HOT: History of Tartu & Free walking tours

09/04/2026

04/07/2025

Estonia’s cherished Song Celebrations take place under the famous arch at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds – but how was the arch built?

03/07/2025

On July 1, Canada Day was celebrated in Tallinn. Canadian-Estonians who are in Tallinn for both the global Estonian cultural festival ESTO and the Song and Dance Festival, celebrated the occasion in typical Canadian style – with a hockey game. While most Canadians can't imagine life without hockey...

02/07/2025

03/02/2024

You know how they say: "Vastlakukkel is a dish best served cold 🥶" or not?

Last week on the way to Tallinn, Vastlakukkel was found in one of the gas stations. We considered it a sign to figure out how this delicious bun appeared in Estonia 🇪🇪

Read new article by Vana Lugu team (checkout story), and how it used to be served 🍲, figure out how it ended Liberty time in Sweden ( ), and what maximum number of buns it's recommended to eat 🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞

Link to article: https://www.vanalugu.com/post/the-infamous-bunspiracy-how-a-bun-usurped-the-monarchy-in-sweden-and-appeared-at-the-table-of-eston

20/01/2024

Estonia is blooming with tech-AI-[insert-your-word-to-impress-investor] businesses - , , . Next week, there's business event sTARTUp Day 2024 , where one can come and see hundreds of businesses flourishing in the Baltic and worldwide. But before , there was 🍻

The beer tradition arrives with Germans from Nother Crusades, and its production was something that you should have rights to. Gladly, in a few centuries, capitalism came, and Tartu became a heavily competitive market with crazy stories of competition, lawsuits, drama, divorces & lovers ☕

In 1800, in his early 30s, Barthold Joachim Hesse, baltic-german, opened the first privately owned brewery in Tartu. He had a stable business, but around the 1820s, Joachim passed away, and Dorpat faced a huge problem - the absence of a good beer 😧

Historical problems require historical solutions, so Tartu municipality invited Justus R. Schrammi. Why? His mother, Christina, owned the best brewery in Tallinn. In 1822, he opened small brewery. But to scale, you need money. Back then, you could find investors. You could also marry a 17-year-old orphan with an annual income of 15,000 silver rubles 👀 In 1827, using his wife's money, Justus rented the former gunpowder cellar in Toomemägi Hill as his lager cellar and started construction of a brewery on Rüütli Street. At the same time, Hesse's widow sold the brewery to a tradesman, Alexander D. Musso, who 1831 built new beer production premises behind the Town Hall, between Jaani Street and Toomemägi. There were other breweries: Pärtels brewery on the current Illegaard yard, a Kütman factory, a Livonia factory in Ülejų, and a Gambrinius in Supplinn

If you wonder about the tradition of drinking alcohol in Pirogov Park came to be - here you're 😌

By the end of the century, Tartu had become a proper beer town with six operating breweries 🏭 It all culminated with their acquisition by Tivoli and construction of a magnificent red brick brewery complex on Tähtvere Hill in 1894-1896, most of which was preserved & owned by , designed by Reinhold Guleke.

💬 More tea & rumors below

10/01/2024

It is always good to have something warm in these colds, like a Chimney 🔥 In the 1960s, a tall heating plant on Turu Street started to bring warmth to thousands of Tartuvians.

Time and demands change, and in 2014, this Chimney was ordered to go to final rest 🫡 Around the same years, Street art in Tartu and global warming were booming. Old Chimney - colossal, old, dangerous, soviet era construction with protected and surveillance area around it - what could be a more delicious place to put graffiti on for bold artists? 🍰

It seems that in 2014-2015 "Full solar is in our reach". The author is unclear, but some rumors (Facebook groups) hint at 👀👀👀

But it was not it as the rise of machines is coming... On a warm day in 2017, the existing graffiti received a stunning neighbor - a 30m tall girl holding a tree in her hands. And it was all done by robots 🤖

Yes, done, but not planned, designed, and organised. Mihkel Joala ( ), an Estonian inventor, has created a robotic painter to produce murals (100m) tall. According to him, Chimney Graffiti was a massive scale prototype testing! Well, we still believe it was a step in the rise of the machines 😱 Nevertheless, a massive and now important piece of Tartu and World History.

That's why we love Estonia; it is so far ahead that even Robots create street art.

More plants & less chimneys 🌿

P.S. if you know any cool stories about chimney from chimney working time -please share in comments as beloooww 🌝 We love tea!

23/12/2023

Jõulud (Christmas) is around the corner, and we want to talk about public Christmas trees in Estonia 🎄

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was more common to put tree at home (photo 1) and ice skating rings were all around Tartu ⛸ (p. 2 - Botanic garden). No trees on Squares as we have them now (p.3 - Tartu, p.4 - Tallinn) The first mention of a public Christmas tree in Tartu is in 1929 .ee newspaper (p. 3). It was co-organised and co-financed by city and Mr. Zimdin, wealthy man from Tartu and it was lit 🔥(metaphorically). Electric lights, orchestra with music and celebration, the author describes the atmosphere of joy in the article (photo 6 - 1938)
Tallinn didn't really accept tradition and only started to put up public trees from 1935. Pretty sure they got jealous of happy faces of Tartuvians 😏

But, we have to give Tallinn a credit - there's a beautiful legend that first decorated public tree was installed in Tallinn back in 1441, by ... The Blackheads, a merchant-military brotherhood, who got their trade rights after... well, let's leave it for another time 😅 The Blackheads brotherhood, full of unmarried young men heard the call of Pope Eugine V "to fest & share in the winter - the harshest time of the year". They picked up some 🍻 and some more🍻🍻 , and food, they took an "unde bom" that was inside the house, and they marched to the main square, had a festive with citizens, and made it lit (literally) 🔥🔥🔥 In the third year, 1444, one of the houses nearby square got burned, soooo no more burning trees openly! But the next year, they started to put "closed fire" on the trees - and that's how the tree lights appeared on the trees.

What happened in reality? Read comments 💬

21/11/2023

Every town has a place where you can make a wish, and in our beloved Tartu, it's Angel Bridge (est. Inglisild, ger. Englische Brücke). Your wish will come true if you hold your breath while running over the bridge. Another way is to close your eyes and pass the bridge, keeping your wish in mind. As we see, you must risk your life in both times to make your wish come true 🧞‍♀️

It seems like it was not always called Angel's Bridge. For example, Georg Friedrich Schlater named bridge "Die alte Dom-Brucke" (Dome's Bridge). It was also called "Astronomers Bridge". Back in 1812, the Astronomy Tower (Tartu tähetorn) was finished. The story says that to reach Tartu's Observatory at night, astronomers had to go through people's gardens, and garden owners didn't like scientific trespassing ✨

The first version of the bridge was completed in 1814/1816 based on the project of Johan Wilhelm Krause (the architect of the University of Tartu). However, the way we see it right now was constructed in 1836 (design by Moritz Jacobi)

As for the current name, there are at least three main hypotheses:
1. The Toome Hill park was designed in the English style, thus “Inglise sild” (“English bridge”). In Estonian, the word Inglise ("english") is very similar to Estonian word Ingel ("angel"). At some point, they might have been mixed up 🧐

2. The medal dedicated to Georg Friedrich von Parrot, the first rector of the Imperial University of Tartu ("Kaiserliche Universität zu Dorpat" from 1802-1918, ), was added in 1913 during the bridge's renovation.
The angel-face of rector Parrot with its curly hair has also been suggested as a possible reason 👶

3. In the 1920s, Heino Eller opened a music school and as with every. Some internet sources claim that there were even men's choir practice and competitions not far from the bridge thus when passing it, you could hear "angels singing" 😇 , maybe you know more

[Check out comments for the last part of the story]

14/08/2023

Hello, Travellers,

Last time we talked about mighty Kalev, the father of Kalevipoeg. Today, let's talk about Linda, Kalev's wife. Linda was born in the Western part of Estonia and had a heart of stone until she met Kalev.

They fell in love, and Linda gave birth to many sons of Kalev. Kalevipoeg was the brightest since he was the strongest and the smartest among his brothers.

Once Kalev died, Linda covered his body with giant boulders. These boulders form Toompea hill. That place has been the seat of power in Estonia for the past eight centuries. Nowadays, the Estonian parliament building is located on top of that hill.

The bitter tears of Linda created the lake Ulemiste. It is that large body of water opposite Tallinn's airport that you pass while commuting from Tallinn to Tartu (or vice versa)

Oskar Kallis, you may remember him from the last post, also depicted Linda. You can see her carrying yet another boulder to Kalev's grave in her apron.

08/08/2023

Hello, Adventurers!

It's been a while since our last post. So it's time to provide you with more interesting facts about Estonia, and for that, let's dive into the fantastic world of Estonian mythology.

The national epic of Estonia called Kalevipoeg was created by two outstanding members of the Estonian Learned Society, Friedrich Faehlman and Friedrich Kreutzwald. In the middle of the XIX century, they compiled this epic based on the verses of folk songs collected during ethnographic expeditions.

Since then, Kalevipoeg has been inspiring multiple generations of artists to share their interpretations of how the main characters might have looked.

Today, let us introduce you to the father of the main character. Kalev (or Kaleva) was born in the Northern lands, and after his two brothers left home, he hopped on an eagle, flew over the Baltic Sea, and became the ruler of what is nowadays Estonian land. An outstanding Estonian artist Oskar Kallis depicted the episode of him flying over the sea, and we feel obliged to share this art piece with you.



P.S. According to the legend, the hill that forms Tallinn's upper town is Kalev's grave, created by his dear wife, Linda. We'll talk about Linda in the next post:)