A Baltic State of Mind

AS OUR BUS ROLLS NORTH across the woodsy border between Latvia and Estonia, the driver flicks on a CD of Estonian folk songs. Some sound plaintive; some patriotic. One is eerily familiar. You’ve not lived until you’ve heard the theme from High Noon (“Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’ ”) belted out in Estonian. “Our language is a bit like Finnish,” the driver says, “and very little else.”

The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, stacked like jigsaw puzzle pieces beside the Baltic Sea, are once again free, having ousted their Soviet occupiers in 1991. In just 15 years, they have emerged as safe, stable, winsome lands, whose medieval hearts and young populations are equally enchanting. And there’s the trophy factor: “Everyone’s been to Geneva,” a New York businessman says as our jet lands in the capital of Lithuania, “but who’s been to Vilnius?”

While all three joined the European Union in the class of 2004, their differences remain fierce points of pride: distinct languages, customs, personalities and currency. Traditional menus vary, yet all feature potatoes. More pork and fish crop up in Estonia; more elk and boar in Lithuania, where at Zemaiciu Smukle, a handsome cellar restaurant in Vilnius, I ate my first zeppelin —cepelinai—a grated potato-and-egg dish shaped like a zeppelin and stuffed with minced veal, cheese and mushrooms.

“This is definitely not lighter than air,” says a biker from Finland, who nonetheless cleans his plate and downs a Svyturys beer.

LITHUANIA, THE SOUTHERNMOST of the Baltics and, by a fraction, the largest (about the size of West Virginia but still bigger than Belgium, Denmark or Switzerland), is the most Roman Catholic and the least Russian in heritage. On long summer nights, Lithuanians flock to beer gardens and discos, enjoying their reputation as the most easy-going, vivacious and fun-loving—“the Italians of the Baltic.”

Since Vilnius, a venerable university town, was designated to be Europe’s Capital of Culture for 2009, the place has become a whirring fixer-upper project. Streets and sidewalks are being repaired. The smell of fresh plaster mingles with the musky scent of prayer candles in monasteries and Baroque churches, which were reduced to storehouses during the Soviet years. On the way to a chamber-music concert at St. Catherine’s Church, I walk through gritty loam in front of a sparkling Armani boutique, my black suede shoes turning gray. Young mothers smile as they maneuver baby strollers over the same obstacle course. The scene is especially boggling since my day began with a tour of the Museum of Genocide in a dank and terrifying former KGB prison, where political dissidents were tortured and shot as recently as 1987.

ESTONIA, THE NORTHERNMOST and smallest of the Baltics, is the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. Despite warring invaders—from Vikings to Nazis—the capital, Tallinn, has preserved its splendid Old Town and more than a mile of thick walls and turreted gates. Gabled merchants’ houses from the 16th century stand shoulder to shoulder. Café tables line sloping, cobbled squares. Crafts shops sell Baltic amber necklaces and rings, and fragrant juniper wood boxes from the nearby island of Saaremaa. (Estonia claims 1,000 islands; Lithuania and Latvia, none.)

Sleek high-rise hotels stand outside the historic heart, offering storybook views of domes and spires. Dreary Soviet blockhousing was, fortunately, kept at a distance.

Estonians are known as the most cool, self-contained and silent of Baltic people. Their heritage is to live apart from one another, enjoying solitude and nature. Mobile phones and computers have reinforced the stereotype; Estonians rely on them for banking, shopping, paying bills, messaging—anything rather than deal in person. National outbursts are notable: The place erupted in 2001 when Estonia won the Eurovision Song Contest (200 million TV viewers in a competition that launched ABBA and Celine) and again this February, when Estonians garnered three gold medals for cross-country skiing at the Winter Olympic Games in Turin.

LATVIA, WHOSE BEWITCHINGLY cosmopolitan capital, Riga, is the largest Baltic city, falls in the middle—by geography, temperament and “just about everything else,” says an England- born guide who travels in all three countries. Blocks of Art Nouveau buildings from the early 20th century have been restored as fanciful architectural monuments. Along Vilnades, Elizabetes and Kalku streets, façades gleam with human profiles and animals, garlands of flowers and fruit.

Riga’s vibrant Old Town is nestled between the River Daugava and a willow-lined, pedal-boat canal that started life as a moat. Street musicians seem to be everywhere, playing the Baltic zither, accordion or violin. With a glance at approaching tourists, they break into appropriate anthems: “Finlandia,” “O Canada,” “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Riga’s musical heritage is legend: Its ballet school launched native son Mikhail Baryshnikov. The hulking, dark-brick Lutheran cathedral, begun in 1211, houses a 6,768-pipe organ. Its sounds, I can vouch, are stentorian. At a sold-out Sunday night concert, the organist and a bass soloist from the Latvian National Opera bring thousands to their feet to applaud “Ave Maria.” Singing in the Baltics has been a melodic form of defiance through centuries of occupation.

IT’S ONLY 376 MILES from Vilnius to Tallinn, but I prowl by bus for 10 days, stopping at fishing villages, wayside inns, the 14th-century fortress of Trakai (in serene lake country, less than an hour from Vilnius) and the magnificently restored Rundale Palace in western Latvia, built in the 1700s by the same architect who designed the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

A new north-south route—the Via Baltica—is still under construction. During delays, there is time to admire forests of silver birch and red-barked Baltic pine, and glimpse families on weekend outings, gathering wild berries and mushrooms. Blackand- white storks patrol open fields, their huge nests bristling on chimney tops. Windmills spin in the countryside and at open-air folk museums, such as Rocca al Mare, west of Tallinn.

The Baltics are mostly flatlands of bogs and woods, the highest elevation barely 1,000 feet. A river gorge in Latvia’s 350- acre Gauja National Park, is affectionately called “Little Switzerland” and boasts a stunted ski lift and bobsled run. One of Lithuania’s prime attractions, the Hill of Crosses, is actually little more than a knoll. Geography is not the point, however.

The Hill is an amazing site of pilgrimage; thousands of crosses are planted in the soil, tiny ones dangling from larger ones, tinkling like sleigh bells in the breeze. Brides and grooms pay tribute on their wedding days. Fame was bolstered by a visit from Pope John Paul II in 1993.

Silver-dune beaches stretch the length of the Baltic Sea, luring hikers, sun seekers and the odd character hoping to find bits of prized amber washed up on the sand. On the boardwalk at the Estonian spa of Parnu, a holidaygoer says: “Not much gets done in Tallinn in July. Those who can, go to the beach. Those who cannot are thinking about it.”

WHETHER ITS ELDERS totally approve or not, Tallinn is Europe’s newest economic boomtown. The old Hanseatic port has become one of the most wired cities on earth, a place so Web-savvy it is known as E-stonia.

Seven or eight cruise ships a day line the docks in summertime. Finns come by hydro- foil, ferryboat and helicopter (an 18- minute flight from Helsinki) on shopping sprees dubbed “vodka tourism.” (Alcohol is highly taxed in Scandinavia.) “We invented the vodka suitcase,” a shopkeeper brags. “It looks like regular luggage, but it is divided to hold eight bottles.”

Estonians also reap the benefits of stag tourism. Bachelors from the United Kingdom and Germany arrive with pals for weekends of prenuptial carousing. Why? Because Easy Jet and others have launched cheap flights; because the English pound goes a long way; because Estonian girls are beautiful.

“A London taxi driver can be a big spender here,” a hotel clerk says. “And if his mates dress him in a pink tutu and parade him around, no one at home needs to know.”

Still, old ways persist. At Café Anglais, a British ex-pat cites the TV show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? as a primetime example of the Estonian aversion to small talk or, worse, risking error.

“You know when a contestant is given 30 seconds to phone a friend for help? Here, often as not, the friend will stare into space for 29 seconds and then blurt: ‘I don’t know.’ ”

If You Go

Direct flights go to the Baltic capitals from Frankfurt, London, Helsinki and other European cities. Modern, comfortable buses are the best way to travel within the Baltics; trains are few and not dependable. A travel itinerary from south to north has greater dramatic impact because of the stardust wonder of Tallinn’s Old Town. Rental cars are available, but drivers are notoriously reckless and some roads are little more than country lanes. Hotels, inns and restaurants are topnotch. Prices are lower than in much of Europe. For further information, visit the Web sites balticsww.com; baltictravel.net; rigathisweek.lv.

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