I’m standing on the banks of the Narva River, in the far north east of Estonia, looking across to Russia on the other side. It’s no wider than the Thames and in the middle, a solitary Russian patrol boat is keeping the Estonian fishermen to their side of water. Looming above is the so-called Friendship Bridge with huge trucks queuing to cross the international border, but otherwise all is calm.
It’s just 30 years since Estonia became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.
While capital Tallinn is firmly on the tourist trail, far fewer visitors venture further into Estonia. But as the country continues to reinvent itself, there’s plenty yet to discover, including Narva itself, Estonia’s third largest city.
Most of Narva, including its synagogue, was flattened by fierce fighting at the end of the Second World War but its industrial area survived.
The Kreenholm Manufacture, dating from 1857, was the largest textile complex in Europe and the most modern in the Russian Empire, operating through the Soviet era and employing 12,000 workers in the 1980s.
After finally closing in 2010, the area is awaiting redevelopment but remains an extraordinary place. Occupying a huge site on an island in the middle of the river, the rickety foot bridge connecting it to Russia on the other bank is now closed, of course, but the 19th century red brick buildings are protected.
Outdoor cultural events, including opera and theatre, are staged here in the summer; for now the huge empty factories lie derelict.
The future is brighter for Narva’s castle, built by the Danes in the 13th century and one of the best preserved in Estonia. Topped by the 50 metre Hermann Tower, it faces its Russian counterpart — the Ivangorod Fortress — across the river. Also damaged in the war, it’s been sympathetically restored and houses an excellent interactive museum detailing its history through the ages.
Ownership of the castle passed from the Danes, to German Knights, briefly to Russians, then Swedes for 100 years and finally back to the Russians under Peter the Great. In the extensive grounds is one of Estonia’s few remaining Lenin statues, and from the dock below, it’s possible to take a cruise to the nearby spa resort of Narva-Jõesuu with its long sandy beach.
Half an hour west along the coast, Sillamäe has its own unusual history. Popular in the 19th century with Russian artists and musicians, including Tchaikovsky, it vanished from maps after the Second World War when uranium was discovered, vital for work on the new Soviet atomic bomb.
A processing plant was built, with German prisoners of war brought in to work the mine and the factory. Even after mining stopped in the 1950s, processing continued with ore brought from other parts of the Soviet Union.
The secret city had many code names, including Leningrad 1 and Moscow 400, and the attractive Stalinist Neoclassical buildings in the centre housed elite scientists and top military.
The pastel colours on the walls have been restored and it now feels more like the resort it was back in the 1800s, with its wide stone staircase, similar to the famous steps in Odessa, descending to the tree-lined avenue leading to the sea.
The large foyer of the Cultural Centre, all lavish chandeliers and pillars, is almost as big as the plush auditorium: originally a cinema, it opened — surprisingly — with a showing of Tarzan in 1949.
In the basement today, a former bomb shelter contains a museum dedicated to the Soviet Era, with a large portrait of Stalin on the wall and a wide desk set as if party apparatchiks had just stepped away from the heavy telephone.
Another 30 minutes west, you can get a taste of another former mine at Kohtla-Järve; this oil shale mine has also been converted into a museum, complete with underground railway.
After being given your helmet and lamp, and downing a bowl of worker’s gruel, you’re led into the depths by a former miner to hear tales of life trying to meet the quota of 20 tons per worker per day — all powered by vodka, not illegal underground in those days.
The tunnels are surprisingly spacious. In later years they had to accommodate the huge machines used for scraping, cutting and collecting, and some of these massive beasts, encrusted in grime and rust, are still in working order. As our guide powers them into life, it becomes immediately obvious why life expectancy was not high.
The oil shale found here was originally transported to nearby St Petersburg and burnt like coal to heat houses. At the start of the First World War, demand for oil to power trucks, trains and planes created a huge open-cast mine, before underground exploration started in 1937.
The mine closed in 2001 and the area, once badly blighted by pollution, has been reforested with limestone spoil heaps converted into artificial ski slopes and off-road rally trails.
But it’s in the country’s capital, Tallinn, where you really get the sense that the country is simultaneously embracing the past and creating a new future.
In the delightful old town, there’s little sign of the Soviet era and you’re transported right back to the 15th century as you wander the narrow, cobbled streets, split between the upper level with its fortress, cathedrals and parliament and the lower containing the merchant’s houses and concealed courtyards of the Hanseatic League.
Trade between Russia and the German cities on the Baltic from the 14th to 16th centuries made the city prosperous; by the 20th century, Russian submarines were being constructed in the port’s Noblessner area.
All are long gone and extensive development is taking place with new apartments, shops and nightclubs — there’s even a group of Igluhuts, like futuristic Eskimo bunkers, grouped on the quayside, which you can hire for an individual saunas.
Tallinn’s own former industrial area, Telliskivi, has had its own makeover. Here, ten abandoned factory buildings house a variety of restaurants, bars and galleries including Fotografiska, an internationally recognised museum of photography.
The Tallinn Jazz festival is held here and there’s a flea market every Saturday, while next door, the Baltic Station Market houses 300 traders on three floors and includes food stalls, restaurants and antique shops.
The city’s Jewish community is also enjoying a new resurgence. Historically smaller than that of Latvia and Lithuania, as the area was outside Russia’s Pale of Settlement, it was only in the 19th century that it finally became legal for Jews to move here.
During Estonia’s first period of independence between the wars, the community numbered around 4,000, mostly living in Tallinn. And unlike its Baltic neighbours, Latvia and Lithuania, three-quarters of the Jewish population managed to escape the approaching Nazi forces as they occupied the country in 1941.
In 2007, a new synagogue was opened next door to the Estonian Jewish Museum, less than a mile from the site of the former main synagogue built in 1883; destroyed in 1944 by a Soviet air raid, it left Tallinn as one of the few European capitals without a synagogue for decades.
The stunning ultramodern building is an airy glass creation, topped with terracotta tiles and home to a mikve and kosher restaurant — proof that Estonia’s 2,500-strong Jewish community, like the rest of the country, are focused firmly on the future.
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