At the left, “Romantika” by the medieval Mechant’s Bridge. To the right, “Meloodia” and “Regina Baltica” by former cargo berths, which was rebuilt to suit passenger vessels during the 1990s. PHOTO: MADLI VITISMANN

Tallinn – from Hanseatic port to cruising and oil port

With the transformation from an old Hanseatic port to a port hosting cruise ships and oil transit, Tallinn is home to a third of Estonia’s population and 14 ports. Yet it seems that neither the city nor the national government sees Tallinn as a sea town but as a town by the sea. The sea shore and the white ships posing in the background seem to be first and foremost objects of interest and sales arguments for real estate developers. In addition to enjoying a walk by the sea, Tallinners are interested in travelling comfortably and having a usual crowd of tourists around.

The area of Tallinn was first inhabited at least 3,500 years ago. The deep and well-sheltered harbour – one of the best-located ports on the Estonian coast – offered Tallinn a favourable traffic and defence position. Also, the Gulf of Finland is at its narrowest at that point and the port is close to Toompea – an elevation that is easy to defend and protect. Archeological findings from the second and third centuries indicate that the city had extensive trade relations.

The favourable position by the East–West trade route paved the way for Tallinn to become a member of the Hanseatic League back in the 1280s when the union of cities was first formed. In the Middle Ages the main export article was Estonian grain, followed by other agricultural products; the main import article was salt and, to a lesser extent, textiles and luxury products.

Medieval quay
Today Tallinners witness busy passenger ferry traffic – during this summer 37 ferries have departed daily from the Old City harbour. The number of passengers has grown from 1 million to nearly 6 million in recent years – the majority of passengers, over 4.5 million, cruise on the Tallinn–Helsinki route but every day there is also a ferry taking passengers to Stockholm and every other day there is one taking passengers to St Petersburg.

The medieval Merchant’s Bridge was turned into a passenger quay in 1862 and got a modern passenger terminal in 1936.

The occupation of Estonia meant the end for passenger traffic as the port facilities were destroyed during the war. At the beginning of the 1990s, passenger ships still shared the port with coal shipments, but now coal enjoy the facilities of Muuga harbour. Modern passenger terminals marked with the letters A, B, C and D were built between 1990–1999. When the passenger port was extended, the railroad line was dismantled and now mostly passengers and cars pass through the Old City harbour.

The Old City harbour has been more or less in the same shape as it is now since 1647, and the stone foundation of the northern pier’s new quay dates back to that time. As the ships eventually grew bigger, two small moles were demolished, and in 2000 the port was big enough to host the Millennium. The biggest cruise ship to visit Tallinn was the 294-metre long Constellation. Last year the port welcomed 64 cruise ships which made altogether 236 visits and brought 204,151 passengers to Tallinn.

There are days when the port is simultaneously a home for seven cruise ships that are on their way to St Petersburg or on their way back. This year, the average number of cruise ship passengers could exceed last year’s record of 865, and reach 1,000.

	During her last months before being sold to scrap, the passenger vessel “Tallinn” lay in the old fishing harbour of Tallinn as a sales argument for real estate developers. PHOTO: MADLI VITISMANN

Lost its fishing port
The history of Estonia has witnessed two restorations of Estonian independence. The continuity of the state authorities established in the 1920s was interrupted during the times of occupation; unfortunately, in the 1990s it was impossible to continue from where history had changed its course; instead, the state had to start all over again and keep up with the pace of modern times, and at the same time deal with the burdens left by the Soviet era. The ownership reform of the 1990s, the need to create legislation for an independent state and the lack of supervision experience made the work of city and state authorities exceptionally complicated. One example of being lost in the twists and turns of the legislative maze of Tallinn is the loss of the medieval fishing port. This special fishing port was privatised as land adjacent to a building owned by an Italian real estate developer before it could be registered as a port.

Many cargo ports
The Old City harbour has a turnover of over three million tons, the Paljassaare harbour and Vene-Balti port are approaching the same limit. The Port of Bekkeri is close to achieving one million tons.

The Vene-Balti port and the Port of Bekkeri in Kopli Bay and the Port of Peetri in Tallinn Bay date back to before World War I when huge shipyards were built as part of Peter the Great’s sea fortress in Tallinn. The BLRT Group has succeeded in reforming the former Baltic Shipyard located in the Vene-Balti Port into a well-operating shipyard, and has integrated it with the former Noblessner Shipyard in the Port of Peetri. But the North Basin of the Vene-Balti Port is used as a gateway for transit of oil and petroleum products.

The Paljassaare harbour in Tallinn Bay also has trouble with the transportation of goods, including petroleum products, by rail or by trucks through the whole city. The Port of Bekkeri was also intended to be used as a port of transit for petroleum products.

Most goods in transit have already been transferred out of Tallinn: to Muuga harbour east of Tallinn and to the ports of Paldiski west of Tallinn. As the rail transport to Paldiski passes through Tallinn, the Port of Tallinn is, by the proposal of Tallinn city authorities, starting to plan moving the railway route to the outskirts of the city.

Mostly passenger fleet
Since August 1991, when the Estonian flag was hoisted on all ships, the composition of the fleet has totally changed. At that time Tallinn was the home port for two big state fleets. One state fleet went into bankruptcy; the other was privatised by a Norwegian owner. Tallinn used to be the home port of the only passenger ship, Georg Ots, for an international route.

At present the biggest ships are the passenger ferries that belong to Tallink – a company that got its name from Tallinn. There are only a few cargo ships and no more large fishing vessels. In addition to Tallink, two more shipowners are active in providing passenger traffic service. These are the Saaremaa Shipping Company in Kuressaare and Linda Line in Tallinn. From operating only one ship, with the same name as that of the company, Tallink has today the largest market share on the Tallinn–Helsinki route, and it has also taken over the Tallinn–Stockholm route from Estline and opened the Paldiski–Kapellskär and Tallinn–St Petersburg lines. Tallink also owns the two newest passenger ships cruising on the Baltic Sea.

Smaller companies
The merchant fleet has had to re-establish itself in the new economic situation. Big ocean ships have been replaced with smaller ships, and instead of big Soviet shipping companies there are new and smaller companies. The flagship of Estonian shipping – the Estonian Shipping Company – has been divided into smaller affiliated companies; the name of the biggest cargo vessel company belongs to a relatively new company called Euro-Baltic Shipping Services, which operates nine ships.

The ships work mainly in the Baltic Sea area and in northern Europe. As the continuity of Estonian shipping was interrupted and the young state has not assembled a vast shipping capital, many ships belong to banks and are only operated by shipping companies. Some ships have been pledged to banks through foreign subsidiaries and brought under the Estonian flag with the help of bareboat charters. While ten years ago the ageing of the fleet was a problem, today one-third of cargo vessels are younger than ten years old.

“Costa Marina” and “Jewel of the Seas” came from St Petersburg to the new cruise quay in Tallinn at the beginning of June. PHOTO: MADLI VITISMANN

Seamen under foreign flags
When ships left to sail under foreign flags, seamen lost their jobs. Still, Estonian seamen are valued for their good education and diligence, and many of them have found jobs under foreign flags. Most of them work far away just like hundred years ago, but even some of those seamen who work at home work under a foreign flag – two high-speed craft on the Tallinn–Helsinki route fly the Norwegian flag and two the Italian flag.

The seaman’s profession was prestigious both before the war and also during the Soviet times but nowadays it is slowly losing ground as the salaries on shore have grown at a faster rate than on board ships. The Estonian fleet is small and has no ships for training purposes – as a result it is difficult to find possibilities for sea-going practice while being a student at the Maritime Academy.

Comprehensive academy
The tradition of maritime education that started in 1864 has not been interrupted. The present Estonian Maritime Academy has offered an education since Tallinn Maritime School was founded in 1919, but in the Soviet times studies were in Russian and the students came from all over the Soviet Union. At that time a new school building was planned to be built away from the sea in a new housing district.

In the beginning of the 1990s, when there were many companies that provided services to shipping companies, many deck officers and engineers started to work there. The study language used in the Estonian Maritime Academy was once again Estonian and students could be divided into three parts of more or less equal size: one third came from Tallinn, one from the islands and one from the inland areas. New departments were created and by now the first students have already defended their master’s degrees. Now it is also possible to study maritime and port economics, hydrography and hydrometeorology; each year a total of 60 students start learning these specialties.

The competition for entry to the traditional seaman’s profession (total of 110 student places) has decreased. According to the rector of the academy, Jüri Lember, the interest is still big among Russians.

Maritime lexicon
As Estonia is a small country, many things that are elsewhere done as paid labour are done here on a voluntary basis. Many maritime enthusiasts are simultaneously involved in many organisations and are engaged in many time-consuming tasks.

For example, the Estonian working group in the Estonia commission was fiercely criticised by Swedish journalists because they did not know that the members of the commission were not working as paid labour, but it was on a voluntary basis, after a hard days’ work. The commission consisted of the director of the new bureau of the Law of the Sea, a professor at the Technical University and a director of a department of the Estonian Maritime Administration.

Estonian-language maritime terminology has also been developed after the day’s work is done; during the decades when all Estonian seamen studied in Russian, Estonian terminology tended to date back to the times of sailboats. Now the independent state’s maritime legislation, maritime education and seamen’s everyday language uses correct Estonian terminology, and more than anyone else Estonians have the commission of maritime terminology to thank, who participated for more than ten years in the compilation of the Estonian Maritime Lexicon. The core of this commission that includes specialists from various areas of seafaring now continues the proofreading of the Estonian translations of the international conventions and is carrying on the compilation of the Estonian-English Maritime Dictionary.

History in a chubby tower
The commission of the maritime terminology, various nautical and maritime clubs and societies come together in the “Fat Margaret” gate tower in the city wall that is the home of the Estonian Maritime Museum. The museum has been a home for the Estonian Seamen’s League, Polar Club, Viikar underwater archeology club and other societies that unified seamen at the time of the restoration of independence.
Maritime history is not only of interest to the professional museum staff, but to many enthusiasts who have come together in the museum. Their articles are often published in the only nautical journal, the Meremees, and they participate in the organisation of exhibitions in the museum. An important part of the museum’s exposition is taken up by historical ships: the museum takes pride in the icebreaker Suur Tõll (1914) and the submarine Lembit (1936). The sailboat Vega and the shark-type yacht and Soviet border guard patrol boat Grif are going to be refit soon.

Since the Maritime Museum got its own research boat, the Mare, a lot of work has been done to map and study the wrecks lying on the seabed around Estonia and to make this area in the history of sea more popular.

Seafaring as an interesting area of activity is being popularised by enthusiasts. The owner of the steam tugboat Admiral organised a Sea Day close to the centre of the city, which attracted a lot of young people; the owner of the old two-mast fore and aft schooner Iris plans to build a copy of the sailboat as a constantly changing exhibition. The Sea club for young people has been the place where many young people have first come into contact with and become interested in the sea.

//Madli Vitismann

Latest update 18-10-2006 8:49

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