The Daughter of the Baltic

Thursday, August 13, 2026

Helsinki, the capital of Finland is a clean, modern city of nearly 700,000 and a metropolitan area over 1 million. The population of all of Finland is about 5.7 million. Helsinki has one of the highest urban standards of living in the world and always get top scores on ratings of “happiness.” 

Helsinki was officially founded by King Gustav I of Sweden in 1550, although there had been settlements in the area for many centuries before that time. The buildings were mostly wooden and the town suffered from recurring fires, war, and disease over the centuries. It wasn’t until 1809 that the town began to grow into a significant port city under Russian dominion The city was made the capital of Finland in 1812.

Given this history, it is no surprise that Helsinki does not have an Old Town, though it has a typical and charming European townscape full of neoclassical buildings as well as structures influenced by Art Nouveau and romantic nationalism.

We took a shuttle from the port to a street corner near the Esplanade where we board a return shuttle later in the day. 

Havis Amanda, 1906

The President’s Palace

Market Square - the white tents sell crafts and non-food items

Food is sold in the orange tents

Senate Square

Helsinki Cathedral (Lutheran)

Senate

University of Helsinki on the left, National Library on the right

Cinnamon pastries and lattes at Cafe Engel

After our coffee break (a very Scandinavian thing to do), we walked along the shopping street that runs along one side of the Esplanade. We couldn’t resist ducking into Iittala (glassware), Arabia (ceramics), and Marimekko (fabric and housewares). We did a little shopping and a little geocaching and then realized we were out of gas, so we decided to go back to the ship while we could still walk. You may have noticed that we have had port visits for several days in a row.

A ferry sailing along while the sun sets

I liked the shopping  because I love the Scandinavian minimalist approach to housewares and furnishings and they don’t sell all kinds of crap from China, but I liked Helsinki in general a bit less than I liked the other cities we have visited so far. Helsinki seemed to have less personality or character. The tourist attractions were quite spread out, and they didn’t seem as interesting as I expected. The things we did see were not evocative. I was disappointed that Market Square was simply a bunch of tents. Most of the buildings were shaped like big boxes (though they were well-maintained and not unadorned).

A lot of the architecture here is based on the principles of functionalism, which means design follows function - but aesthetics, not so much. Maybe that is what I was reacting to. On the other hand, people here are among the happiest in the world, so . . . ?

What would someone from Scandinavia think about Anchorage? Most of our buildings were not designed with any design philosophy in mind, merely expedience, and our townscape was planned to accommodate cars over people. Are people in Anchorage happy? I would be surprised if Anchorage made a list of the world’s happiest cities.

I believe there must be a lot of intangible things you can’t see when you walk around that affect happiness. Perhaps buildings don’t affect happiness much at all. How much of it is cultural? I wish I’d had a chance to meet some Finnish people.

Today’s fabric is “Kukasta Kukkaan” (“from flower to flower”) by Marimekko, a major Finnish design company.

Towers and Spires

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Today we are visiting the third Baltic state, Estonia. Estonia, with a population around 1,363,000, is a developed country with an advanced economy and a highly educated population. (Did you know that Skype was developed in Estonia?) Estonia’s capital is Tallinn (rhymes with Stalin), with a population of roughly 450,000. The written history of Tallin can be traced back to 1219.

Estonian is the official language, but English seems to be widely spoken. Estonian is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, and is therefore not an Indo-European language, like the Romance, Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic languages.

We visited Tallinn several years ago and took a tour, so we decided not to take one this time. We followed Rick Steves’ plan for a walk through the Old Town.

Our walk started at Fat Margaret.

Can you find the Fat Margaret?

Fat Margaret is the name of the tower that guarded the entry gate to the Old Town during the Hanseatic era, and perhaps earlier. There is a small cafe on the roof, and you can enjoy the view. There is also supposed to be a geocache up there, but I was unable to find it. 

View from the top of Fat Margaret. The Gothic tower on the right is the imposing
spire of St. Olav’s Church.

View from the top of Fat Margaret. Sapphire Princess is on the right.

Inside the tower you will find a very well-curated museum. We weren’t planning to visit the museum, but we were drawn in by the nautical theme of the exhibits. The first level had a display reminiscent of the fabulous Vasa Museum in Stockholm. An ancient cargo vessel had been discovered and carefully excavated. Many artifacts were found with the boat and were remarkably well preserved.

The boat was a type called a “cog” and was used by traders to transport goods in the Baltic region.The boat was shipwrecked in a location that was under water at the time, but is now on dry land. The wreck was discovered in Tallinn in 2015 during construction work, and was named “Peeter’s Cog.”

It was carefully excavated and preserved, and now is on display in the museum. Scientists used dendrology to date the wreck. Dendrology is the study of tree rings in the wood. They found that the trees used to make the wood for Peeter’s Cog were cut down afetr 1296 in an area that is now part of Poland.

Models of the wreck and an intact cog

Other levels of the museum had displays of sailing ships from later periods, early steamboats, and motorized vessels. The models were very detailed and fun to look at.

Below is a model of the passenger ferry MS Estonia, operated by EstLine. In September 1994, this ship sank in the Baltic Sea, en route from Talinn to Stockholm, during a severe storm. Of the 989 people on board, 852 died - making it the deadliest peacetime shipwreck in European waters. As a result of this disaster, new international safety regulations were adopted.

MS Estonia

After an hour or more at Fat Margaret, we strolled along Pikk Street, a medieval market street. We passed old warehouses with cranes on the gables, and guild halls such as the Brotherhood of the Blackheads and the Great Guild Hall.

Typical warehouses with cranes on the gables

In medieval times, German nobles dominated the Estonian economy. The leading German nobles were part of the Great Guild. Single German men belonged to the Brotherhood of the Black Heads.

The Great Guild Hall

The Brotherhood of the Black Heads

Town Hall Square (Raekoja Plats) and Tallinn Town Hall (Raekoda).
St. Nicholas Church on the right, in background

Riga doesn’t have a monopoly on Art Nouveau

We found a shop that sold beautiful buttons made from various local woods

Just look at these colorful fabrics from different regions of Estonia!

We had lunch at a place on the Town Hall Square called Kaerajaan, which describes its food as “modern Estonian cuisine.” The food was outstanding. I had a goat cheese salad that was perfect in every respect, from the dressing to the cheese. Ken loved his duck breast salad. I was also fascinated by the clever little homemade napkin rings they had. They were made from a traditional Estonian folk fabric. I am going to try to make some when I get home.

Duck Breast Salad

Goat Cheese Salad

We didn’t have time to visit the upper part of Old Town or any new parts of Tallinn, but we really enjoyed this clean, charming, pleasantly quirky Old Town. It was fun and relaxing to explore the lovely shops and interesting nooks and crannies without being on someone else’s schedule. 

On the way back to the ship we encountered St. Catherine’s Passage with five curious medieval stone arches.

I really liked Tallinn. The shops were inviting and sold interesting locally-produced crafts at reasonable prices. The architecture is varied and lends so much character to the Old Town. The Old Town is bustling, but not overcrowded. There is so much history in the old walls, the defensive towers, and the soaring church spires.

The other noteworthy experience today was the European Eclipse. We were not in the zone of totality, but we were in the zone of about 90%. The eclipse here occurred just before sunset, which means the sun was very low on the horizon, which means you don’t get a sore neck from watching the eclipse. 

In case you are wondering, yes, we did have some of those cheesy cardboard eclipse glasses, and they did meet the proper safety standards of some institute. I ordered them from Amazon earlier this summer. We received several warnings from Princess about the danger of looking at the eclipse without eclipse glasses and a multi-page letter came to our room about eclipse safety. Te letter also explained how to photograph the eclipse. You needed special lenses for your camera, which we did not have, so we didn’t even try. Princess also arranged to live-stream a special broadcast from NASA on the ship’s TV system, so we watched part of the eclipse in our stateroom. The NASA program was very well done. As sunset approached, we went up to one of the top decks to see the eclipse at its maximum point, along with the sunset. It was very cool, but it was over so quickly. 

The Perseid meteor shower was going to be visible in the middle of the night, so we did not try to see that also.It was a long day.

Today’s fabric is packing fabric. In the Middle Ages, goods were wrapped in coarse, durable material to protect them during shipment. Typical fibers used in this region would have been flax, wool, or goat hair. 

I encountered an exhibit in the Fat Margaret museum which included a length of packing material found with the wreck of Peeter’s Cog, described above. I believe the primary fiber in this piece is goat hair. The fabric is estimated to be around 700 years old. Amazing!

It Is All About Memory

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

"For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences." - Elie Wiesel, winner of Nobel Peace Prize 

Our tour today was called “Riga’s Jewish Heritage.” Our excellent guide was Edgars. Riga is the capital of Latvia. The population of Riga is around 589,000. The population of Latvia is around 1.83 million. Riga is an ancient trading city. It became a member of the Hanseatic League in 1282.

To begin our tour, our bus drove us up and down several streets in the center of Riga so that we could see some of Riga’s magnificent Art Nouveau buildings. There are over 800 Art Nouveau buildings in Riga - one of the largest collections of Art Nouveau buildings in the world - and it gives the city a very elegant look.

Art Nouveau is an international style of art and architecture that was popular during the 1890’s and the first decade of the 1900’s. Art Nouveau is characterized by sinuous curves, nature themes, the innovative use of iron, glass and ceramics, and merging fine art with functional craftmanship.

Here are four examples of outstanding Art Nouveau buildings we saw in Riga.

Well-preserved Art Deco buildings, from the 1910’s through the 1930’s, could also be seen. Geometric shapes, symmetry, and vertical lines are characteristics of the Art Deco style.

Riga is also known for its large number of wooden buildings from the 19th century that still exist in the older parts of the city.

Warning: The following is disturbing and may be hard to read, but please don’t skip it. When we don’t want to know, or don’t want to think about it, we enable the perpetrators. (And you don’t want to miss today’s fabric.)

Riga has had a Jewish community since the 15th century. In 1935, there were 44,000 Jews living in Riga. In 1940, The Red Army of the Soviet Union entered Riga and arrested Jewish religious and political leaders. The Nazis followed with worse attacks on the Jews.

Our first stop where we got off the bus was at the ruins of the Great Choral Synagogue. It was built in 1868 and was the biggest and most beautiful synagogue in Riga. It was the center of Jewish life in Riga until World War II. At the beginning of the war, German soldiers forced 300 Jews into the basement of the synagogue and then threw grenades into the windows. The building burned down and there were no survivors.

Near the ruins of the Great Choral Synagogue stands the Monument to Zanis Lipke and all the Saviors of Jews. This monument features a collapsing wall, representing the Jewish people, and supports holding up the wall, bearing the names of Latvian non-Jews who risked everything to help save Jews from Nazi atrocities.

In October of 1941, the Nazis rounded up all the Jews of Riga and forced them into a small area which became a ghetto. The Jews were only allowed to bring a few possessions. The Nazis quickly stole the rest of their property. Conditions in the ghetto were dire: food was scarce, each person was allowed no more than 4 to 6 square meters of space, there was forced labor, and there were beatings and executions for minor infractions of the harsh rules.

On November 30 and December 8, 1941, the Nazis carried out the massacre of the 26,000 remaining Jews of Riga with extreme cruelty. In the cold winter weather, the Jews were forced to march from the ghetto to Rumbula Forest, on the outskirts of Riga. There, in huge pits dug by Russian prisoners of war, the Jews would be buried. The Nazis had developed a system to maximize “efficiency” and minimize the cost of bullets and the amount of work involved in their project of mass murder.

Groups of Jews were made to strip and enter each pit. They were made to lie face down on the bottom. Then they were shot in the head, one by one. The next group was required to lie down on top of the bodies of the group that had just been killed. Then they were killed. This process was repeated until 26,000 Jews were killed and the huge pits were full.

But this time there were a few survivors who managed to play dead or hide. They stayed in the woods, overnight, in freezing weather. This is how we know the details of the massacre.

Although this massacre was second in scope only to Babi Yar, I had not heard of Rumbula, despite the many books I have read about the Holocaust.

Today, there is a memorial in the forest where the outlines of six grim pits tell the story.

The entrance to the memorial area

A concrete edge marks the location of one of the mass graves

This tour, and especially the visit to Rumbula Forest, was a sobering experience, but it is important to go to sites like this and let the world know that people care what happened and that the events of those dark days will be remembered, along with the victims and the heroes.

 Our final stop was in Old Town, where Edgars led us on a short walking tour which included the Peitav Synagogue. It is the only active synagogue in Riga. The building survived the Holocaust because of its location. It was too close to a church and other historic buildings for the Nazis to burn it down. 

The synagogue is known for its architecture, as well as its history. It is Art Nouveau and Egyptian Revival. I find this a surprising style for an Orthodox synagogue, but it was a lovely venue.

Edgars told us there are presently about 11,000 Jews living in Latvia. I suspect that many of them (or their parents) emigrated from Russia and Ukraine in the post-war or post-Soviet period. 

The Old Town was large and interesting, with many beautiful buildings, shops, and restaurants. It was lively, but not too crowded. Charming, charming, charming.

This tour was excellent. It was moving and I learned so much about Latvia, about Latvian Jews, and about the historic connections between all the countries on the Baltic. I did not find it too unbearable to hear and see the difficult parts, although one woman in our tour group wept most of the time we were in Rumbula Forest. I thought Edgars handled it all very well.

Today’s fabric is riveted denim. Jacob Davis (born Jacob Youphes in 1831) was a Jewish tailor from Riga who invented riveted denim jeans in 1871. The rivets kept pockets and seams from ripping when miners and laborers wore denim clothing for heavy work. Davis later partnered with Levi Strauss, and the rest is history.

Photo from denimhunters.com