But first, we visited the World War II memorial. For the most part, there is not much evidence that Estonia was once part of the Soviet Union. However, I think this memorial is the most Soviet looking structure in Tallinn. The memorial has fallen into some disrepair with graffiti and cracked stone tiles everywhere. While it may seem odd to not preserve a memorial, it is also a remnant of the Soviet occupation, so at best Estonians have mixed feelings about it.
Next door to it is the museum. Apparently not many foreign tourists visit as there was very little English in the museum. Instead we were given a booklet with translations of the displays. As fascinating as I found it all, it was strange to go around the museum with my nose in this booklet, trying to figure out which passages corresponded to which displays. It didn't help that there really wasn't all that much to look at. There were plenty of pictures, but very few items on display. Regardless, we ended up staying there until they kicked us out.
The museum is situated on the grounds of an old manor, so there's nice park around it. I found a map to see if there might be anything else of interest around. It mentioned that there were some Soviet statues on display behind the museum, so we went to take a look.
To say they were "on display" is to use the term loosely. The statues were certainly there to look at, but the only one standing was Lenin. There were more statues like this lining the back wall of the building.
Ruchira and Lenin.
This one I found interesting because it reminded me of a famous National Geographic cover.
(I forgot where I found this image)
I imagine there were many copies of Stalin statues, so it may not be the same one, but it certainly looks the same.
Once we finished up at the museum, we made our why to Dr. Rainer Kattel's house as he had invited all the visiting researchers to his place for dinner. For such a small gathering, it was an incredibly diverse group of people: Dr. Kattel and his wife from Estonia, of course, Dr. Carlota Perez from Venezuela, Aziz from Uzbekistan, Ruchira from India, myself from the US, and one other guy for whom I feel really badly because I forgot his name from South Africa. Dr. Perez had been teaching the class that I had attended only the once, so she jokingly berated me for abandoning her. Excluding Kattel's wife (whose name I also forgot), we all had backgrounds in economics, so the conversation tended to dwell on the economic problems in each of our individual countries and various issues pertaining to Estonia. Besides the conversation, the food was also great. Dr. Kattel and his wife had gotten fresh bread and vegetables from the market earlier that day and had made a middle eastern dish with lamb wrapped in grape leaves. We had homemade cheesecake for dessert.
Not really anything else to say. We had a great evening, and then went home and slept.
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