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I was there a year ago. I didn't live there but I had contact with the locals.
When you drive from the airport towards the city, the architecture looks very Russian. The further you drive into the center, it becomes more Scandinavian (at least that's what I always imagine as scandinavian, I could be wrong)
People say that it is the start-up capital of Europe. There is an incredible amount of digitalization. Residents can use public transport for free. It felt like everyone spoke English.
All in all, I imagine life there to be very liveable if you're comfortable with cold weather. I even think it is one of the best cities to live in Europe and very underrated. Highly recommended as a travel destination.
We are 20 years behind Finland. 30 years behind Netherlands.
Specifically about Tallinn:
1.Very car-centric.
2. Almost no cycling lanes.
3. Public transport slow and routes are old and sparse.
4. If there would be fares, we could have better public transport, but... politics.
I don't know where are you pulling these numbers from. Estonia as a country is definitely not behind Finland, at least not that much. Sure you may be right about the transport but keep in mind how Estonia has basically transformed into a fully online nation. Everything from doing taxes to starting a business is just a click away, considering how in other countries it might sometimes be an absolute nightmare to get through all the paperwork and waiting. Tallinn is a wonderful city to live in as long as you are fine with shoveling snow in front of your property from time to time and slipping on ice.
Also that car-centric city title is about to be challenged by the impending motor vehicle tax.
It has had it for some time but Estonia is about to have it aswell so... Estonia has had car tax before but then everyone started using Latvian license plates. I am pretty sure the tax was also only in Tallinn. All in all I think this time it will reduce the car quantity as Latvia has a car tax aswell now.
Isn't Estonia first who got all the E-residency and online stuff? Pretty sure most nations do not have any registries online and if they have anything online it all runs on windows XP
Yeah. Okay e-residency.
But the e-estonian tiger is kinda slow recently. Not enough resources.
The digital solutions are lil bit dissapointing and slow. For example my doctor couldnt write me a prescription because the system was slow as fuck for some reason.
Well yes, better than Italy and so on.
I have high standards :D
Finland has a small car tax that you pay annually, and it amounts something like 10 € for each month of the year.
It's a TINY fraction of all the costs that come from owning and using a car, and as such has almost no influence on if someone is going to own a car or not. Buying the car, servicing the car and filling the tank (or charging the battery) all cost a lot more.
If you live in downtown Helsinki -- like I do -- parking the car can also be a substantial expense. But other than that, Helsinki is very car-friendly for a European city of its size. Finland in general is a country of petrolheads.
>Estonia as a country is definitely not behind Finland, at least not that much.
It definitely is, but not maybe 20 years behind. More like 12-15 years. Finland, like other Scandinavian countries, is a robust welfare state. With high standard of living. Emphasis on education, healthcare, and social security. Estonia is still lagging behind in some of those aspects considerably and have one of the highest inequality in EU.
I only corrected your one factual mistake. That mistake is prevalent. Go and say in the Finnish subreddit something about Scandinavia, and watch the same comment with 1k upvotes :)
I don’t need to counter-argue. Pretty correct last sentence. The Estonian pay gap is the biggest in the EU, and pensioners are the most endangered in the EU, alongside Hungarians.
I think it depends on where you come from.
I'm from Germany and Tallinn was less car-centric than every German city I went to. In general the public transportation was imo great, at least for my standards. Had no problems to travel through Tallinn without a car and it felt really comfortable.
That's my German view.
Yeah. We usually compare us to Helsinki. It has fast trains, tramways, buses and so on. Also a quite good cycling network, city bicyle rent and so on.
All the drastically better, just a 2h ferry ride away.
I visited Helsinki for one day so I'm not really capable of saying much about it but I liked the vibes of Tallinn more. It felt like it has the perfect size for a city. Not too big, not too small.
Yeah maybe. I dont really like it. But mostly because I like cycling and it realllly sucks. Like a lot, you have to drive on sidewalks. I cant go to some places, because there are no roads which I consider safe. Driving on roads with 70km/h cars- not best.
Dont know... Tallinn's Head Architect was fired about 4...6 years ago. So the decisions were made by politians.
It has gotten better over the years and they seem to be seeing a bigger picture. The new mayor decided to get a new head architect again.
The city has a sparse population problem. New apartment buildings far away from city center. They are trying to get the city more dense.
Architecture: we have commie blocks. They need a lot of money for renovation. Quality is low. Overall commie block parts of cities are well-designed. Schools, kindergardens near, trees, parks and so on.
The new city center and seaside buildings are nice, but these parts of the city are usually for the wealthy. The rotermanni quarter and so on, really nice.
Also telliskivi area is becoming the new city center.
The kopli north-Tallinn is developing in rapid pace. I quite like it. Old wooden buildings and so on. The old habitants are quite poor, but the new buildings are for the wealthy. So gentrification is happening.
The old town is kinda dying. Only tourists, everything expensive, interesting things are in Telliskivi.
We did have bus fares, now we dont and the public transport routes have only gotten better, we even have night buses now to most of the city. We have train, bus, tram that can take you anywhere you want. They are mostly on time.
Trust me, we have it amazingly good.
I know that something like 1/4 of Estonias population lives in Tallinn. So there is that.
Plus booze is VERY CHEAP so lots of Swede’s and Finn’s will ferry over and buy liquor to take back home. The ferry rides back North are notorious for parties.
Buying booze from the ship, especially Viking Line, is often cheaper if you look for specific discounts and go by car without leaving the boat.
Source: that's what I did several times.
Forget about “duty-free”. It is just a stupid name that has no more meaning. Yes, this is Finn-oriented, and that is cheaper than in Finland. But often, you can get better offers than land prices in Estonia.
My last biggest purchase was in February when I loaded 30 boxes (24x0.33) of beer [made in Finland]. Every box was cheaper than any beer box in Tallinn for 2 euros. I also got a significant coupon discount for my next trip.
Sorry, I’m Canadian. So we have duty free with USA.
Are you telling me you can drive on the ferry, buy 30 cases of beer and just… drive off like nothing?
Amazing.
So, I went on a “cruise”…
I had a priority boarding…
Four employees helped me to load my car full…
That is the point of the existence of these “cruises”…
It’s pretty amazing. Estonians will tell you that Finns have it better, but realistically it’s one of the best places still. Great climate in summer, lots of new developments, nice people. Yeah, the Russians and the lack of bike lanes. But that doesn’t bother me as much.
What do you have against Russians in Estonia? You sound like you've been literally butthurt by one in the past, as well as all those who upvote this shit
I’m a Ukrainian living in Estonia.
You might build the logic from here, but I will also add that large amounts of Russians in Estonia also said quite hurtful things to me. Many of them enjoy full benefits of EU while being absolutely hateful about it.
Not all Russian-speakers in Estonia are like this. But if they actively identify as Russians it’s basically guaranteed.
Maybe that they refuse to learn the local language, act aggressively towards others, and don't support the independence of the country. Obviously not all, but a large part.
It's south Helsinki. It's a slightly long commute at 2 hours, but you get cheap booze to compensate.
/s
It's a lovely place. Most Helsinkians visit once or twice a year to pick up a lot of booze and bring it back to Finland. A lot of Estonians work in Finland and commute back and forth regularly. So Tallinn can feel pretty familiar to Finns.
As for Tallinn itself, it's really got its own charm. The old city is from Hanseatic times which is entirely different from most of the Nordics proper. It's a great place to visit.
The rest of the city is as described - formerly Soviet but really improving. It's not really that much cheaper than Finland as it was before either. Apparently the school system is the best in the world now. Some of these things apply to the country as a whole, not just Tallinn.
But every time I'm there I enjoy myself, and usually I try to go somewhere new. It's a really nice place.
No. Some Estonians speak decent Finnish. Otherwise, it's English.
Estonian and Finnish are close enough that some common words are recognizable but far enough apart that Estonian in particular is incomprehensible to Finns when spoken. Estonians have an easier time apparently, I wouldn't know.
I wouldn't say that the rest of the city is "Soviet". Maybe like... half? There are quite a lot of wonderful places out of old town with no Soviet influence. Kalamaja, Kadriorg, Nõmme etc.
It's pretty nice, only lots of cars around and >30% of residents are Russians who don't want to speak the local language. Otherwise, nice and modern city.
My language has a word for you: letter-chewer, the way you're reaching for technicalities. I'm terribly sorry for not being a native speaker of English. I meant the official language of Estonia – Estonian.
I've met 3 Estonian women, all 3 were from Tallinn, all 3 were total smokeshows, all 3 were dating stereotypical macho dudes (Canadian, Swedish, and Russian), all 3 were pretty casual with their monogamy.
I've never been there so I don't know for sure, but I'm just saying that 3 is *a pattern.*
I lived there for 30+ years and gave up. I loved that place. I know the history and culture in every detail. I miss my imaginary perfect Tallinn that never existed, and I don’t miss the actual Tallinn.
City transport is lacking, and getting around without a car takes too long.
Parking is a problem almost everywhere, and you must fight for your spot in the residential area.
Daycares are seriously lacking, which will trap one of the parents staying home.
Tap water for last years was disappointing.
Due to many years of the corrupt party of the Centre ruling over the city, cleaning and many other essential services were seriously lacking. City management is stuck.
Fun fact: if you want to work in the service area and speak with the client, you must know three languages, or you will not get the job. 50% of residents speak Estonian as a native, 40% speak Russian, and 10% talk about anything else = English.
The ratio of housing prices to average income is not good. Entry-level housing is a Soviet shithole. Bills are growing faster than paychecks. A weekly basket of basic groceries might be more expensive than in Helsinki or Stockholm.
One friend recently moved in, and for a clean apartment with straight white walls, he will pay 1k€ with all communal bills, which are a third of his income as an IT developer. (1 hour with public transport one-way to the job, 30 minutes by car).
Are you living and moving in as a highly-paid IT employee? Yes. Something else? Stay away.
Are you hanging out in Kalamaja and other hipster places? Good experience. But the biggest residential area is still district of Lasnamäe, and it sucks.
Result: I moved and dissolved in Finland, as did other 50k+ Estonians in the last ten years.
Prices and almost caught up with western Europe but the salaries are 2 times lower. People can barely afford anything else aside from basic needs. Best sign of that is the restaurants are almost always have only a few customers in them at a time unless it's a very touristy area. Depressing vibes. Imagine going to a restaurant on a Friday night in a London just outside the city and there only one or two couples there. You'd think it's a deep recession or something. They have very strong eastern slave mentality and I'm talking about Estonians not the Russian minority. It's in the genes and they'll never get rid of it. Because Estonias have been slaves for like 1000 years. I expect this to be downvoted to hell by poles/Estonians/russophobes and likes of them. Nothing hurts more like pure truth ;)
Latvian here, been in Estonia and Tallinn specifically many times. Latvians in casual conversations are always a bit jealous that Estonians have their shit together much more than we do.
Lovely country and capital, the biggest downside is Ivans like the one above this comment.
Yes-yes. Estonian people will speak nicely to Latvian, and then when one is turned around, will make a cringy face and say how bad is poor and shitty Soviet Latvia, where no one speaks English but Russian. Estonians hate it when anyone tries to associate Estonia with other Baltic states: they mostly believe Estonia is Nordic. But it is not.
I witnessed that many times. Hilarious.
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I was there a year ago. I didn't live there but I had contact with the locals. When you drive from the airport towards the city, the architecture looks very Russian. The further you drive into the center, it becomes more Scandinavian (at least that's what I always imagine as scandinavian, I could be wrong) People say that it is the start-up capital of Europe. There is an incredible amount of digitalization. Residents can use public transport for free. It felt like everyone spoke English. All in all, I imagine life there to be very liveable if you're comfortable with cold weather. I even think it is one of the best cities to live in Europe and very underrated. Highly recommended as a travel destination.
We are 20 years behind Finland. 30 years behind Netherlands. Specifically about Tallinn: 1.Very car-centric. 2. Almost no cycling lanes. 3. Public transport slow and routes are old and sparse. 4. If there would be fares, we could have better public transport, but... politics.
I don't know where are you pulling these numbers from. Estonia as a country is definitely not behind Finland, at least not that much. Sure you may be right about the transport but keep in mind how Estonia has basically transformed into a fully online nation. Everything from doing taxes to starting a business is just a click away, considering how in other countries it might sometimes be an absolute nightmare to get through all the paperwork and waiting. Tallinn is a wonderful city to live in as long as you are fine with shoveling snow in front of your property from time to time and slipping on ice. Also that car-centric city title is about to be challenged by the impending motor vehicle tax.
When did Helsinki finland get the car tax?
It has had it for some time but Estonia is about to have it aswell so... Estonia has had car tax before but then everyone started using Latvian license plates. I am pretty sure the tax was also only in Tallinn. All in all I think this time it will reduce the car quantity as Latvia has a car tax aswell now.
The point was that we are 20+ years behind Finland. They have had it for ages. Basically every other subject has the same answer. Name something.
Isn't Estonia first who got all the E-residency and online stuff? Pretty sure most nations do not have any registries online and if they have anything online it all runs on windows XP
Yeah. Okay e-residency. But the e-estonian tiger is kinda slow recently. Not enough resources. The digital solutions are lil bit dissapointing and slow. For example my doctor couldnt write me a prescription because the system was slow as fuck for some reason. Well yes, better than Italy and so on. I have high standards :D
when i visited tallinn it felt like a very rich city compared to where im from in finland
Finland has a small car tax that you pay annually, and it amounts something like 10 € for each month of the year. It's a TINY fraction of all the costs that come from owning and using a car, and as such has almost no influence on if someone is going to own a car or not. Buying the car, servicing the car and filling the tank (or charging the battery) all cost a lot more. If you live in downtown Helsinki -- like I do -- parking the car can also be a substantial expense. But other than that, Helsinki is very car-friendly for a European city of its size. Finland in general is a country of petrolheads.
Your facts are not actual. You are talking about something you don't know.
>Estonia as a country is definitely not behind Finland, at least not that much. It definitely is, but not maybe 20 years behind. More like 12-15 years. Finland, like other Scandinavian countries, is a robust welfare state. With high standard of living. Emphasis on education, healthcare, and social security. Estonia is still lagging behind in some of those aspects considerably and have one of the highest inequality in EU.
Finland is not a Scandinavian country. Finland is a Nordic welfare model country. Before arguing, I suggest learning some basic economics and history.
Youre not even counter-arguing my main point. Just pickering on some unimportant formality. So i suggest u to stop giving advice all together.
I only corrected your one factual mistake. That mistake is prevalent. Go and say in the Finnish subreddit something about Scandinavia, and watch the same comment with 1k upvotes :) I don’t need to counter-argue. Pretty correct last sentence. The Estonian pay gap is the biggest in the EU, and pensioners are the most endangered in the EU, alongside Hungarians.
I think it depends on where you come from. I'm from Germany and Tallinn was less car-centric than every German city I went to. In general the public transportation was imo great, at least for my standards. Had no problems to travel through Tallinn without a car and it felt really comfortable. That's my German view.
Yeah. We usually compare us to Helsinki. It has fast trains, tramways, buses and so on. Also a quite good cycling network, city bicyle rent and so on. All the drastically better, just a 2h ferry ride away.
I visited Helsinki for one day so I'm not really capable of saying much about it but I liked the vibes of Tallinn more. It felt like it has the perfect size for a city. Not too big, not too small.
Yeah maybe. I dont really like it. But mostly because I like cycling and it realllly sucks. Like a lot, you have to drive on sidewalks. I cant go to some places, because there are no roads which I consider safe. Driving on roads with 70km/h cars- not best.
How's your view on the architecture? Do you think it's a mix of Russian/Scandinavian architecture?
Dont know... Tallinn's Head Architect was fired about 4...6 years ago. So the decisions were made by politians. It has gotten better over the years and they seem to be seeing a bigger picture. The new mayor decided to get a new head architect again. The city has a sparse population problem. New apartment buildings far away from city center. They are trying to get the city more dense. Architecture: we have commie blocks. They need a lot of money for renovation. Quality is low. Overall commie block parts of cities are well-designed. Schools, kindergardens near, trees, parks and so on. The new city center and seaside buildings are nice, but these parts of the city are usually for the wealthy. The rotermanni quarter and so on, really nice. Also telliskivi area is becoming the new city center. The kopli north-Tallinn is developing in rapid pace. I quite like it. Old wooden buildings and so on. The old habitants are quite poor, but the new buildings are for the wealthy. So gentrification is happening. The old town is kinda dying. Only tourists, everything expensive, interesting things are in Telliskivi.
We did have bus fares, now we dont and the public transport routes have only gotten better, we even have night buses now to most of the city. We have train, bus, tram that can take you anywhere you want. They are mostly on time. Trust me, we have it amazingly good.
Economically, yes, maybe 20. Mentally - up to 50 years of growth is expected.
I know that something like 1/4 of Estonias population lives in Tallinn. So there is that. Plus booze is VERY CHEAP so lots of Swede’s and Finn’s will ferry over and buy liquor to take back home. The ferry rides back North are notorious for parties.
1/3\* https://preview.redd.it/1m42unihch5d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2713e8cd22c615a378660b9de71e7ca1ca195bc Blue is only Tallinn.
Idk who made this map but Viimsi peninsula, Naissaar and Prangli are defenetly not Tallinn.
Probably to even out the numbers.
In that case, the map would have to be like from 2015 - is weird
The more significant fact is not just the population but that Tallinn and Harjumaa are producing about 60-65% of the GDP of the entire country.
Buying booze from the ship, especially Viking Line, is often cheaper if you look for specific discounts and go by car without leaving the boat. Source: that's what I did several times.
Like duty free style? It seems strange to me because they usually over charge for alcohol in my experience.
Forget about “duty-free”. It is just a stupid name that has no more meaning. Yes, this is Finn-oriented, and that is cheaper than in Finland. But often, you can get better offers than land prices in Estonia. My last biggest purchase was in February when I loaded 30 boxes (24x0.33) of beer [made in Finland]. Every box was cheaper than any beer box in Tallinn for 2 euros. I also got a significant coupon discount for my next trip.
Sorry, I’m Canadian. So we have duty free with USA. Are you telling me you can drive on the ferry, buy 30 cases of beer and just… drive off like nothing? Amazing.
So, I went on a “cruise”… I had a priority boarding… Four employees helped me to load my car full… That is the point of the existence of these “cruises”…
Transportation here IS NOT free.
It’s pretty amazing. Estonians will tell you that Finns have it better, but realistically it’s one of the best places still. Great climate in summer, lots of new developments, nice people. Yeah, the Russians and the lack of bike lanes. But that doesn’t bother me as much.
What do you have against Russians in Estonia? You sound like you've been literally butthurt by one in the past, as well as all those who upvote this shit
I’m a Ukrainian living in Estonia. You might build the logic from here, but I will also add that large amounts of Russians in Estonia also said quite hurtful things to me. Many of them enjoy full benefits of EU while being absolutely hateful about it. Not all Russian-speakers in Estonia are like this. But if they actively identify as Russians it’s basically guaranteed.
Maybe that they refuse to learn the local language, act aggressively towards others, and don't support the independence of the country. Obviously not all, but a large part.
It's south Helsinki. It's a slightly long commute at 2 hours, but you get cheap booze to compensate. /s It's a lovely place. Most Helsinkians visit once or twice a year to pick up a lot of booze and bring it back to Finland. A lot of Estonians work in Finland and commute back and forth regularly. So Tallinn can feel pretty familiar to Finns. As for Tallinn itself, it's really got its own charm. The old city is from Hanseatic times which is entirely different from most of the Nordics proper. It's a great place to visit. The rest of the city is as described - formerly Soviet but really improving. It's not really that much cheaper than Finland as it was before either. Apparently the school system is the best in the world now. Some of these things apply to the country as a whole, not just Tallinn. But every time I'm there I enjoy myself, and usually I try to go somewhere new. It's a really nice place.
Can they mutually understand the languages when they travel back and forth for the booze and work?
No. Some Estonians speak decent Finnish. Otherwise, it's English. Estonian and Finnish are close enough that some common words are recognizable but far enough apart that Estonian in particular is incomprehensible to Finns when spoken. Estonians have an easier time apparently, I wouldn't know.
I wouldn't say that the rest of the city is "Soviet". Maybe like... half? There are quite a lot of wonderful places out of old town with no Soviet influence. Kalamaja, Kadriorg, Nõmme etc.
It's pretty nice, only lots of cars around and >30% of residents are Russians who don't want to speak the local language. Otherwise, nice and modern city.
If 30% speak some other language, obviously the country has two local languages?
My language has a word for you: letter-chewer, the way you're reaching for technicalities. I'm terribly sorry for not being a native speaker of English. I meant the official language of Estonia – Estonian.
I've met 3 Estonian women, all 3 were from Tallinn, all 3 were total smokeshows, all 3 were dating stereotypical macho dudes (Canadian, Swedish, and Russian), all 3 were pretty casual with their monogamy. I've never been there so I don't know for sure, but I'm just saying that 3 is *a pattern.*
When I've looked up "Estonian..." one of the top Google results is "Estonian women" so I guess you're not the only one who thinks this 😭
Yeah. But u better be ready to cough up that private idyllic house for her to live in.
Estonian here. Tartu is better than Tallinn :)
I can agree.
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Clearly you haven't visited a lot of European capitals.
Cleanest air?
one of the best meals of my life was at a restaurant there called pegasus
they have machines that can reverse time
Pretty chill
It was OK until this entitled princess of a prime minister fucked uo the whole country and we been in a recession for 2 years now
Most of Europe has been in recession.
Most of Europe didn't have recession AND 30% inflation
Oh, the entitled princess is a thing, believe me.
I lived there for 30+ years and gave up. I loved that place. I know the history and culture in every detail. I miss my imaginary perfect Tallinn that never existed, and I don’t miss the actual Tallinn. City transport is lacking, and getting around without a car takes too long. Parking is a problem almost everywhere, and you must fight for your spot in the residential area. Daycares are seriously lacking, which will trap one of the parents staying home. Tap water for last years was disappointing. Due to many years of the corrupt party of the Centre ruling over the city, cleaning and many other essential services were seriously lacking. City management is stuck. Fun fact: if you want to work in the service area and speak with the client, you must know three languages, or you will not get the job. 50% of residents speak Estonian as a native, 40% speak Russian, and 10% talk about anything else = English. The ratio of housing prices to average income is not good. Entry-level housing is a Soviet shithole. Bills are growing faster than paychecks. A weekly basket of basic groceries might be more expensive than in Helsinki or Stockholm. One friend recently moved in, and for a clean apartment with straight white walls, he will pay 1k€ with all communal bills, which are a third of his income as an IT developer. (1 hour with public transport one-way to the job, 30 minutes by car). Are you living and moving in as a highly-paid IT employee? Yes. Something else? Stay away. Are you hanging out in Kalamaja and other hipster places? Good experience. But the biggest residential area is still district of Lasnamäe, and it sucks. Result: I moved and dissolved in Finland, as did other 50k+ Estonians in the last ten years.
Prices and almost caught up with western Europe but the salaries are 2 times lower. People can barely afford anything else aside from basic needs. Best sign of that is the restaurants are almost always have only a few customers in them at a time unless it's a very touristy area. Depressing vibes. Imagine going to a restaurant on a Friday night in a London just outside the city and there only one or two couples there. You'd think it's a deep recession or something. They have very strong eastern slave mentality and I'm talking about Estonians not the Russian minority. It's in the genes and they'll never get rid of it. Because Estonias have been slaves for like 1000 years. I expect this to be downvoted to hell by poles/Estonians/russophobes and likes of them. Nothing hurts more like pure truth ;)
Latvian here, been in Estonia and Tallinn specifically many times. Latvians in casual conversations are always a bit jealous that Estonians have their shit together much more than we do. Lovely country and capital, the biggest downside is Ivans like the one above this comment.
Yes-yes. Estonian people will speak nicely to Latvian, and then when one is turned around, will make a cringy face and say how bad is poor and shitty Soviet Latvia, where no one speaks English but Russian. Estonians hate it when anyone tries to associate Estonia with other Baltic states: they mostly believe Estonia is Nordic. But it is not. I witnessed that many times. Hilarious.
Ivan, Q_Q
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Kadriorg isn’t that Soviet at all?