home to the Broken Line Monument. This is a memorial to the 852 people who drowned in the Baltic sea back in 1994. It was one of the worst ferry disasters in history, and many Estonians knew someone who lost their life in the tragedy.
10. The festival highlight of Tallinn is Old Town Days, a colourful medieval pageant that takes place every year.

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