THE OLD TOWN
This is where the boutiques are. Pottery, glassware, carved wood and clothes. Amber is another fine souvenir.

PAST & PRESENT
Serious antiques can't be exported but there's plenty of Soviet-era junk on sale. Books are more useful.

souvenirs, shopping

Since Estonia regained its independence in 1991, Tallinn has seen explosive growth and development. Shopping is obviously the nation’s new hobby. The centre is full of plazas and boutiques and now the malls are spreading out into the suburbs, too.

Perhaps it is an inevitable response to nearly half a century of rule by the dull gray men of Moscow. Back then, the people’s only contacts with consumerism were advertisements on Finnish television, which they could pick up quite well.

The government claimed that the pictures of red meat and fresh bananas were just anti-communist propaganda, but no one with any sense believed that.

Today they have their revenge. They eat as well as the Finns do and have better fashion sense. Some of the new shopping arcades contain practically nothing but clothes shops. Tallinn is a seriously good town to buy clothes in. The prices are generally still a bit cheaper than Helsinki and Stockholm.

THE OLD TOWN
The lower medieval town is where the boutiques are. There are far fewer shops in the upper town and, as they are aimed entirely at tourists, the prices are more exalted too. Local jewellery is distinctive, with clean simple lines. Wrought iron pieces are interesting.

There are many shops selling pottery. Miniatures of old-town buildings that serve as boxes or candlesticks are popular souvenirs. Also interesting are the local glassware and carved wood pieces, from dolls to wooden flowers.

Estonians produce kitchen utensils like butter knives, spatulas, chopping boards and even tankards from juniper. You’ll see the same in Helsinki but the range in Tallinn is greater and the prices generally lower. It’s a fairly rare wood in most places but there are great forests of juniper in Saaremaa, one of the western isles.

The other speciality of Saaremaa is its quarries for dolomite , from which much of the stonework on sale in Tallinn is made.

Amber – petrified resin from forests they grew many millions of years ago - is found in Estonia, though not as much as farther south along the Baltic coast. Amber prices vary enormously depending on colour and special features. It would be cheaper in Lithuania, but few cruises call there.

The most popular souvenirs are still clothes – leatherwork, linen and, above all, knitwear. In addition to the many market square stalls of sweaters and scarves, there is an entire street – Müürivahe – of knitwear sellers near the Viru gate. This is where free enterprise works; if you buy several items, you can bargain down the price.

CULTURE
As you would expect in such a picturesque place, there are plenty of local artists turning out oil and watercolour paintings of the streets. Some of them are real art. Local graphics - posters and the like - are good, too.

Genuine antiques can’t be freely taken out of the country. In fact a special permit is needed to export any item made in Estonia before 1945 or made anywhere else before 1850. However an enormous quantity of medals and other junk is left over from the Soviet era and Estonians will be happy if you take some away with you.

For such a small country, Estonia produces a surprisingly large number of books in foreign languages, especially English. And there are bookshops everywhere.

You will win no Estonian friends by saying so, but few of their composers have had any international impact. The best known modern one is Arvo Pärt but he fell out with the Soviet authorities and has lived abroad since 1980.

There is a strong choral tradition in local music, and CDs of this are distinctive. Be warned that it is not all easy listening. Some of the modern stuff is dissonant and quite confusing.