Estonia Freedom

Sunday, July 6, 2025

Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn is capital of Estonia with a huge town square teeming with hundreds of tourists from a handful of cruise ships along with us. A short walking tour allowed us to take in some interesting and colorful architecture, ancient wall ramparts, a monument to Estonia’s independence in 1991 and a glimpse of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Despite a turbulent past, Estonia is a tech savvy democracy — the first country to adopt online voting in national elections. Wonder how that would fly in the USA?

The “Singing Revolution” was a remarkable nonviolent movements where a nation quite literally sang its way to freedom. Between 1987 and 1991, Estonians gathered in massive numbers—sometimes over 300,000 people—at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds to sing patriotic songs that had been banned under Soviet rule. When the Soviet Union fell apart, these spontaneous and organized gatherings became a powerful form of peaceful protest against Soviet occupation. Perhaps this non-violent form of protest could take hold in America as it has in other Baltic countries.