Transcript
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I.
With fairly aggressive smiles on their faces, the flight
attendants were checking whether the passengers had
fastened their seat belts as instructed, and I looked out
the window at the landscape below, which is now
available through Google Earth. We were flying over a
wide, green area.
The slightly snobby looking Finnish woman sitting
next to me was fumbling through the airline magazine
full of pictures of men in suits and the latest models of
airliners. When she noticed my quick glance at the
page she was reading, she asked me in English if it
would be my first time in Tallinn. Although I was sure
that I by no means looked of Baltic origin, I was a bit
puzzled by this sudden recognition. This meant that I
would never have the chance to say I dont speak
Estonian to someone who would try to speak to me
in Estonian. You must experience the pleasure of a
sauna in Tallinn, she continued, and complained thatthere were no saunas left except the electric-powered
ones, and that they caused headaches. But of course
you are beautiful enough to meet a guy who has a
wooden sauna at home, she said, smiling. It was
obvious that having a wooden sauna at home was a
sign of wealth. I thanked her for her compliment and,
assuming that the conversation was over, I redirected
my attention to the view beneath us. However, she1
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II.
Small wooden boxes were neatly placed in the window
of the humidor store I passed by in the lemiste
Airport, a complex with only one passenger terminal.
A customer in the store pointed to a box that I
happened to be staring at, which looked like the most
expensive one in stock with its meticulously decorated
lid. I was sure that he would produce loads of Euros
from his wallet.
Dozens of gleaming mirrors in the hairdresser and
beauty parlour in the Arrival Hall multiplied the
images of the staff looking at the passers-by with
inviting smiles.
resumed. She said she had had booked a helicopter
service, which takes only 18 minutes, because it was
more comfortable than an airliner, but she had to put
up with the burden of this flight since she had missed
her helicopter. I fixed my eyes on her pink-polished
nails, wondering whether they glowed in dark, and
wished for the conversation to end soon. Upon
noticing, at last, that I had lost interest, she wished me
a good holiday and returned to her page.
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VI.
Every country surely has an independence day, the
names of which have more or less the same
connotation. And Estonias is Victory Day, which was
the day after my arrival, when Estonian forces foiled
an attempt to restore Baltic German control over the
region.
I considered myself twice as lucky to be able to catch
up with the Beer Summer Festival, held every four
years as a part of the Estonian Song Festival, although
I had missed the opening parades.
V.
When I stepped into the lobby I was met by a white,
stained glass piano, grand enough to make Ivana
Trump feel at home.
My room was not huge, though. Despite the piped
music playing in the corridor, I had a deep, dreamless
sleep.
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VIII.
I went for a short walk just after breakfast.
I didnt have any difficulty in finding a specific point
of reference to minimize my chances of getting lost.
The Town Hall Tower stood erect some distance
ahead, so dominant over the landscape that no other
building could block it out, and walking towards it
would suffice for a first-day sightseeing.
Ignoring whether I looked like a tourist or not I had
already been reminded of my unusual appearance on
the plane I took long pauses at places that attracted
my attention, and during one of them I was startled by
the shriek of a young American woman who had been
walking by me. What I barely gathered from what she
blabbered in between her cries was that she was
pick-pocketed. Like anybody would do in such a
situation I checked the things in my bag, and after
being assured that nothing had been stolen, I left thewoman with the crowd that had gathered around her.
VII.
The hotel I was staying at was at the end of Viru
Street, which had seen its best years in the 20s and
30s, and which was, as the most grandiose street in
any given country is, comparable to Oxford Street.
The L-shaped hotel building reluctantly encircled the
De La Gardie shopping centre. It was the supplier of
the citys needs for high-street fashion and cosmetics,
and was a depressingly un-medieval monument of
controversial steel, glass, wood and stone.
The window of my single room was overlooking
Mrivahe Street, which stretched along the city
walls. A little ways ahead, the twin towers of the 15th
century Viru gate were discernible at the end of the
Knitting Wall, which was named after the wool sellers
who had carried out their trade in the niches carved
into the wall (it was also possible that it might have
attracted the wool sellers because of its name). I was
looking towards the city centre from a point thatwould have been considered to be out of the city
limits in the 16th century.
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X.
The Japanese tourists were pointing at and trying to
take snapshots of something on the baroque spire on
top of the limestone-yellow coloured Town Hall,
which I had taken as the guiding reference point for
myself. I couldnt see clearly what it was but I was
sure that they had cameras capable of zooming into
infinity.
IX.
As I walked on towards the Town Hall in a street
crowded with pastel-coloured medieval merchant
houses and day-trippers just out of their cruise ships, I
was distracted by smart casuals in the window of a
shop called Bastion. But I held myself from stepping
inside; I had already learned from my previous travels
that the joy of shopping must be delayed till the last
days.
Then I came to a crossroads. Medieval tunes were
spreading out from a restaurant named Olde Hansa in
the oldest marketplace of the city, Vana Turg, and I
suddenly found myself feeling happy that the former
foreign minister had failed in his quest to turn Estonia
into another boring Nordic country. Here, time was
unintelligibly obscure.
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XII.
I was well aware that I was going to have probably the
most expensive meal in the city as I was approaching a
restaurant where one could casually observe the large
square that had once witnessed festivals and
executions, and now hosted the crowds at tables
spread outside the restaurants and cafs. There was
supposed to be a historical stone that was marked on
the maps around here, but I couldnt find it. Perhaps it
was concealed by one of the tables.
XI.
I arrived at the Town Hall where 15th and 20th century
buildings mingled side by side, as the sun revealed
fascinating plays of colour on the facades.
The Raeapteek, one of the oldest pharmacies in the
world, was now an ordinary drugstore. It would really
be quite strange to step through its highly ornate
wooden doors to buy a bottle of cough syrup, or birth
control pills.
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XIV.
There was a web of streets leading into the square and
each had a different name for the Russians, Estonians
and Germans, which was standardised later. I random-
ly chose one of them and started walking on.
The Viewing Platform at the end of the street was
packed with tourists and young couples watching the
sunset.
XIII.
Ignoring the waiter who kept insisting that I sit on
their terrace, I sat at a table on the pavement. When I
finished the beef stroganoff I had ordered and asked
for the bill, they were preparing the Russian-Empire
style restaurant for live music. I wondered about the
repertoire of the band, but, since I was too full to have
more, I went out.
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XVI.
As soon as I got out of the shop I entered a bar named
Depeche Mode, just out of curiosity aroused by the
name. The interior walls were covered with artefacts,
writings and posters dedicated to Depeche Mode.
While I was looking around at the bar, the waiter
approached me and asked me if I was a Depeche Mode
fan. Since I didnt want to disappoint him and cut our
conversation short, I said yes. So, whats your
favourite song of them? he asked. Obviously he was
testing on me. At that very moment, Dont let me
down again started to play, and I replied, This is.He winked at me, making clear that he liked my
choice. He then turned to the other customers sitting
at the bar and they started talking in Estonian. A little
while later, he must have remembered my presence
there, and he turned to me and pointed to the walls at
the entrance. All the photographs were carefully
framed. In many of them were two of the men sitting
at the bar. But, without question, the bartender him-self, with his ear-to-ear smile, was the one who looked
best in all the photographs.
XV.
A little way ahead, I saw a music shop and I stopped
in. Although I knew that it was too predictable to buy
an Arvo Prt CD in Estonia, I grabbed one and made
for the cashier.
I was wondering what it would feel like to stroll
through the streets while listening to his medieval
minimalism, to his statically repetitive and constantly
moving sound. This musician, who refrains from
talking about his works, had once stated that a single
note, even if it is silent, would be sufficient if it isplayed beautifully enough. It was not surprising that
such a culture abundant in silence-praising proverbs
had produced a musician like Arvo Prt, a master of
silence and minimalist repetitions.
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XVIII.
The best way to discover the night life in a city is to
ask young people who are dressed like, or similar to,
you. When I did this, I was scanned from head to toe
and then directed to a night club not far from the
hotel I was staying at. It was a building transformed
from an old Fire Station. Although it wasnt quite what
I felt like, I grabbed a beer and started to observe the
dance floor, leaning against a wall. A song that I took
to be in Russian was playing and the floor was jam
packed with young people in their twenties.
A boy who looked so young that he couldnt be old
enough to be there, and whose intention was obvious-
ly to take a chance with the lonely girl at the bar
approached me and said, Tere. Thus, the first word
I learned in Estonian was Hello, which I also
remembered seeing on a billboard earlier that day.
XVII.
The significance of Eurovision at the periphery of
Europe is not understandable to someone who is not
familiar with this area. Eurovision is a symbol of
competing with Western standards in Western
conditions. Therefore, I remember I wasnt surprised
in the least when I saw on TV the diplomats dancing
on the tables, or the Estonian prime minister jumping
up and down with joy when Tanel Padar and Dave
Benton, the founders of the citys most well-known
band King of Spades, won the 2001 Eurovision Song
Contest. It is especially unsurprising if the country weare talking about is a country like Estonia where
singing is a sign of political resistance, and which
went through a process of independence also known
as the Singing Revolution, during which millions of
people marched in the streets singing the banned
songs.
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XX.
Standing on Uus Street a little ways ahead of the
turquoise, pink and orange decorated Cinema House,
the Lithuanian Consulate was noteworthy for its
Baroque style. Just before I arrived at the consulate
building I entered a shop that sold old books and
maps.
I had been looking aimlessly at the books on the
shelves for about 5 minutes when the shopkeeper
approached me and asked me in Estonian if there was
something special I was looking for. When I told himthat I was actually curious about Estonian literature,
he thought for a while and then wrote down on a
piece of paper the names of Jaan Kross and Jaan
Kaplinski. They were nominated for the Nobel Prize,
he continued. Jaan Krosss The Conspiracy and Other
Stories is excellent. It is a book about Estonia under
the Nazi and Soviet invasions. But I am not sure you
could find them in English.
When I got out, I noticed a plaque just next to the
shop and went closer to read what was on it. I was
standing in front of the house where Dostoyevsky had
stayed in 1840.
When I found out that Dostoyevsky used to visit
Tallinn to gamble, and that he had taken von Hun, the
XIX.
I went to the Town Prison Museum of Photography,
which stands opposite the Town Hall, and which once
served as the city dungeon, just to see the first spy
camera invented by the Estonians. The 1938 model
camera looked as if it could have appeared in the early
Bond films and was small enough to fit in my palm.
The most interesting photograph in the collection of
the museum was one that showed the French balloon-
ist Charles Leroux tangled in the ropes of his hot-air
balloon. I wondered if it was the last recorded momentof his life. There was no information regarding this
matter on the label.
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XXI.
I realized that I had missed the street leading to the
Church and decided to take the next one. This
extended route made me discover the Mine Museum.
When I went inside and found that the mines brought
here from the Estonian Islands of the Bay of Tallinn
were in numbers high enough to start such a museum,
where they were displayed like relics from an ancient
civilization, I asked the museum attendant if there
were any mines still left in the sea. He smiled and
replied, At least 20 of them are taken out every year.
pastor of Oleviste Church at that time, as his model
while writing The Brothers Karamazov, I put a mark on
Oleviste Church on my map.
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XXIII.
On my way back, I searched the restaurants to have
something to eat. Among them was Le Bonaparte,
famed as a restaurant where Chirac had dined, and Iskipped it just because of that reason, and more
importantly, because I thought it would be extremely
expensive. Eventually, I had calamari, thinking that it
was an Estonian speciality, at a restaurant I came
across on the way to my hotel.
XXII.
Oleviste Church, which once boasted the tallest spire
in the entire world, bore a delicately carved cenotaph
outside, which depicts a skeleton with a toad on itschest and a serpent around its skull.
When I climbed up the spire, which was once used to
send out radio signals by the KGB, the breathtaking
view of the Old Town, Toompea and the city walls
stretched out in front of me. Since I had arrived just
before the closing time, I was the only visitor looking
at the view from up there. I took my time, trying tospot the streets I had taken, until the guard came and
pointed me to the exit door.
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XXV.
There are very few countries in Europe that do not
have a holocaust monument. Those that do not are
most probably the ones that denied the holocaust.
I took a taxi because the holocaust monument in
Tallinn was not in walking distance.
The monument was made up of a simple chunk of
grey stone and it was in the pinewoods. The inscrip-
tion on the stone read that 2000 Jews transported
from Russia were slain by the German troops on 19September 1944.
When I returned to the taxi, the driver was smoking
outside the car and wiping the side mirror with the
sleeve of his jumper.
XXIV.
I called up my mother. We talked a while and she
asked me what time it was here. When I told her that
we were in the same time zone she was quitesurprised. But you are almost at the North Pole, she
said. It was obvious that she had confused the meridi-
ans with the latitudes.
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XXVII.
The square was encircled by the following buildings
respectively: a building refined by a flat glass square
protruding from its faade, and now hosting theAssociation of Artists; a department store; a business
centre with wavy-glass panels; an apricot-coloured
church; a government building with an expressionist,
clinker-clad style; The Russian Drama Theatre sculpt-
ed with grape, lion and wreath figures; and a grimy
hotel famed as the unofficial meeting place for foreign
diplomats in the pre-1990 period. The faades of the
buildings helplessly faced the ugly-looking car parkright in the middle of the square.
XXVI.
I walked into the Freedom Square via Harju Street,
where you could still see the ruins of buildings
damaged during the Soviet air raids in 1944.I presumed that this transition would ironically please
the lovers of the sacrifices are made on the path to
freedom clich.
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XXIX.
A street that I took at random from the square led me
to the Museum of Occupation.
The boats and piles of suitcases on display inside
evoked the flight and deportation of Estonians during
the war, but the display cases containing boots, shoes,
and army uniform paraphernalia were a little old
fashioned.
The chief draw was the black and white WWII film
footage. However, the English commentary made themwryly entertaining.
XXVIII.
I checked my pocket to make sure that the piece from
the bronze statue of Peter the Great was there. The
statue, which had been erected by the Russians in thisvery square in 1910, was torn down and melted to be
used in the first coins of the republic following the
independence of Estonia from the Soviets. This was
the only statue whose destiny I knew anything about
among those that were removed after the change in
regimes.
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XXXI.
As soon as I got out of the bus in Kakume, a resort
packed with charming summer houses and luxury vil-
las surrounded by high iron fences, I asked a passer-bywhere the boats to Naissaar Island were. The man told
me that there was no boat scheduled to the island on
that day. I must have puckered my face in disappoint-
ment because he said he was sorry as if it had been his
fault.
XXX.
Killing time at a newsstand while waiting for the bus
21b to Kakume Beach, I browsed the racks, without
any hope of finding anything interesting, when anEnglish literary magazine caught my attention. On the
Contents page, I came across the name of the writer
whom the man in the bookshop had mentioned, and I
bought the magazine.
His short story in the magazine, The Wound, opened
with a farewell dinner scene at a Restaurant in Pirita.
I checked the whereabouts of Pirita on my map. It was
in the opposite direction from where I was headed.
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XXXIII.
Darya was the only person in Tallinn with whom I
could communicate in any real sense. I met her in a
stuffy pub I just dropped into for a beer, where theRussian songs were accompanied by Russian regulars.
Darya was a girl of Russian origin, about my age, with
indigo blue eyes. She approached me, smiling, and
asked me in her almost flawless English where I was
from and what I was doing there. She invited me to
her table that was crowded with her college friends
who met here once a week after work.
I sat on a chair between Darya and quite a portly boy
whose name I forgot just as soon as I was told. They
were surprised to see me in that pub. We had a
lengthy talk about Istanbul and Tallinn. I found out
during this conversation that forty percent of people
in Tallinn spoke Russian.
I was just about to leave when Darya asked me if I
would like to meet her on the weekend. Of course, I
replied. She insisted on picking me up at my hotel,
although I tried to convince her that I knew the place
well enough and we could meet somewhere else. It
was quite late but nobody in the pub showed signs of
weariness. You could tell this from the laughter over-
flowing into the street.
XXXII.
I spent the rest of the day sitting on a bench in the
shade at the back of the beach, looking around and
trying to distinguish the sounds of waves from thoseof people.
It was so obvious that the presupposition of blonde,
long-legged, slender Estonian women and ugly men
was totally groundless.
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XXXV.
There were three different trails to go around on the
18-km2, car-free island. Each alternative was 10 km
long and they were labelled as military, historical andnature, depending on the interest of the visitors. After
a slight hesitation between the red-marked military
and the blue-marked historical trails, I decided to take
the military one.
A sign so big that you couldnt miss it read that most
of the land mines on the island were removed in the
late 1990s, but also warned not to walk beyond themarked areas.
It was unthinkable for me to ignore this warning after
visiting the Mine Museum.
XXXIV.
I arrived at Naissaar Island the next day after a one-
hour boat trip. You could rent a bicycle on the boat to
ride around the island. You can walk to the maintouristic spots following the marked paths, but you
will see the real beauty of the island on a bike-ride,
said the renter, noticing my slight hesitation. This
explanation struck me as right on target for I was
purposefully avoiding such touristic spots. I chose a
blue mountain bike.
As the boat was clearing the wharf, a sharp femalevoice announced that the last trip would be at six
oclock.
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XXXVII.
The tour took less time than I estimated; so, when I
came to the crossroads for the second time I took the
blue-marked historical trail that went in the oppositedirection.
My bicycle shook and rattled when I crossed every
now and then over the old narrow-gauge rails. Apart
from this, there was no mechanical noise as such.
I rode past a ramshackle, wooden church that looked
just about to fall apart and the fortifications left fromthe era of Peter the Great, and then I arrived at the
huge land mine factory that was once capable enough
to provide all the land mine needs of the Soviet Union.
This factory explained well enough why there was no
human settlement on the island. Nobody would like
to have a house next to a land mine factory, after all.
XXXVI.
The red trail took me to an octagonal lighthouse on
the northern point of the island in 15 minutes.
I picked some wild blueberries that looked begging to
be picked, before I climbed on a spooky bunker and a
gun emplacement left from the Russian Empire times.
On my way back, as I was eating the sandwich that I
had brought with me, an acid-yellow butterfly perched
upon a mushroom as large as a plate. A cricket
hopped in the tall grass. The island was so inspiringthat you could write haikus.
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XXXIX.
Darya and I met in the lobby, just like in the movies.
When we got out, she asked me which places I had
been to. She looked surprised when I told her I hadntseen Pirita yet, and she suggested going there. Well
have dinner afterwards. I know a very good restau-
rant, she said.
As we were chatting on the bus I found out that she
was working at a place called Kawe Plaza, the most
modern building in Freedom Square. When she hastily
changed the subject, I figured that she wasnt toohappy with her job there.
XXXVIII.
I was tired when I got back from Naissaar, but I
nonetheless stopped for a beer at a pub frequented by
students and intellectuals, which was within the 200meter, now-very-well-known-by-me radius of my
hotel.
Noises of live music were coming from the pub over a
music shop on the corner just opposite the hotel.
Until then, I hadnt noticed the pub upstairs although
I had walked past it maybe hundreds of times before.
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XLI.
We found ourselves a quiet spot among the crowd of
beach volleyball players, roller skaters and bicycle
riders on the Pirita beach, a place, which previouslyhad been made a forbidden zone to stop people from
fleeing to the West during the Soviet invasion. I
scanned the beach to spot a kiosk for a beer. Darya
must have read my mind because she asked, Isnt it a
pity that they banned alcohol here? I let out a
disappointed sigh because it would be really good to
have a beer on my last night in Tallinn while watching
the cruise ships and the spiky sky.
XL.
Pirita was an area packed with luxury villas built on
the most beautiful vantage points by celebrities like
the model, Carmen Kass.
The Olympic Center, complete with an inelegant spa-
hotel and an equally inelegant building complex,
stood monumentally at the outset of the beach. St.
Birgitta Convent, another ramshackle building a little
way ahead, was much more aesthetic than this com-
plex.
The 1980 Olympic Games were held here, said
Darya. I dont remember those days but they talk
about it. A Finn won the gold medal and they played
the Finnish national anthem. Then the Estonians
began to sing their own national anthem, which was
then forbidden by the Soviets. The petrified KGB
agents did nothing but watch the ceremony, unable to
do anything else, in front of the TV cameras.
We began to walk towards the beach.
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XLIII.
I had a look at the menu and decided that I was not
the one to decide, so I left the ordering to Darya. The
waiter, who was smiling sweetly and unable to take hiseyes off of Darya, recommended Herring with sour
cream and Sauerkraut as a must, upon which Darya
raised her eyebrows in contemplation and finally
agreed.
XLII.
The restaurant Darya took me to was on the top floor
of a television tower that reminded me of a
low-budget sci-fi movie. We watched the view fromabout 200 metres above the city, as our waiter went to
fix us a table. Darya pointed at the shimmering
coastline across the sea and said, Helsinki. Feeling a
little uneasy to have such a vast span of images in
hand just like a surveillance camera, I suggested that
we sit at a table less overlooking the view.
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XLV.
While we were waiting for the lift out of the restau-
rant, I asked her if she was an Estonian citizen. She
nodded, But the new law for citizenship covers onlythose who were given citizenship right before the war.
Therefore, our family had to apply for citizenship col-
lectively. We are happy with our situation, seeing all
those grey passport holders whose situations are still
undecided.
When I said, Even that grey passport may open more
doors than a Turkish one, she said, Dont be toosure.
XLIV.
Near the end of our meal the choice was
unquestionably good I asked her whether the
Estonian and Russian communities in town avoidedinteraction. Only the old-fashioned, narrow-minded
Estonians try not to get involved with us because they
are still unable to shake off the fear of the Soviets. But
it is different in my generation. For instance, only one
of the friends of mine you met the other night at the
pub was Russian.
Then she asked, smiling, Do you think I amfrightening? If I were frightened, would I come all
the way up to this height with you? I asked back,
smiling too.
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XLVII.
We took the bus that ran on a longer route, because it
was empty. Seeing that I was looking around
interestedly as we were passing through a suburbpacked with grey, hulking apartment blocks, Darya
explained that this was the least safe neighbourhood
in town and that therefore the rents were the cheapest.
They had shot a movie, the name of which she
couldnt remember, in this place a couple of years
back.
Given the tough atmosphere of the place, it wasimpossible not to have an idea about the mood of the
film even for a person who hadnt seen the film yet.
XLVI.
I saw some spotlights a little ways ahead of the
Olympic Centre as we were walking towards the beach
to catch our bus. I pricked up my ears and could hearthe sound of music. I asked her what was over there.
She squinted, gave a hard look at the place and said,
The Soviet War Memorial. Upon my puzzled look,
she said, They sometimes organize punk concerts
there. That gargantuan monument is a really good
background for a punk concert. Care to have a look?
I told her I wasnt that willing.
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XLIX.
When I woke up at almost noon the next day, I
packed my things to which I hadnt added since my
arrival to the city. However, I zipped my suitcase closewith difficulty.
XLVIII.
While we were walking towards my hotel, she told me
excitedly, as if she had just remembered, that there
would be a concert of a Russian Jazz Band named NaZhdali and I should not miss it. I would have landed
in Istanbul by the time the concert started. Some
other time, I said, in a tone of voice unconvincing
even to myself.
You always have to leave the cities you are a stranger
to just when you begin to enjoy them.
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LI.
A ten-minute walk took me to a square bordered on
one side by a large park. Viru Inn Hotel, the first
skyscraper in town that boldly demonstrated theconcept of luxury for Soviet architecture, was standing
erect just next to the park.
When I lowered my eyes from the top floors of the
hotel down to the eye-level, I saw Daryas friend that I
met at the pub and had sat next to, and whose name I
still dont know. I became happy that I had made
acquaintances in this city. As he was approaching mein a quick pace, I noticed he was a bit angry. He
recognized me when he saw me and smiled. I asked
him how he was. Well, he said, I think I am the
only person whos managed to get a parking ticket 8
times in a month. Then his cell phone in his pocket
sounded a message. Reading the message, Anyway, I
paid this one, too, he said. I asked him how he paid
his parking ticket on the cell phone and he smiled andsaid, Havent you heard that the other name for
Estonia was e-stonia? I wouldnt have understood the
pun he made if he hadnt prolonged the e a little too
much.
He offered me a lift if I needed to go somewhere. I told
him I wouldnt like to cost him another parking ticket.
I wanted to have a walk.
L.
As I was sipping my coffee after breakfast,
I contemplated taking a walk from Raekoja Plast to
Liivalia in the South, or from the pier to the north toKalamaja. Everywhere I might choose to go was
within a 20-minute distance. It may have been a must
for the countries that wanted to be part of EU, but the
underground metro system was quite rightfully
deemed unnecessary for this city.
My day was long enough not to be urged to make a
choice.
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LIII.
I started to walk back trying to avoid the streets I had
already taken. The city seemed to mock and surprise
me with whole new things just when I had began tothink I had gotten to know it like the palm of my
hand. As I was tired now, I put a mark on a caf to
take refuge in. It was on the city walls opposite the
Museum and Concert Hall in front of which stood the
statue of an Estonian writer, and overlooked the whole
Old Town. In between sips of my espresso, I couldnt
help but hear the conversation of an English-speaking
couple sitting at the table across me. The woman wastrying to talk to the reluctant-looking man into going
to Naissaar the following day. OK honey, well go
there tomorrow, said the man in the end.
LII.
I walked on without referring to a map until I came to
an esplanade circled by limestone and brick buildings
that gave the impression of an old industrialneighbourhood. Now, a luxury hotel stood
overlooking the ramshackle industrial buildings that
Tarkovsky had used in his film, Stalker.
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LV.
This time, I caught the bus I had missed upon my
arrival, when I had to take a taxi.
LIV.
I always want to ask the receptionist, Is there a
message for me? whenever I enter a hotel where I am
staying. But I always hold myself back. So I did thistime, too.
I had one last drink in the lobby before I left; studying
the stained glass piano so attentively that one could
take me for a virtuoso.
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