Tallinn

The city of Tallinn probably has the greatest concentration of foreign embassies in the world. Every time we turned a corner in the narrow streets our guide pointed out another embassy with the associated diplomatic cars clogging the narrow streets.

From a distance this is a wonderful historic city but up close it has changed into a tourist town. Every shop targets tourists and there are no local shops.

Estonia only has a population of one million. Some Estonians catch a ferry and work in Finland during the week returning on the weekends. The benefit is they accrue superior pension rights if they work in Finland for seven years. Ukrainians come to work in Estonia.

Our guide was 31 years old and during her lifetime there has been three different currencies - the Russian ruble, the Estonian currency and now the euro. Many Russians continue to live in Estonia but the history of the atrocious manner in which Russia treated so many people is still part of living memory. At the end of the cold war our guide's grandfather returned from a Russian labour camp weighing only 48 kgs.

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