Heading to Estonia

[Stee]

A friend of mine is celebrating his 30th Birthday soon and as a result we are heading to Estonia for the weekend (next weekend to be precise).

Whats it like? Does the water taste funny? Anything weird I can eat? Places to avoid? Place not to avoid? Should this thread be posted in hints and tips? Anymore questions I should be asking but haven't thought of? Will Increator respond to the thread?


Just some general advice about it would be nice as it's always better to find these things out from people who have been / the locals as the information on the internet is sparse at best.

[Snake]

I don't have any answers to your questions, but I feel if you ask any more, this should belong in the beginner's technical forum.

[InCreator]

Well, this'll be a long post...

You didn't specify where exactly do you go in Estonia - but I imagine Tallinn, since 1/3 of the population lives here. And you mentioned birthday, so I'll base this post as weekend drinkalong guide. City is as safe as any other European capital. Locals avoid Kopli/Põhja-Tallinn (Northern Tallinn) district since it's closest you get to word "ghetto" although it's far from one. So do so too. There's nothing interesting there anyway. See street view to recognize area; all Tallinn's districts have totally different building styles.

The drinking guide

Water is okay everywhere.
Tap water is perfectly fine to drink everywhere unless you're going far northeast Estonia, to the Russian border/mining area (province of Ida-virumaa) where air and water might not be that good due heavy mining industry around. However, people drink water everywhere, this is not rural India and nobody has ever gotten sick or anything.

Weird food? You're english - I guess - so you know black pudding already.
Estonian cuisine sums up basically as fatty, oversalted meat and fish in all forms and colors. That, and pickled cabbage with tiny pork thingies and stuff. Which is good. Look up on wikitravel I guess, I'm not much of a gourmet, since I eat mostly fried meat daily and not much else. But definitely try rye bread (the high quality one, "peenleib") since I still do not understand why does half of the world ignore this wonder food that was and is holy in most of Eastern Europe/Russia since it fed people through ages and is super healthy in every way. Also, Estonian beer is quite good (Saku "Originaal", A le Coq "Premium", Saku "Rock"), and since Soviet times, tourists always grab a bottle of "Vana Tallinn" (this) or two. Or a box. It's awesome liquor that comes in few flavors. And local assorted chocolate candies and such.

General advice is as any general advice: don't fall asleep on the street drunk, don't get so drunk you would attract any criminals. Worst things that can happen during weekend are usually either you look like stupid drunk tourist and someone snatches your wallet -- or you get into a fight. Robberies are rare and usually just continuations to already established conflict. Estonians are usually sort of cold and reserved, keep to their own, russians, however might get very emotional and aggressive. Dial 110 for police, 112 for everything else. No SIM card or anything required. They *do* understand english.

Nightlife is extremely rather busy, and security is rather low everywhere -- people rarely ask if you're legal drinking age and you might see teens drunk on their asses, who act like teens drunk on their asses. So don't get too grabby with girls or pushy with drunk guys. If you get into some shit at a club or pub, security will usually throw all participants out, no matter who's in the right. Make sure to scram immediately, to make sure "right" won't be getting set on the street. "Drunk teens" means girls drinking in bars out might be underage. Age of consent is 18 I think so watch who you woo or woohoo.

Gather some taxi numbers if you need to get around. There's few shady cabs that either ask for 10x price or turn few kilometre route into wonder trip around northern Estonia. Taxis I usually use and have honest drivers are:
Reval Takso -- +372 5264111
Logo Takso -- +372 56600600
Amigo Takso -- +372 55577780

There's also yellow taxicabs "Tulika takso". Those are somewhat more expensive, but they are subsidised by city and never have problems -- you should be able to pay with card, get  and so on. Google for number, add +372. Also, city provides them sweetest waiting spots so they're always nearby. This applies to Tallinn of course. You usually pay around 2€ to sit in (safeguard for drunk people who want to drive around corner or something) and around 0.5€ per 1km. With 15-20€ and 20-35 minutes you should be able to drive from any point in Tallinn to any other point, I imagine, at least with first three companies. If not, something's wrong. For a tourist, cab is easier way to get around, considering relatively cheap price. Taxi is guaranteed if you call, get on the line and tell your location. You can also grab a waiting one.

If you're totally out of luck with taxis, numbers you have are busy and hailing doesn't produce results, at least look at taxis going by; they always have company phone numbers written on side, which you can try and get a vacant one.

You can always hop onto a bus, tram or trolley. Check prices on wall (around 1-2€, no limit where you drive or how long as long as you're not changing bus/whatever) and pay the driver when at stop for a ticket. Or don't. Ticket checking is rare but fine is around 40-50€.

For short trips, I wouldn't bother to buy tickets. Routes, lines, city map with public transport lines, timetables and shit is here. In Tallinn, there's one combined company handling all public transport so there's no confusion. No metro. Same site basically tells much of what I did, but in detail. Planner might be tricky to find, direct link here and notice "show on map" button at the top of the page - this is helpful to see how far do you need to go and such, but all this transportation talk is actually overkill, because most places you can actually reach quite quickly by foot.

Everybody speaks English at understandable level. At least everyone you ever need to talk, like service personnel, cab drivers and so on. Young people on the street too. Young russians might not always, but usually because of pride, not skill. People are more or less as grumpy as Englishmen (judging from my visit to London few months ago), since weather is as shitty and even worse during 75% of the year (It's gotten really nice last few days though!). But almost always happily ready to initiate cultural exchange and chat and direct you wherever and take photos and so on.
If you're black or asian or something, you'll get curious looks, but that's only because we have none living here aside few families and diplomats or exchange students. Racism doesn't actually exist due single race. But - for same reason - it also isn't understood very well -- we don't have years of slavery shame or whatever so we aren't so cautious and might say something that makes westerners hair stand up even though no harm was meant. My forum posts are sometimes live proof of this.

Drinking is rather cheap, with cheapest places in downtown have 1€/all drinks theme and usual coktail at club goes around 5-7€... not that cheap, so getting a whole bottle for that price from supermarket and doing "warm-up" might be good idea if you're on a tight budget. Girls are super pretty everywhere, both Estonians and Russians. But "British stags" - young englishmen coming here every year because of this and cheap booze have somewhat smeared reputation so don't act like bad stereotype or advertise yourself like one. Because it scares good girls and attracts gold-diggers. And might make your drinks/cab fare more expensive. Okay... what else?

* Tipping is rare but highly appreciated. Cab drivers always expect some though, an euro or so at least.
* Wi-fi is basically everywhere, fast and free. If you see no cafe around, try a gas station. Here's a map and breakdown with places and such.
* Alcohol is not sold in stores after 22:00 (dumb law), and after this, you cannot buy alcohol from bars and pubs "to go" or in an uncorked bottle (they must open it).
* Traffic is messy, but not as horrifying as in London. Still, be aware. Turn lights usage is frustratingly low.
* Prices on stuff vary. Some shit might be ridiculously cheap while some other beat even much bigger EU capitals.
* If at someone's home, take off shoes. Even if weather is nice, it's a custom not to bring mud or dog shit you stepped in or whatever inside. 7-9 months of cold or wet weather per year here, ahoy
* Don't trust weather data; bring a wind jacket at least. Summer is coming really slowly this year and wearing t-shirt outside during night is guaranteed cough and sore throat.
* Cinemas and TV usually play english-spoken stuff in english, with estonian (and sometimes russian) subtitles (except kids' cartoons). So you can actually go see a movie if you want.
* Don't act like a crazy person; laugh at 500db, take pictures of strangers unless you ask if it's okay, and so on. Estonians like it quiet and polite. When sober.
* The farther from centre, the cheaper everything gets. Same rule as everywhere. The centre is easy to recognize -- the medieval part of the city with walls, bars and stuff.
* Majority of clubs and pubs play this. Clubbish semi-pop house music. There's also some rock cafes and such. For jungle/drum'n'bass, check out Korter, it's, despite warehouse-rave-looks, quite a chill place with be-your-own-youtube-dj stuff going on in smoking room, good equipment on main area and enough volume to ruin hearing. Most (in)famous mainstream club Hollywood is known as a boxing club, I wouldn't go there. Club Panoraam plays 90's swedish-tasting techno hits. Rock Café plays what name says, but I imagine it's mostly local artists and their site doesn't have even english alternative. Those are ones I've frequented, although there's billion more.
* If you go to a pub or bar with *very* young people in it, drinks might be watered down a bit.
* No smoking in public places, such as bars and such. Most have designated areas or some have outdoors loft for this. Places without entry fee you can just step outside.
* Food edibility is quite high more or less everywhere. Dirty tiny cellar restaurants and pizzerias so common in rest of the EU are quite rare here.
* Have at least €15 in cash for emergency taxi fare or to pay for those glasses your drunk friend swept onto bar floor. Otherwise, your Visa/Mastercard is okay almost everywhere.
* There's no lines anywhere. I mean clubs and such. Dresscodes are rather loose, although I strongly suggest to wear shoes and not 20 year old tattered, dust-colored Nike Airs.
* It's impossible to get lost in Old Town; use adventure game logic - go straight till you encounter a city wall, and follow it to gate. Tall churches are good landmarks.
* DO distinguish estonians from russians. The language is NOTHING similar, and failing to determine correctly will (likely) instantly piss off person(s) you've mistaken, no matter which way. Especially if drunk. Two ethnic groups aren't exactly hostile towards each other (as might seem from my post), but when alcohol's involved, conflicts and misunderstandings could arise.
* DO NOT get into trouble with security personnel, anywhere. If something happens, pay for the broken glasses, apologize and gtfo. They are usually quite fed up at weekends due workload and don't tolerate much crap.
* Grab a power converter from airport store or dock. Estonia uses 2 round pin 220V, like this. Fat ones work too.
* Public transport works 6:00 till 23:00. No night buses!
* Despite billion churches, religion doesn't exist here. Pagans, arr!
* Soviet shit is a bad topic in any conversation.
* Nobody owns or knows anyone who owns a firearm. That's a fact.
* If in a bad hangover, go to nearest grocery store, look around in milk/yoghurt section and pick up carton with word "keefir" on it. Pay, leave, take a glass, fill it, drink, repeat until you've consumed a litre.
Here's your exotic drink from Eastern EU AND magical hangover cure. Although it might be available in UK too. Few ibuprofen to seal the deal and you've been healed.

That's pretty much it... if you got specific questions, I'll keep an eye on the thread.
Also, if you want to, I could PM you my cell number, incase you really drink yourself to some pine forest or island and get lost or something.
E: I edited this post like 20th time for now

[Stee]

Cheers InCreator, that's probably the most useful information I've found all month. Scouring google doesn't bring up much. I've pointed my friends to this thread too. You should write a book on it, most of the information I've found on Estonia is a bit out of date.

Yeah we are off to Talinn, heading out Friday. Not entirely sure what the plan is but I guess some usual touristy stuff during the day and drinking during the night. From the looks of things your weather is similar to ours, unpredictable, rains most of the time etc. I wasn't intending on bringing a thick jacket since we are only there friday, saturday, sunday and intending to get everything in hand luggage, but I guess I might have to reconsider it.

I'll probably get a cheap pay as you go sim over there (my phone is unlocked). Any advice on networks? I read somewhere that there was a network that provided free 3g (which I guess is a little useless if you have wifi everywhere) but I can't seem to find it.

Oh, and as someone who doesn't know anything about the Estonian language or the Russian language, how do you tell the difference between the 2? The Russian language is a little rougher and rolls it's r's more and Estonian is a little more softly spoken?

Again cheers for the advice, it's greatly appreciated!

[Lad]

For some Estonian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-QIeng2lOo . Well Russian you can find quite easily.
   I thought hard but couldn't add anything to what InCreator said. Sums it up very well how stuff here is.

[InCreator]

Since it's a drinking guide, what I wrote was basically in-depth explanation of this:

The main advice to anyone worried about personal security is to stay reasonably sober despite tempting alcohol prices.

...so you wouldn't get into any bad memories.
But Tallinn, being ruled and fought over by basically every neighboring kindgom (Swedish, Danish, Russian, Teuton, whoever else) during last 800 years has picked up this or that from each so it's quite awesome place to walk around if you've never been here before, so I don't think you'll get bored. There's loads of touristy stuff to do and snapshots to take. As a local, I suck at suggestions in this field; I live here and I've seen towers and walls and churches and museums billion times so I don't know what tourist might find interesting.

Weather, yeah. It's quite warm this week - 14-20C most of the time, but nights could get chilly and since it's ashore Baltic Sea, strong winds are common. As I said, I wouldn't go out wearing only (T-)shirt -- at the evening. It doesn't rain all that much, it's just either warm or cold, depending on wind direction and season. Leave mittens home

As far as languages go, they just differ like fire and water.

You know how russian english accent is portrayed in movies? It's about right, plus russians add their sharp szc-consonants to the english. "Dow you haww a zzzigarett?"
Russian rap song. Notice how rich and defined are "s" and "z" and "c" and "chh" sounding consonants? They have like dozen of those. And hard 'R'-s.
Estonian language has simple "s" that sounds like "c" in english word "nice", and is very vocal-rich, from "ä" to "ö" to "ü" and so on. "Tu yu haf a ssigarett?"
Estonian accent while speaking english sounds sorta like little baby trying to talk, with very soft tongue.
Estonian hip-hop. Notice less R-s, simple S and loads of vocals.

Russian names are also easy to recognize, all the Mihails, Dimitrys, Olegs, Olgas, Natashas, Svetlanas and so on. Slavic version of ancient greek (or sometimes viking) names mostly.
Estonians have almost never names that feel Russian, ours are either finnish, or everywhere-found typical catholic latin names (russians are orthodox so no catholic names) with some language warps. Jarmo, Marko, Andres, Tiina, Kati, Kristi, Joosep and so on.

Also, russian language has genders, so male name never ends with "a" or "ya", and every female one does - "misha" isn't a name, it's a friendly form of "mihhail", etc. I think there's exceptions, but cannot think of any so they're super rare. Estonian language has no gender stuff, male names ending with "a" are common.

Just use youtube for rest if you're really interested. It's not that big of an issue anyway, you won't get mauled by an angry mob if you've mistaken or anything. At worst, you're getting a very biased history lesson about the difference

The whole ethnic thing is as simple as that; Soviets decided to remove our nation and manufacture homo sovieticus, by eliminating our language and culture by forcing russian language everywhere and bringing in loads of russian immigrants to mix the blood. Well that sucked, especially random or communism-unfriendly families being deported to Siberia and dying in some remote Gulag hellhole. Beatings in KGB office cellars didn't help too.
And for a country being buttraped by every european kingdom for 800 years already, this was a bit too much.
So after breaking the USSR, local language and culture was made official and foremost again, and a requirement for people to learn and speak it. Which immigrants didn't like, because they felt that it was unfair for the citizens of once-so-glorious empire now needing to learn some small, soon-to-be-wiped-out-anyway language. That divided nation into two, quite clearly different cultural groups (under soviet rule, everybody was in this shit together) and although it's quite old stuff, it's not forgotten yet. If all's peaceful, we live and work together. But if shit goes down or drinks are too plenty, it sometimes becomes them vs. us. So two sides, although intermarrying and having friendships and all with each other, MOSTLY still keeps to its own and doesn't want to get confused with other one.
It's that simple. Everything else you might hear or read about it is just hogwash or ugly propaganda or in worst case, science fiction from dumb rights activist who confuse Estonia with Ethiopia and think bullets are fizzing around streets of Tallinn or something.

About 3G I don't honestly don't know... being an engineer and near internet-capable computer like 19 hours a day, I've never felt need to own a smartphone and can do all my remote browsing via wifi and ipad. Maybe this'll help -
http://prepaiddatasims.com/prepaid-phone-plans-in-estonia/
although prices are in EEK and not EUR.
1 EUR = 14.9 EEK = 0.80 GBP and google can still convert EEK.

[voh]

Huh. Not actually knowing any real things about Estonian, it sounds far more like Finnish than it does like Russian. Never would have thunk. Interesting

[InCreator]

They are both Finno-Ugric languages. And for two countries only 50-80km apart, there's nothing strange about it.
Estonians and Finns can talk to each other in their languages and still understand at least half of the text, since words sound very similar and pronounciation is same.
Difference lies in fact that finnish have invented more words where Estonian simply took over some latin form.

But even for weird finnish words, they are super easy to guess if you're Estoninan...
Say, word "film". Estonian uses "film" for this like most of the world. Finnish say elokuva. But even this is quickly recognizable, since elo is very similar to Estonian elu which means "life". And kuva sounds like short for verb kuvama - to show or present something. So you get life + present = "presentation of life". Which - in context - can be easily recognized as film.

[Anian]

If it's anything like Hungarian (the Ugric part of Finno-Ugric) then I feel pitty for ya. Hungarian is seriously messed up, like somebody stole all the vowels and added z and y and some none standard letters. 
Although my theory is that Finno-Ugric is like a category for languages that don't fit anywhere else and not so much for being similar.

[InCreator]

I tried to read some Hungarian websites and could understand like 1-2 words only. They are quite different aside vowel structuring in words. And Estonian/Finnish language uses simple S or two in words, none of the szch-stuff, unlike Russian, as I pointed out earlier. So Hungarian feels alot more slavic or even arabic.

[Stee]

Thanks for the info, we had a great time.

Despite what you said  we did somehow accidentally end up in Club Hollywood. We weren't there very long though until we realised that it was about 4/5 girls on the dance floor and just tons of blokes standing around the dance floor staring creepily. We also mistook a yellow painted cab for an actual yellow cab (we never actually found any yellow cabs around old town, it was mainly the other cab companies). The result of taking the wrong cab was that the 1-2km stretch to the beach ended up taking us miles out and costing us â,¬30 for the privilege. The cheeky prick also had the courtesy to say merry christmas. In the interests of naming and shaming his name was Alex Jaager, drove a yellow Volkswagen cab and we found him round the corner from the estate agents in old town.

We found that being dumped miles out on Pyrita Beach, there was a nice sports cafe. The staff there where miles politer than they where in old town. I get the impression all the dickhead stag parties they have in the centre put a bad impression on us english, and judging by the other english people I came across I dont blame them.

Getting the attention of a waitress can be a right pain. I sometimes wondered whether they were ignoring us intentionally or not. We had a fun time in the Dubliner trying to translate the estonian menu until we realised they had english versions too. We felt it rude to snap fingers or whatever you dude to get a waitresses attention so it took us a long time to get served. The worst part of it all was trying to settle a bill. It's like they disappear when they know you are going to pay up and go.

I think we may have accidentally walked into a brothel because it said nightclub on it. I guess nightclub has dual meanings  I was surprised at how unsubtle estonians are about the rampant sex trade in the area. We were approached countless times in the street to go to certain clubs/bars.

Nimetaa Baar seemed the best place in the area during the night. The stag parties seemed to disappear elsewhere (or where unconscious by night time). And the atmosphere in there seemed to be a lot nicer by that point other than some estonian girl stealing my shots at the bar for no apparent reason. Still not sure whether I was pissed off or impressed at the fact that she downed all three like they were nothing. The bar staff sorted it though, and in english for some weird reason.

Smoking rooms are awesome. It annoys me that they didn't do something like this in our country when they decided to ban it. I am also impressed with the 3hrs of darkness you seem to have.

We would like to go again possibly next year (do a tour of the baltics) as we felt we didn't get to do much with the weekend that we were there. Would've also been nicer if we didn't have to check out so early from our apartment.

And you are right. Our women are not even a patch on the women you have over there. 

[InCreator]

Looks like my isn't ready for publishing yet...

I was hanging out same weekend I thought city was quite quiet. Most of the usual beehives were actually empty, I guess partying starts earlier hours during summer therefore ends sooner too. Eurovision kept people home too.

Taxis might be hit and miss yeah. As I said, knowing a honest company name would eliminate 90% of possible problems. But â,¬30 means you didn't get the worst of em'. Some firms are legimate, but have 4x prices.

I guess you really did look/act different from local folk if you attracted prostitutes, we don't have street girls in its classic meaning around, just less-dressed party girls who offer to continue party later... As I said, Estonians are calm and reserved so anything beyond that is what it seems :/ Maybe same thing you got with waitresses -- they didn't want to bother you instead and you should have acted ruder to catch their attention. But as I said, general chaos during weekends makes security/service personnel tired and fed up also.

For brothels, I had no clue any of those bear a nightclub sign. Usual giveaway is "Bar & Sauna" because saunas and bars don't mix really. And such places are usually outside biggest activity centrals, otherwise cops would raid them endlessly.

Baltics trip I'm not sure. In Latvia you probably see cheaper prices, less makeup on girls, more blondes and a bit different temper. Latvians I know are more open, like more to have fun playing pool or whatever and even though they drink even more, they can hold their drinks better. Latvian women are cuter but a bit blander and not so flashy I guess. Riga looks like Tallinn gone through a coktail blender so architecture isn't so specific to city district, but a mix of everything everywhere. I have been to Riga only few times so I know little. I instantly got lost though.

About Lithuania I don't know much at all. General conception is that Lithuania means rugged, bearded men living in endless spruce forests. In reality, it's just more slavic and poorer version of other two Baltic countries. In any case, I would rent a car and drive the Baltics, because nature is quite stunning, especially in summer. There's also nature reserves and old fortresses and such along the road if you're into some sightseeing. Because aside womenfolk, drinking is same everywhere, I wouldn't travel half of EU just for this.