Fed up with the fickle English weather, I decided I wanted beauty and beer so booked a last-minute weekend trip to Tallinn. In addition to the sunshine, it also meant that I could visit a friend who is presently an officer serving with the NATO taskforce in Estonia. The British Army demurely calls Operation Cabrit its “Forward Land Forces” in the Baltic States.
More straightforwardly, His Majesty’s Armed Forces are there to deter anyone else from being there instead.
It doesn’t take long to work out who might have Tallinn in their sights. The smart hotel where I stayed was once the Soviet naval headquarters: marble floors, crisp linen and smoked fish for breakfast, but with an anchor and red star in the pediment. On the other side of the Old Town a plaque identifies the former KGB headquarters: “Here began the road to suffering for thousands of Estonians.” The cells where prisoners were tortured are now a sobering exhibition space.
