Tallinn: Old Town in Depth - Part 9

Pikk Street

This literally means “Long Street, ” and is the medieval merchants’ main street. It leads from the harbour up into town and is lined with interesting buildings. Many of them were warehouses, complete with cranes on the gables.

A short way up the street on the right, the buildings nicknamed the “Three Sisters”, which is now a hotel, are perfect examples of a merchant home/warehouse/office from the 15th-century Hanseatic Golden Age. The charmingly carved door near the corner evokes the wealth of Tallinn’s merchant class.

After another short walk, you’ll pass St. Olav’s Church, once the tallest spire in the land. If the name didn’t tip you off that this was once a Lutheran church, then the stark, whitewashed interior guarantees it.

While tourists see only a peaceful scene today, locals strolling this street are reminded of darker times under Moscow’s rule. The KGB used the tower at St. Olav’s Church to block Finnish TV signals. The handsome building at Pikk #59, the second house after the church, on the right, was before 1991 the local headquarters of the KGB. “Creative interrogation methods” were used here. Locals knew that the road of suffering started here, as Tallinn’s troublemakers were sent to Siberian gulags. The ministry building was called the “tallest” building in town. Estonian humour, because “when you’re in the basement, you can already see Siberia”. You can see the bricked-up windows at foot level and the commemorative plaque, which is only Estonian.

Carry on walking a short way farther up Pikk and after the small park, on the left at number 26, is the extremely ornate doorway of the Brotherhood of the Black Heads.

Brotherhood of the Black Heads

Built in 1440, this house was used as a German merchants’ club for nearly 500 years until Hitler invited Estonian Germans back to their historical fatherland in the 1930s. Before the 19th century, many Estonians lived as serfs on the rural estates of the German nobles who dominated the economy. In Tallinn, the German nobles were part of the Great Guild, which you will see farther up the street. This meant that the German more common people had to make do with the Brotherhood of the Black Heads.

This guild, or business fraternity, was limited to single German men. In Hanseatic towns, when a fire or battle had to be fought, single men were deployed first, because they had no family. Because single men were considered unattached to the community, they had no opportunity for power in the Hanseatic social structure. When a Black Head member married a local woman, he automatically gained a vested interest in the town’s economy and well-being. He could then join the more prestigious Great Guild, and with that status, a promising economic and political future often opened up.

Its namesake “black head” is that of St. Maurice, an early Christian soldier-martyr, beheaded in the third century A. D. for his refusal to honour the Roman gods. Reliefs decorating the building recall Tallinn’s Hanseatic glory days.

Continued in part 10