Thursday, June 7, 2012

Tartu, Estonia

We went further south (about 2 hrs) in Estonia and spent yesterday and part of today in the city of Tartu. This city, its grand town square, and its university were built by one of the Russian Czars (1600s) as a way of controlling its outer provinces, which Estonia was at one point. Another interesting thing was that during the Soviet occupation of Estonia (1955-1995) the city was a "closed city" due to the presence of a huge Soviet military base. Anyone who wasn't a resident of the city had to leave each evening at 5 p.m. Can't have any foreign spies skulking around in the middle of the night.

So below are shots of the town square, its famous statue of a kissing couple, a beautifully decaying Russian Orthodox church I found on a side street, and a shot up one of the streets to show what some of the other buildings look like. Saturday we head out for Finland.

2 comments:

OldLady Of The Hills said...

You are really seeing 'the sights'...!

wstachour said...

Fab. So many great places to visit.

CK, here’s the tattoo

  From sketch to transfer to tattoo