TOURISM
Tallinn 2011 Captivating Capital of Culture
Tallinn will be sizzling this year and it has nothing to do with global warming. The blend of ultra-modern, medieval and mid-century retro (Soviet style) is reason enough to visit this enchanting Baltic city. This year, however, Tallinn offers more.
As Europe’s 2011 Capital of Culture, a distinction it shares with Turku in Finland, Tallinn will literally be buzzing every single day of the year. To illustrate, some vital statistics: 525,600 minutes of cultural events; 100,000 young people in the song and dance festival, benches designed from 13,000 mobile phones, 150 stories, 15 major international events, 14 ports and harbours and 48 km of coastline.
Tallinn 2011 came in like a lion, with a city-wide New Year’s Eve celebration, kicked off by a show at the seashore and carrying on throughout the night in the various city districts. 15,000 people and half a dozen aliens who claimed they received an invitation from the organizing committee attended the affair. The programme is eclectic and at times eccentric.
While music and performing arts tend to command centre stage, 2011 events incorporate virtually all aspects of culture, including art, architecture, literature, language, sports, and in a very large sense, community-building. This is important to Estonia – a country actively engaged in preserving its past, while it redefines its future in the post-cold war era. Like Israel, Estonia acceded to the O.E.C.D. this past spring. It joined the Euro currency bloc on January 1, 2011.
Celebrating the Sea
Tallinn 2011’s theme is “Stories of the Seashore”. While Tallinn is rooted to the sea and has a rich maritime legacy, for most of the 20th century it was forced to live with its back to the ocean. Access to the seashore was limited for either political or economic reasons.
This year a rejuvenated Tallinn rekindles its love affair with the sea and all it represents as an open gateway to Scandinavia and the rest of the world.
Tallinn is a natural crossroads between east and west. Less than 100 km across the gulf from Helsinki and 400 km overland from St. Petersburg, Tallinn is but an hour’s flight from Stockholm and Copenhagen and 2 hours from Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt.
Much of Tallinn’s sea tales will be told by the new Estonian Maritime Museum, which is scheduled to open in July 2011.
This visionary new museum, designed by KOKO Architects, converts early 20th century concrete hydroplane hangars (the first concrete shell structures of their time) into a 7000-sq. m. museum and sea centre. It will house a full-size submarine and a sea plane as well as an aquarium featuring Baltic Sea fish. The interactive museum is designed for the entire family, combining maritime history with maritime technology.
Sneak Preview
The events scheduled during Tallinn’s cultural reign span the entire calendar year, ushered in by the European Film Academy Awards Ceremony in early December 2010. No less than ten festivals grace the programme, ranging from folklore, classical and contemporary music, opera, dance, circus arts, design, urban development, hi-tech DJ/VJ parties and, believe it or not, stalker filmmaking!
Musical events include both repertoire and original productions. Wagner’s Parsifal will be staged in August. Internationally renowned Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür will perform a piece for chamber orchestra and choir conceived in honour of Tallinn 2011.
The Nyyd Festival in October will feature contemporary symphonic music, while on the other side of the spectrum, Tallinn Music Week spotlights Estonian rock and pop in pubs, clubs and theatres throughout the city. In July, some 35,000 young people will assemble for the 11th Youth Song and Dance Festival. Throughout the year, you will be able to catch Tallinn’s AfroReggae kids drumming and busting moves in street performances and guest appearances at other Tallinn 2011 events.
Sporting events include the Simpel Session Extreme Sports event (January), the European Athletic Junior Championships (July) and the first-time-ever full Tallinn Marathon (September).
Stages of Straw, Towers of Dance
Although steeped in tradition, Tallinn is not exactly conventional. The highly popular, innovative and somewhat quirky Estonian NO99 theatre troupe, is busy erecting a 100% organic and biodegradable straw theatre in and on which performances will be staged throughout the summer, the biggest structure of its kind in the world. When the final curtain comes down in September, the theatre will go down with it.
Aleksander Pepeljajev, the premier artist in Russian contemporary dance theatre, will add a new dimension and direction to dance, as dancers interact with technology on a DNA-like tower constructed on the Tallinn Bay coast. The dancing tower will be inaugurated in May and will feature a noted Finnish Ballet company rendering new interpretations to ballet classics.
For additional information of what Tallinn has in store, visit www.tallinn2011.ee.
