After a long abscence from your web-browsers, Kyle's long anticipated return to the Internet has come.  He is back with pictures and amusing dialog about his most recent trip.  Re-armed with an Olypus 3.3 Megapixel Camedia digicam, he is at it again.

Ok, so first off, where is Estonia you ask?

Dangerously close to Russia, and not far enough away from Poland, Tallinn is 80km (50mi away from Helsinki Finland)  Tallinn has had at least 15 different names under the rule of different conquering peoples.  Most recently, in WWII, Tallinn had the honor of being a symbol of the Russian women's role in the big Number Two.  During the final days of WWII, Stalin allowed the women of the soviet army, to needlessly loft hundreds of shells into this already surrenderred city for 24 hours.  Just to let those ladies get their kicks... Demoloshing much of the historical downtown area, little has been rebuilt, and if you go there, what you see of it was what wasn't knocked out by the ladies in red.

Getting there you have your choice of transportation, ship, SeaCat, hydro-foil...

(Hydrofoil)

Of course, I had to take advantage of the excellent US Dollar --> Krooni exchange rate (about 20 Kr to 1 USD), so I elected to travel in style with my Russian-made Sykorski-76E

For a birdseye view of my first helo-ride, check out my movie:

Kyles Flight 7MBytes Quicktime
 

Here is one more of my sitting right behind the co-pilot...

 I was amazed, how un-Magnum PI this flight was... I was expecting to have a couple of yahoo pilots who would buzz over the merchant ships and do some high-G manouevers, but these pilot guys were duds.  They wore the same blue-type suits that airplane jockeys fly, complete with gold stripes on the sleeves.  They even had a silly fasten-seat belt light they could illuminate... and what topped it off was the "saftey breifing" we had after take-off --- how to fasten your seatbelt, what to do in case of emergencey, etc... yuck!)

Once I arrived in Tallinn, I was amazed by the stunning architecture:

Some of your architect nuts out there might think this is a mosque... sorry you are mistaken, this is actually an orthodox church... to understand the muslim-like look church, you need to know a little about Estonia and its heritage.  Estonians, like their close kin the Finns and the Hungarians originated out of an area where the Moors and not-so far eastern asians came out of.  When some Finns told me that, then asked me if I noticed anything common in their looks.  I immediately answered with a observation my Dad clued me in on a few days before, I said, "Ah yes, you all have little teeth" ...

"No, he answered", but laughed, and we had a 10 minute side-conversation about that, before we got to the fact that they have somewhat slanted eyes, and mongolian like features... this is because of their origins... anyway....

If you notice at the top of the church the cross at the top part of the dome has not just a cross, but a second "cross" and a cresent moon on it.  The moon represents the moorish influence, the second cross, no one knew why that was there, but in any case, you will only find these types of crosses here in Estonia, and Hungaria.

Inside Orthodox Church 2.8Mbytes

If you click on the obove link, you will see what the inside of the church looks like, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the clergy and congragation chanting ... sounds pretty cool, but you will have to listen carefully.... you will be able to see them when I pan right with the camera.
 

Ok, here you can see me in front of the same church... Since the Soviets got outta Dodge here, this place has been recovering... a lot better apparently than most of the other Eastern European ex-SSRs.  But a lot of the old people lost their pensions due  to corruption after the new democracy.  I was told that now, 90% of the politicans are from the old Communist party... they travel like 1st world diplomats -- corruptions is still bad here, but hell, that makes for a fun town!

Pictured above here, is the ex-home of the primeminister of Estonia.  He has since donated it to become a museum, and has built himself a new, larger house outside the city (see corruption in above paragraph)
 
 
 
 
 

This short fella next to me was an Israeli PhD student I met on the tour... he was -- strangely enough doing his work at the U. of Edinburgh... what a coincidence!  That's what I said, so I hung out with him for a while...

You can see from the architecture, that this city wasn't designed for your standard 4x4 SUV... these streets were typical of the downtown, as long as you stayed in the touristy areas, the streets were fine, but stray a little off the beaten path, and you would find plenty of fixer-uppers... regrettable, since no one wants to pay to fix-em-up, most of them are to be torn down, in favor of new 'modern' buildings... (they think modern-steel and glass skyscrapers are more desireous that what you see here)... shame...

In the background of the picture, you will see a wall and a tower.... Tallinn was a walled city, whose inside area was about 1.6x1.6miles ... there were 62 of these towers at one time enclosing the city, all but 20 are gone now.
 

Pictured above is what looks like a Soviet-era built ugly monument, but it actually was used by the Estonians to celebrate their own heritage.  While the Soviets forced the Estonians to celebrate their holidays, the Estonians are are proud people and resisted the soviet influence more than any other of the for SSR Eastern, Iron curtain countries.  Even after the Soviets 'deported' 40% of the population to Sibera ne'er to return, the Estonians still gathered here once every four years to sing in  the "10,000 Voice Concert".  The design of the stadium is such that no microphones, or loudspeakers are required to hear the singers... I wonder if there was anyone left to sit in the audience?
 
 

Finally, this picture is a goodbye from Finland.  It was taken on top of a Radio/TV tower in Helsinki.  The people are work buddies, and the picture was taken at 12:30am -- that's right.. land of the midnight sun... so until next time!

Kyle
kyle@freesoft.org