Tallinn, Estonia
I'll continued to be blown away by the hospitality of a stranger
I took a night bus from St. Petersburg to Tallinn, Estonia where I stayed several days with another Couchsurfing host. The journey leaving Russia was long and tiresome. We crossed the border around 3:00am and were all escorted off the bus and directed through customs at both sides of the border. There were only about 10 of us passengers. There were some complications with my passport, but I managed to exit Russia after a long delay and enter Europe!
I was greeted by my hosts, Evelin and Oskar, at the bus station early in the morning. They were so generous and kind. I stayed in my own room at their apartment and was able to spend a couple of days with them exploring the jazz festival and playing games with them and a group of friends. They were extremely helpful, giving me more than enough information to get around and sharing a lot about their history and culture.
Tallinn is a really beautiful historical city with an amazing creative district, which quickly became one of my favorite areas. I spent the majority of my time exploring Telliskivi, the creative city. The area was constructed back in the mid to late 1800’s for the purpose of supporting the railway industry. Many railway factories were built with surrounding residential areas to support the workers during this time. The industrial growth quickly encouraged development throughout this entire area. Once the factories closed the area remained vacant for some time and later redeveloped into The Creative City, one of the centers for the creative economy in Estonia.
If you have time, you should check out the website to learn more about what goes on there.
I traveled to the Estonia Open Air Museum just outside of the city. This was a great way to see some of the traditional Estonia homes and to learn more about rural life in Estonia. Everything is so thoughtful and well crafted. Estonians are always making things from the land!
