The Estonian Song Festival

I am so excited!  When we visited Tallinn, I found out that the Estonian Song Festival is going to be held there this year on July 5th and 6th, and I get to go!  I don't know about the Estonian festival, but the Latvian Song Festival happens every five years. Their most recent one was last year, so it won't happen again until 2018.  I was really bummed when I heard that.

Now, a song festival may not sound too exciting, but a song festival here is unlike anything you have probably ever experienced.  For one thing, they have been going on for decades, so it holds a lot of tradition.  It's also a very unifying event, which helped a lot when Latvia was under the rule of other countries. The most amazing thing about it, though, is the number of singers that participate.  In Riga, it is typical to have over 20,000 people participate in the choir.  That doesn't include the number of people who are there to watch and listen, which can number around 100,000.  Here is a picture of a recent song festival in Riga.

I don't know about Estonia's song festival, but I imagine that it is similar to Latvia's.  While we were in Tallinn, we visited the song festival grounds.  Here is what we found.

This is what you see as you walk up to it.

This is the area where the singers sit.  I wouldn't be surprised if they add chairs along the front of it.

Here is a picture of the grounds.  It's really big, and I imagine that my ticket will put me about as far away as possible.  That's okay, though.  I just want to be able to experience 20,000 people in a choir all singing together.  I imagine there will be songs where the audience sings along.  When that happens, I know I will get goose bumps!

Here we are sitting on the stage area.  I didn't count how many rows or seats there were, but I know that there were a lot of them!

We will take the bus to Tallinn on Saturday, July 5th, in the morning.  We will get there around 1:30. There is a concert that night at 8:00 and one the next day at 2:00.  Then we will head back home again. It will be a quick trip, but I'm sure it will be worth every penny we spent on it.

I just wanted to share with you this amazing opportunity.  I am so excited!

Our Visit to Tallinn, Estonia

Boy, have we been busy!  Deb and Dan are here, and we decided that we would take an overnight trip to Tallinn, Estonia.  Several of the Americans we have talked to here in Riga had visited Tallinn, and some of them liked the old part of Tallinn better than Riga's Old Town, so we decided to check it out ourselves.  We purchased round-trip bus tickets, which only cost us 43 Euros each, and off we went. Thank goodness the bus ride was comfortable, because it lasted 4 1/2 hours.  On the way home, we had individual screens on which we could watch movies or TV shows, play games, read books, etc.  That helped the time go a bit faster.

Tallinn is known as the most well-preserved historical old town in the world.  It consists of two sections, which at one time were two feuding medieval towns separated by a wall.  The upper town, called Toompea, is on a hill and was the seat of the government ruling Estonia.  The lower town was a trading center filled with German, Daniwh, and Swedish merchants who hired Estonians to do their menial labor.  When you go from the lower town to Toompea, you certainly can tell you are walking uphill.  It's a rather steep walk.

We stayed in a very nice hotel in lower town called the Meriton Old Town Hotel.  It was yellow, which happens to be my favorite color.  (We didn't know that when we rented the room online.)  Here's a picture of it.

 Here is a Russian Orthodox Church.  It was built by the Russians over the grave of an Estonian hero.  It was their way of "flexing their muscles" during a period of Estonian national revival.  While the Estonians made plans in 1920 to remove it, they later changed their minds, and the building has been renovated to its present glory.

 Below are panoramic scenes of the old town from a couple of viewpoints in Toompea.

Below are just some examples of the streets in Old Tallinn.

As I mentioned earlier, several people we talked to like Tallinn better than Riga.  While its Old Town is larger than that of Riga, I still like Riga better.  The streets are narrower, and the buildings are more interesting.  I'm sure that part of that has to do with the art nouveau architecture in Riga.  Riga's Old Town just seems to have more of a personal feel to it.  In addition, it's not as far north as Tallinn is, so it's quite a bit warmer.  I like warmer.

Well, I'll go for now.  I think we're heading for the shore.