Europe’s next big destination is Estonia

By Ben West

NZ Herald·

23 Feb, 2024 09:00 PM8 mins to read

Tartu, Estonia's second city, has been selected as one of Europe's Capitals of Culture for 2024. Photo / 123rf

There’s never been a better time to visit Estonia. Aside from being far less crowded than other countries, the city of Tartu has been crowned European City of Culture for 2024 – raising its visibility on an international stage, writes Ben West,

Most people visiting Estonia head for the capital, Tallinn. Ridiculously pretty as it is, there’s another gem located about 160km southeast: Tartu.

Selected as one of Europe’s three Capitals of Culture for 2024 (the others being Bad Ischl in Austria and Bodø in Norway), Tartu, Estonia’s second city, will now have its own chance to bask in the sun.

Though a quarter of the size of Tallinn and around a fifth of the population (93,000), it manages to cram in plenty of museums, galleries and other sights, as well as lovely parks, restaurants and bars.

The city is easily explored as most of the top things to experience are a short walk from each other. Inexpensive smart bikes and e-scooters are readily available too.

The city of Tartu in Estonia has been crowned European City of Culture for 2024. Photo / Getty Images

Its nightlife is quite subdued, although some bars are open as late as 4am in the Old Town, especially along pedestrianised Ruutli. It is comparatively inexpensive - you can bag a really decent central hotel for around €60/$106 a night and a restaurant main dish for about a tenth of that. Getting there is easy and cheap too: comfortable, modern trains and coaches from Tallinn take around two hours and cost €15-18/$26-32 each way.

“I love Tartu because it is so quiet and easygoing,” says long-term resident Timo Parts, of Pseudotours, who is taking me on an €18 street art tour of the city. “It has none of that competitiveness and keeping up with everyone that Tallinn has.”

We are standing outside the Genialistide Klubi, a small cultural centre with a theatre and cafe/bar, its exterior decorated with street art including an impressive spray-painted cow by street artist @5ma and a meerkat and a giraffe by another, Mr_sce. There’s also some “yarnbombing”, aka colourful crochet wrapped around trees and lamp posts.

There’s quite a lot of street art in Tartu, if you know where to look, and indeed artists from around the world are sometimes invited to “spraycations”. As we walk, Timo points out various street artworks it would be easy to miss, including little poems sprayed on pavements and a four-part work featuring flowers, bugs and fish by local artist Kairo.

We enter Supilinn (Soup Town), a 19th-century former-slum neighbourhood of beautifully preserved wooden houses. Leafy and tranquil, it has attracted artists since the 1990s and is now gentrifying. Historians aren’t sure whether it got its name from how the place looked after frequent flooding in years gone by, or because the impoverished early residents, factory workers, would eat lots of inexpensive soup. Streets are named after various vegetables such as pumpkin, pea and potato.

“Street art originated in the United States in the 1970s, but didn’t reach here until after the Soviets left, when western magazines started becoming accessible,” says Timo.

We stop to admire a work by Edward von Lõngus, a pseudonym for Estonia’s most well-known street artist. He is known as “the Estonian Banksy” because of the style of his works, which often include political and social commentary, his use of stencils, and his unknown identity. If you think street artists are idle thugs defacing walls with graffiti, think again - he was paid €200,000 for one work alone.

Take an €18 street art tour of the city of Tartu in Estonia. Photo / 123rf

To get a good overview of the country’s turbulent history, a 20-minute walk from the centre (or bus 7 from Soola bus stop by Tasku Shopping Centre) takes you to the Estonia National Museum, which is located on an ex-Soviet military base. With a striking contemporary design, it is shaped like an airport runway, a nod to its location.

Covering the Stone Age onwards, the museum charts a history dominated by occupation, including the Nazis and the Soviets. Displays include a 12th-century skeleton complete with her jewellery, a display of ancient books, and harrowing details of Estonians being sent to Siberian gulags from 1941-51.

There are belongings of some of the 30,000 people deported to Siberia on display. They were given no notice, officials would simply knock on their door and 30 minutes later they would be gone.

“Not once in my childhood could I go in a boat to the sea,” says my guide Eve, talking about living under the Soviets, who left in 1991, triggering independence. “I needed to get permission to visit my grandmother on one of the islands.”

The museum has won awards for its innovative, interactive displays. Scanning the QR code on your ticket changes the display notes from Estonian to English, and you can store texts to retrieve later from your own web page.

Tartu boasts a vibrant street art scene, with various artworks hidden throughout the city, including political and social commentary by local and international artists. Photo / 123rf

If you head back towards the elegant and relaxed centre and descend the basement of a seemingly nondescript office block 15 minutes walk south of Town Hall Square, you enter the KGB Cells Museum, a small prison where Estonians were tortured and sometimes executed during the 1940s and 1950s by the Soviets. The cells have been repurposed to convey the horror, where prisoners were interrogated, driven to exhaustion and those who broke prison rules were incarcerated in airless 1sq m lockups for up to 10 days. Sound effects and recordings of distant voices add to the terror.

On a more cheerful note, kids will love AHHAA Science Centre, which is Estonia’s top family attraction. Boasting more than 170 exhibits, it has a water play area, aquariums, walls of mirrors, a mini tornado to activate, a planetarium, workshop, a medical specimen collection and much more. You can cycle (safely) on a tightrope, study the internal reflection of a laser beam, play a stringless harp and make iron filings dance to music. There’s humour too: I ignored the red light at the “street” crossing and was rewarded with drops of water on my head. Also ideal for families are the Tartu Toy Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Upside Down House.

On Town Hall square, Raekoja, you’ll find the Tartu Art Museum. Photo / Getty Images

For evening entertainment in Estonia, by tradition, they get naked and beat each other with birch twigs. This is while visiting a sauna, which is often treated as a sociable occasion. V Spa Water and Sauna Centre is a good place to head, having 11 different pools and hot tubs and 13 different saunas, including salt, infrared, ice and Finnish options.

On Town Hall square, Raekoja, you’ll find the Tartu Art Museum known as The Leaning House, which locals dub the Pisa Tower of Tartu - and its tilt is even greater than that of the Italian landmark. It isn’t big, but there are wonderful artworks, principally by Estonians and mostly from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Nearby is Toomemägi (Toome Hill), a delightful, wooded park containing the ruins of Tartu Cathedral and the slightly stuffy University of Tartu Museum. There’s a cute little cafe in the park, Rotund - which is what you’ll be if you have too many of their delicious pancakes.

What to eat and drink

There are some good cafes, restaurants and bars in the centre and they include Käkk & Mülä in Soup Town (at Kroonuaia 76), which during the day is a charming little cafe decked in vintage furniture and offers great pastries and wholesome vegan soup. By night it transforms into a bar with live music.

Another hip cafe, with a bigger menu, is Trikster Tihane, which has a wall lined with books and tasty dishes such as pea soup with bacon. It’s located at Aparaaditehas, aka The Widget Factory, which has several cafes, bars, boutiques, galleries and some live music and other events.

The Lydia Hotel’s smart restaurant, Hõlm, offers some of the best cuisine in Tartu. There’s a €64 tasting menu.

Nearby, Cafe Truffe offers cocktails and dishes such as artichoke with parmesan and truffle mayonnaise, and Ukrainian dumplings. Another option is Werner Cafe, which has been serving Vienna-style treats to Estonians since 1895.

Humal is a good spot for a drink but also has an impressive menu. It has a slick grey palette, a garage rock soundtrack, and youthful vibes.

There are three lively restaurants in one at Kampus, which offers street food such as baos and burgers, Hawaiian poke bowls, and more upmarket dishes such as black halibut.

Tartu crams in plenty of museums, galleries and other sights, as well as lovely parks, restaurants and bars. Photo / Getty Images

Where to stay

Like the other suggestions here, the Art Hotell Pallas is in the centre of the city. A homage to Estonia’s Pallas Art School, which existed from 1919 to 1940, bright, modern artworks are all around. The 62 rooms overlook a courtyard or Tartu city centre. Some have floor-to-ceiling windows. Doubles with breakfast from €60.

Some of the 59 rooms have dated decor at the Hotell Soho but they are a good size and the Old Town location is great. Doubles with breakfast from €65.

Overlooking pretty, wooded Toomemägi Hill and situated by the main square, Raekoja Plats, Lydia Hotel is one of Tartu’s best hotels and merges contemporary and historic well. The 70 swish bedrooms have chic touches like hardwood and patterned tiled floors. There’s a spa with indoor pool, gym and saunas, and a fine dining restaurant, Hõlm. Doubles with breakfast from €113.