You can see some of the block-style apartment buildings in the background. I was told those were mostly built when Estonia was part of the USSR as cheap (or free) housing for workers. Utilitarian then. Today (according to the young woman at my hotel) most Estonians want to leave them and go to other (nicer) housing and so mostly Russian families and older people live in them now.
It was probably not a whole lot different than it has been for the last 40 years.
Mostly Russians, a lot of old people, and not too many people happy with a tourist taking photos! I was told not very nicely not to take pictures inside the meat/cheese/deli hall (which was the most interesting).
So I focused on outside and marveled at aside from hearing Russian everywhere and items per kilogram in Euros it really didn't feel that different from our Sunday Farmer's Market at home.
Here is your dill Andy!
So after that I wandered around some of the back streets away from the tourist area and found the "other side" of Tallinn.
The faded glory of urban decay and reminders of Soviet building booms -- all the huge block apartments and buildings now falling apart.
Past gas stations (wow gas is 25 Euro cents cheaper here than in London or Dublin where I saw up to 1.60 Euro -- PER LITER!). You do the math (makes our $4 a gallon look cheap in comparison!)...
And finally back towards Old Town and stopped into a cafe for a latte.
Yes that is about $6.65 a gallon!
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