Kuressaare, Estonia
Kuressaare is a town on the island of Saaremaa off of the coast of Estonia. During the time of the USSR, it was used as a military base, so was strictly off limit to foreigners and even to most Soviet citizens. Now it is a perfectly accessible four hour bus and boat journey outside of Tallinn.
It wasn’t a great welcome, arriving in the dark to a howling gale snapping large branches off of trees. The main street had been completely dug up for repair, so jumping between the roadworks and the puddles was fairly challenging. Luckily the next day was much more pleasant and I got to explore the well-restored historic castle.
The most interesting thing I found was the Kaali crater, not far outside of the town. It was formed by a meteorite in around 1500 BC — relatively recently — and one of only three impact events ever in a populated area. For hundreds of years, it was a sacred place, with a stone wall encircling it. This was signposted in Estonian, alongside the ruins of an ancient iron smelting hut, which had used the metal from the meteorite. The strangest sign, next to a tree trunk, translated to “fucking tree”. Subtitle: ‘Saaremaa’s last fuck”. I have no idea what that was about.
