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Tallinn as a City of Thresholds

Francisco Martnez

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy;

for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die

to one life before we can enter another. (Anatole France)1

Introduction

This article is an inquiry into the interplay between the social and physical environment in post-socialist cities. The concepts of entropy and suture are here proposed as means to study the gaps and interim joints within the cityscape. As I argue in this work, this mirrors the accumulation of unfinished projects, vulnerabilities and sites of disrepair, which makes of Tallinn a city of thresholds (experienced as an amalgam of different states and a succession of passages). The study draws on qualitative research, examining ordinary daily street life, uses of space and users of the city. Besides a literature review, I include direct observation, fieldnotes and my experience of living in the Estonian capital. Through multiple examples, I will expose how disparate vectors and scraps give shape to Tallinn, producing specific forms of material culture and social infrastructures which are far more complex than the monolithic descriptions of transition and even post-socialism.

In Tallinn, history is manifested through gaps and loops of cycles rather than through layers of sedimentation. One of the common denominator in the Eastern European region during the twentieth century it is the discontinuity, since it has been marked by a succession of wars, occupations and failed projects of independence that eventually produced several accelerations of history, dependency upon foreign investments and the need to internally translate external processes. In his Archeology of Socialism (1999), Victor Buchli puts the emphasis on the play of gaps and their resultant scraps that echoes violent changes and ruptures, removing a sort of middle third in the cityscape. In post-socialist cities this is perceived as a lack of contextual fit, symbolic saturation and needs for (material and social) sutures.

In medical terms, a suture is an element that stitches wounds. In anatomy, a suture is a joint between rigid pieces. Karl Schlgel distinguishes between hot and cold locations. Hot places of a city are those in the making, while cold ones appear already consolidated (2003: 292). Here I want to argue that in post-socialist cities places in the making have a suturing role. These hot locations function between disparate rigidities. Those places that were consolidated in the past are mostly assessed in light of two categories: derelict material to be recycled or heritage to be imitated. Recently developed cold places respond, in contrast, to other criteria such as innovation, functionality, profit and intensification of global processes.

The suturing stitches produced by hot locations demonstrate quite different qualities, such as inclusiveness, elasticity, accessibility and a survival negotiation of late-modernity. The suturing character of these places in the making relates to the accumulation of unfinished projects and the attempts to repair the holes of the system (before it was socialism, now high-capitalism). In Western Europe the repairing is nowadays a consequence of austerity policy and crisis, while in Eastern Europe we find a long pattern of remont of history, of buildings, of items, of monuments and even of independence. Neither sutures, nor repairings, heal any

1 France, Anatole 2007 [1881]. The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard. New York: Mondial. Pp. 140.

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wound or consolidate intersections. These remonts rather calm an infection that might reappear in an unexpected form.

Sutures in post-socialist societies

My first example is the Balti Jaama turg, a bazaar that appeared in Tallinn during the Perestroika. Since its very origin, this open-air-market has been providing services and goods that were not channelled by the State or the prevailing economic system. In this sense, it is inaccurate to describe the Balti Jaama turg as an opposing force to modernity or capitalism, or a residue of history. Rather I propose to approach it as a social infrastructure that fills the gaps and failures of late-modernity and a site of interaction that sutures the Estonian society. Indeed, this post-socialist bazaar raises questions about social integration and language skills, since many of the workers in the market speak only Russian or have not managed to adapt to the radical transformations of the last decades.

From the survival function that characterised these sites of exchange in the late eighties and early nineties (a period characterised by shortage economy and political turmoil), they evolved into a space of inclusive co-habitation, whereby minor communities and marginal individuals find not only a refuge but also a sense of belonging and a gate of access to the city center. As I noted in my ethnography on the site, many of the workers live in distant districts of Tallinn, such as Lasname, Mustame and Kopli (Martnez 2014c). Likewise, there are a great number of pensioners, who confessed to me that if not for the market, they would just sit at home all week long.2

Commonly situated in communication hubs, post-socialist bazaars function as a space of inclusion for precariously positioned groups: for elderly residents to stroll, ethnic minorities to wander without fear, and so on (Hwelmeier 2013). These sites of exchange still provide social glue and cultural air, through public interactions enhancing feelings of empathy and difference. These are nonetheless ambivalent spaces; on the one hand, because the presence of many people there is forced (looking for cheap products or not finding any other job). Yet on the other, these sites allow precariously positioned individuals to find camaraderie and reciprocity.3 Deema Kaneff (2002) puts forward uncertainty as a common feature among all these bazaars, since they are more exposed to social changes, combine a formal and informal functioning, and their vendors rely just on themselves, or on the near community of relatives.

In this article, I propose the notion of suture in order to understand the amalgamation of excesses and scarcities in post-socialist societies. Sutures are disjunctions that unite, present in the city as disordered joints between hard parts. This concept is inspired by what Filip de Boeck describes as non-architectural urban knots (2013) and Abdoumaliq Simone presents as opaque social infrastructures (2004), both in regards to African cities. The point I want to make here is that the post-socialist transformations have accentuated the divergences in this city, divergences that are deeper than logics of political winners and losers, or urban segregation and economic inequalities. The coexistence of mismatching material cultures and

2 Fieldwork on the site carried in Tallinn in April and May 2014.

3 Pachenkov O., Voronkova L. New Old Identities and Nostalgias for Socialism at St. Petersburg and Berlin Flea Markets. In Ingo W.,

Schroder& Asta Vonderau (Eds.) Changing Economies and Changing Identities in Postsocialist Eastern Europe. Halle Studies in the

Anthropology of Eurasia. Series. Lit Verlag, 2009 P. 191216. Also: Pachenkov, O. And Berman, D. Spaces of Conflict and Camaraderie.

The contradictory logics of a postsocialist flea market. In Cross, J. And Morales, A. Street Entrepreneurs: People, Place, & Politics in Local

and Global Perspective. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 201-223.

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the need of sutures have been extended and intensified by contemporary global processes of information and finance, late-modern practices of mobility, technological shifts, and new organizations of labor and consumption; all of them occurring simultaneously, or more precisely, being locally negotiated, translated and applied in a very short time.

Social transformations occur in an embedded way, being shaped while shaping. Embeddedness refers to the way political and economic transformations are negotiated and translated through local institutions, social relations and personal interactions. They eventually produce particular arrangements and condition the development of activities and policy. Decisions are unequivocally taken and carried on in determinate social circumstances, depending upon aspects such as personal situation, inherited culture, institutional building, historical context and specific political and economic regimes. This also relates to what Karl Polanyi defined as anthropological embeddedness (1944), describing the intricate relationship between the individual and society.

Recent transformations in the Estonian capital have not emerged from no-where. Local history, post-socialist transformation and globalization come all into play in Tallinn. In post-socialist countries, the waiting room of transition was obviously not empty; new transformations complemented old ones (often unfinished), always sensitive to the initial condition and thus not substituting them but complicating the process of social adaptation. In Tallinn, for instance, the quick secession from the socialist past was a driving force for urban changes that have occurred during the last twenty years. Contemporary discourses place the city in the North, highlighting the Nordic character instead the Russian and German one. Nonetheless, narratives of the city, as well as its touristic and economic labels, still rely on history, or at least on facts with a historical origin.

Since 1989, the cityscape reflects both the contrasts in the earlier (socialist and pre-socialist) contexts and the differences in recently adopted political strategies (Pickles and Smith 1998). Furthermore, Slavomira Ferenuhov finds similarities and differences in the urbanization processes of East and Western Europe, rather than radical cleavage (2012: 68). Hence, those dynamics might be also approached as parallel. In spite of acknowledging specific features such as delayed start and swifts and authoritarian policies, they both share the experience of industrialization and active planning with differences in the intended and unintended effects of state socialism (Enyedi 1996: 102; Skora 2009: 390). This doesnt undermine the relevancy of the post-socialist city concept, but rather talks about a multiplicity of modernities in modernity. Indeed, what any traveler notices when traveling in Central and Eastern Europe is a great mlange of practices, rhythms and identities beyond the obvious similarities in the recent architecture and history (Pickles and Smith 2007; Smith and Timr 2010).

Different authors (Gelazis, Czaplicka, and Blair, 2009; Hackmann 2009) have found within post-socialist cities a tremendous diversity of answers to the question what time is this place? Personal and social transitions do not always coincide; individual experiences are also conditioned by the group dynamics in which we individually engage (familiar, generational, etc) and not just by institutions or official discourses. As Kiril Stanilov explains, the dynamics of urban change vary in speed and character: Some periods are characterized by a continuation of existing trends and traditions, accumulating slow evolutionary changes. Others are much more turbulent, condensing significant transformations within short stretches of time (2007: 5).

Quite different trends are latent in the Estonian capital, coexisting in an entropic way; local history, socialism and post-socialism, and globalization all come into play. Continuities and discontinuities are thick in this region, a feature evidenced in the lack of contextual fit,

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redundancy and need of sutures. In this sense, I present Tallinn as a city of thresholds: with multiple ruptures, voids, injuries of time and crystallizations. The practice of walking along the harbor traces the shadow play of evolution and metamorphosis in the city and makes visible the act of change and its nonlinear outlines. One comes across construction sites, metal tunnels to entry into ferries, a museum of contemporary art, parking lots, alcohol shops, casinos with glossy neon lights, forgotten warehouses, factory skeletons, and abandoned buildings with graffiti on their walls. In a way, it is a constellation of diverse times against the grain of history, in this case conditioned by very disparate factors such as a long military occupation, intense industrialization and rapid privatization.

In Tallinn, as in other post-socialist cities, new entrepreneurial energies have fused with new retail and service activities in formerly mono-functional areas. Likewise, skyrocketing land values have directed the attention of high-profit, risk-seeking investors to the numerous brownfield sites (Stanilov 2007:10). Monocentric spatial structures have been turned into polycentric uses of the urban space, nowadays characterized by intense business activities, gated residential areas and private appropriation of public spaces (Hirt 2012).4 Indeed, Tallinn has 2 square meters of shopping floor space per inhabitant, appearing within the top 4 in Europe, and with new malls expected to be opened (ie. in Lasname) and extended (ie. lemiste) that figure is being increased.5

In the nineties, kiosks, bazaars and small shops filled sidewalks and squares in a chaotic way and displaying exotic names that attempted to reconfigure public space by establishing new historical and geographic connections (Oushakine 2009: 17). As described by Sonia Hirt, they generated a ground floor capitalism and garage architecture (Hirt 2013), which emerged at the time as hot locations. Later on (and following the pattern of perennial change), shopping malls, business towers and macro-residential developments reduced the in-the-making character of the cityscape. Several mega-projects have been created and consolidated, but this time as private commercial ventures sponsored by transnational capital. A good example of that is the former Sakala Keskus (Centre for Political Indoctrination), nowadays substituted by the Solaris shopping mall. The adaptation of this site (from the Soviet to the capitalist era) was the subject of an architectural competition in 2003, intending to build up a new cultural centre. Plans were changed, however, in 2006, when the demolition of the interior began. Against public protests, the building was pull down in March 2007, with the exception of a tower, integrated into the new shopping mall (Jrg 2009: 125).

The material legacies of the socialist regime, which were supposed to embody a radical social

change, have been desacralized both in function and in meaning. Additionally, the

emblematic sites of socialism have been supplemented with new identities through several

shifts in their function and the refresh experiences of the new generations. The Estonian capital has been shaped obviously by the multi-dimensional processes that occurred post-1989, greatly characterized by a shift from centralized state planning towards market economy and neo-liberalism, as well as the political weakness of the municipal government. This feature, as Szymon Marciczak argues (2011; 2013), has multiplied a series of

4 Sofia is one of the most extreme examples: 30% of its public green space has reportedly been lost in transition (Hirt 2012).

5 Tallinn has been called The Promised Land of Shopping Malls. See Baltic Business News 25.10.2013.

http://www.balticbusinessnews.com/article/2013/10/25/tallinn-the-promised-land-of-shopping-malls

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secessionary spaces and polarization within post-socialist cities (instead of being manifested as the Western segregation).6

FIGURE 17

In post-socialist cities, disturbing elements are not simply an expression of the past or a remaining to be easily removed (such as a monument, a bazaar or a ruin). Rather, such elements condition any forthcoming transformation, creating a particular sensibility and facilitating small variations to produce great changes in the totality. The imbalances manifested in post-socialist cities are far from neutral or necessary (a price to pay for democracy or freedom). In Tallinn, these inconsistencies and casualties also belong to a dense unitary fractal, in which certain patterns (regular and irregular) tend to repeat. To follow Johann Arnasons line of thought, there are regions and societies where the sequence of patterns of transformation can be reconstructed in terms of an internal logic, whereas in other cases, like Eastern Europe, it depends to a great extent on historical and geopolitical contexts (2005: 435). This exposure to externalities manifests in the cityscape as a response to the constant need for foreign investment, central plans of industrialization, military occupations, dependence of tourism and the succession of political ruptures that make the city become a capital, then a province, then a capital and finally both a capital and a province.

Foreign patterns are subjected to internal redefinitions and translations, finding an accumulation of projects that would have been completed differently in other domestic and international contexts. The notion of entropy helps us to map these translations, failures and processes of becoming (instead of following linear trajectories). Urban entropy can be noticed in a simple walk in the city, localizing mismatching material cultures and unharmonious social archipelagos within one glance. For instance, in the picture below we find (at least) five different times represented in one dure: the medieval towers, the Soviet factories, the ruinous Linnahall (Olympic concert hall), the skater engaged in a risky activity on the building and the spectator who perceives the scene with his/her own temporality as an eventscape. In my view, this image serves as an example of urban entropy in Tallinn that manifests asymmetry, irreversibility and unpredictability in processes of transformation.

FIGURE 28

A similar example can be found in the unfinished building behind the house-castle of Tatari 21b, a construction stopped in 1914 and never built to the end. Or in certain street signs such as in the image presented below from Koidu Street of Tallinn, in which we perceive not only the Russian past through the Cyrillic letters, but also its posterior erasure. This street sign has not changed since the Soviet time and the Cyrillic letters were simply painted on white. Koidu street is paradoxically situated at the heart of Uus Mailm, an increasingly gentrified area where young Estonians are moving in. When I asked two of the dwellers of the house on which the sign hangs about its story, they told me that the Cyrillic letters were not painted with any particular meaning in mind. According to one of the dwellers I met (a Russian hairdresser), the real reason is that the owner does not care much about the building, receiving the money without investing much in the property.

6 Marje Feldman remarks that institutional weakness and fragmentation breed reliance on fluid and personalized networks instead of

enduring partnerships, institutions or class interests (2000: 847); eventually producing an insane relationship between private investment

capital and the municipal authorities.

7 Photo taken in Lasname in 2012 by Anne Vatn.

8 Photo by Tony Hawk (published in the Facebook page of the Linnahall).

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FIGURE 39

It is not difficult in Tallinn to encounter a succession of abandoned properties, areas of high-speculation and consumption and forgotten ghettos of socially disadvantaged populations, reminding us of an amalgam of passages a threshold experience. For instance, around the central nelli area we find the previously mentioned open-air-market, and near to that a football pitch, medieval Baltic walls, ruinous factories, a hotel with Nordic design, vague spaces and forgotten railway roads. Not much further, we find an area (Kalamaja) that is beginning to suffer a gentrification process, but still including an Azerbaijanian stinky bistro, a suspicious night-club called Kolme Lvi (Three Lions), the 24/7 tseburek canteen and the piroshkis kiosk for late night comers escaping from hangover, as well as an Eastern-European style casino, a Peetri Pizza bistro, a grill kana kiosk, a R-kiosk shop, and a railway station which not so long ago was considered a driver for modernisation.10

On that area, we can also visit on Saturday the flea market Telliskivi Kirbuturg. The site where this flea market takes place was dedicated during the Soviet Union to the production of military weapons. Flea markets are a new (and successful) phenomenon in Tallinn, which emerged in 2009 and was extended to other places of the city. In the summer season, the Telliskivi Kirbuturg flea market is organised outdoors, nearby the F-hoone restaurant and the Telliskivi creative town. During the last two years, I noticed that the number of vendors and clients has almost doubled, yet the variety of items to be found there is paradoxically shrinking (mostly clothes and vintage items, nowadays). Almost every Saturday I see Slava (the seller of old bills and coins appearing in the photo) at the flea-market. Often, he asks me to translate what is written on rare medieval Spanish jettons. Behind him, we find the stand of Danilo, who sells fancy Scandinavian clothes for incredibly cheap prices. We even became friends and met a couple of times for a drink in non-market days. Danilo runs his own business, selling water tanks. Once I confessed to him that for these items, people would pay the double of money than the priced; then he answered: but I want to help people to look good.11 Danilo says that he also comes because of meeting new and old friends and in order to extend his collection of fashionable items. For instance, other vendors know his passion for sunglasses or for LPs, so they bring to Danilo rare pieces before the market opens.

FIG 412

Children of disorder

In the twentieth century, post-socialist cities have been conditioned by perennial new beginnings. This involves qualitatively transformations, manifested not only as restructuring factc, but also as changes of state and condition. In 2002 Mari Laanemets and Andres Kurg edited A users guide to Tallinn, a compilation that describes how the city was ten years after Estonia re-gained independence. This book serves as a prcis of its time, digging into the social transformation, the historical layers and the expectations of its dwellers.13

9 Photo taken in Koidu Street in May 2014 by Francisco Martnez.

10 Hidden, at the second floor of the railway station, we find a Russian style spa/laser clinic/beauty saloon, a travel restaurant, and a photo

exhibition of the history of the place.

11 From my fieldnotes, taken in August 2013. 12 Slava at Telliskivi Kirbuturg. Photo by Francisco Martnez, September 2012.

13 The volume in itself has become a reading-ruin, a precious palimpsest full of biographical time and documental potential. Actually, prcis

fits very well with the authenticity of the book, which was originally thought as a compilation of fragments and snapshots of the city in order

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During the last years, Tallinn has evolved as a capital, keeping coziness yet loosing certain naivety, benevolence, and perhaps also social solidarity.14 In A users guide to Tallinn, the Caf Moskva is presented as an outstanding gathering place for subcultures. This bar has been recently transformed into a posh caf called Wabadus, furnished with vintage decoration and with tourists and high-middle class as target clients. In the book, the authors also refer to other bars which were relevant at the time (KuKu, Depeche Mode, Noku, Nimeta, Von Krahl, Levist Vljas, Hollywood), most of them still exist, but the proliferation of the offerings, the atomization within the society and privatization of public places have all served to reduce the loyalty and identification of the consumer with bars/cafs/restaurants.

The coexistence of bars like Ariran in Telliskivi, Laine baar in Pronksi or even Levist Vljas obstinately cling to their old looks with the new model of Must-puudelism (named after the most prominent bar with a fake retro-look and tough working conditions) provokes a feeling of desynchronicity between the different elements that compose the cityscape, which in my view is related to the quality and quantity of social changes accumulated in the region and the desires and frustrations produced. Likewise, at the weekend it has become common in Tallinn to ask for a ticket to get into many of the bars of the old-town. Arguably, people have more money to spend in leisure than ten years ago, but the paying practice (and desire to make the quick buck) is also an example of the growing exclusions in the city (and the shorter life of bars).

Hoov is a good example of the new trend. In 2011, a group of youngsters transformed a forgotten courtyard in the old-town into a trendy bar. The managers and employees were able

to contextualize a conference. The volume grew from this modest purpose, becoming the treasure that we enjoy nowadays. I propose to use

this book as a trigger and archaeological site in the attempt to depict the contemporary cityscape of Tallinn and update expectations and

nostalgias. See for instance: The meaning of the places and objects of the city is constantly changing, and precisely due to different

practices the churches turned into garages; the industrial buildings turned into museums; skateboarders in whose eyes the barriers and

pavement have totally different qualities (useful/usable), etc. There are no permanent architectural objects one day, any of them could

undergo a reversal or a transgression. There is no place that couldnt be used by different interest groups, marking the familiar and fully-

developed cityscapes with completely new codes and messages. Indeed, city life means not so much living in the buildings as living in these

changes and events. This also means the changing of the identities of districts in the course of time, or to be more exact, lots of identities

through lots of different consumers... Every object or place has its own virtuality which is coexisting with it and can actualize in the course

of time. The actualization, however, neednt always happen in the same way, but differently each and every time. Actualization is a

repetition, but its the repetition of the different. Thus, the key for the citys being is change. (Laanemets & Kurg, 2002)

14 A users guide to Tallinn was compiled with a reflexive nostalgia, a condition that has been intensified during the last decade. For

instance, Laanemets compared the XXII Summer Olympics in 1980 with the Eurovision song festival 22 years later, both as prompters of a

building boom and as a chance for local artists to do multiple jobs, ranging from city decorations to souvernir handicraft. In the last decade,

the most comparable event has been the citys gaining European Culture Capital status during 2011, with lights and shadows as a result.

Though empowering the cultural offerings in Tallinn, the project had only limited success in its three important goals: to open the city to the

seaside, to stimulate several communities and neighborhoods (not only the old-town but also areas whereby the Russian speaking community

is majority such as Lasname), and to serve as a durable platform for cultural activities. We find also examples of this reflexive nostalgia in

Tnu Kaaleps text, arguing that ten years ago Lasname lived by its own rules. Or in Peeter Sauters one, describing the aura of

Mustame as bright, and filthy and callous, product and symbol of the Soviet era. a misanthropic concrete desert. Jaak Kilmi already

wrote about the decline of the Vike-isme area and its metamorphosis into a more silent quarter. He remembered how the panel of

concrete was an innovative building material containing a faith in progress: isme inhabitants have been firm believers in progress since

childhood. After all, they watched as pastures were transformed into apartment buildings of dimensions yet unseen. Paul Kuimet and Karen

Kulbin presented Tallinn as a good city for skateboarding too; particularly in areas like the port, the Linnahall, around the Kosmos cinema,

the hotel Olmpia and nearby the Coca-Cola Plaza. Referring to Kalamaja, Siiri Vallner wrote that in this quarter there is a slightly loser-

like attitude and underground feeling. Nowadays, very few people would consider a walk in Kalamaja as anything wild; quite the

opposite, this experience has become quite predictable and nice, confirming that this increasingly gentrified neighborhood gained a

Disneyland touch. But, what do we do if the Erasmus students discover Tops or Finnish tourists go to Valli baar?

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to give a strong character to the place, inviting good DJs and building up a particular Berlinesque atmosphere. After a year open, and when the business was running well, the landowner decided not to renew their rent contract because the value of the place had grown of the back of the skilled work of these youngsters. Almost a year after Hoov closed down, the former courtyard is still unrented and the youngsters have open a new fancy place called Hetk (moment in Estonian) where many hipsters gather.15

FIG 516

In the early nineties, an ambitious generation replaced the old Soviet elite (Lauristin and Vihalemm 2002). Notions of failure and success radically changed in the Estonian society, which embraced neo-liberal principles of individual entrepreneurship and limited social responsibility. The P-generation17 was caught in-between 18 years old during the Perestroika, twenty-ten in 2002 and already turning 40-plus. For them, marginal practices and extreme engagements have somehow moved to the center, to normality and hibernation. Former partisans and enthusiasts, actively engaged within the society two decades ago, first became disappointed and then socially disengaged. They nonetheless demonstrate a more self-reflexive and insecure position within society than the current youngsters and than those who led the political transition.

According to the recent Estonian Human Development report, however, there is a resurgence of civic activism and political involvement.18 To a great extent, the so called Children of Freedom (those born after the re-gained independence, as described by Marju Lauristin) are behind new expressions of entrepreneurship and cultural activities B210, Linnalabor, Polymer, Ptarmigan, lase12, Pinksiklubi... In the last few years, efforts have been dedicated to neighborhood communities and milieu-developing (such as Telliskivi, the Professors Village and Nmme Public Services Associations), as well as to culture (ie. Uus Mailm Festivals, Pinksi-Klubi).

This shift has been presented by Boris Buden (2007) as a control of the dimension of critique, referring to how preoccupations with community and culture have replaced society in contemporary politics. During the last decades there was little opposition to the policies of transition in Estonia, always legitimized by a nation building discourse. However, the high ideals of the re-gained independence are not so evident anymore, except in the form of nationalism.

As noticed by Smith et al. (2008), young people in post-socialist countries suffer the consequences of high capitalism to a greater degree than those in Western Europe. At the same time, they have to struggle liberate from the high expectations put on them and have to adapt to high-capitalist practices.19 As remarked by Madli Maruste (2014:415), living with

15 Hekt is situated nearby the indie bar Protest, in the Rotermanni quarter. With this use of the term hipster, Im not meaning that a

bohemianbourgeois cast has substituted former subcultures such as the punk or any other non-conformist movement. Its more complex

than that and rather contradictory. The paradox is that people reproduce a similar style or look, but dont merge much with each other.

Subcultures still exist, but they have become less relevant since: 1. The communities are more fragmented and atomised. 2. There has been a

revival of the old dividing crevices such as language or ethnicity. 3. Subjectivisation and socialisation are more based on consumption and

less on political engagement or cultural practices.

16 Photo taken in the toilet of Hoov by the author, in July 2012. It is written Lady Ga-Ga in Russian.

17 They choose Pepsi precisely in the same way their parents choose Brezhnev; also they are Pizdets - a generation that faces

catastrophe, see Pelevins Generation P.

18 Lauristin, Marju 2013. The Estonian Human Development Report. Tallinn: Estonian Co-operation Assembly, p 61.

19 For instance, I observe among my students and friends how they have become working poor (Ibid), combining multiple badly paid jobs

in order to afford the increasing fees of their higher education, and accepting, afterwards, un-paid internships under the promise of career

making.

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the interrupted history, with the political powers, ideologies and ideals changing rapidly, is a complex and overwhelming experience for anyone, but especially for the young people, who are trying to figure out their position and future possibilities in the society. In a rich ethnographic work, Maruste describes how, in these generations, brothers and sisters born with only a few years differences between them can have entirely different experiences. As in other Eastern European countries, it is common that in one family the grandparents, parents and children have been living in completely different states and societies without ever leaving the country.

We appreciate time in the changes; they entail motion and are experienced as an arrow of time, yet are socially embedded and filtered through personal perceptions. Raili Nugin (in Estonia) and Martin Demant Frederiksen (in Georgia) have examined the tension between subjective and societal time to observe how historical changes have not been articulated in a clear-cut generational consciousness. In her study of affects of transition upon generational consciousness in Estonia, Nugin concludes that accelerated change to a liberal economy was not matched by the development of a suitable institutional system supporting young peoples transitions. Unemployment rates rose, the GDP fell and individual transitions into adulthood in the chaotic environment of the early 1990s were affected (Nugin 2010:347).

Nugin pays studied attention to the age group born in the 1970s. In her view, the individuals of this group feel that they have participated in helping to reconstruct the social structures of the new state, even if they were not active agents in the political turnover or economic reconstruction. Furthermore, the 1970s birth group has features of a strategic generation, having high social mobility and better income compared to previous and subsequent cohorts (2010:361). In her study of post-Soviet youth in Russia, Fran Markowitz (2000) claimed that young people managed the transition and the chaos of the post-Soviet period better than their parents do. In her view, on account of young peoples learning to integrate instability into their lives an argument that has been developed by Frederiksen, who notes how this feature affected the perception of a temporal horizon by young people (2013:13)

In Estonia, the memory of Soviet time and of the political and social turnover is a powerful meaning-making apparatus. In fact, remembering the Soviet time or the Singing Revolution were the first themes representing the defining of their generation. (Nugin 2010:356) As pointed out by Maruste, the complication arises when most young people do not have any personal memories of living in the Soviet Union or about the Singing Revolution in 1991, but their identity remains directly influenced and shaped, nonetheless, by the stories told by their relatives, the school teachers and the politicians. Hence, what is the identity-base for some groups or generations, becomes a historical burden for others, imposing tasks, determining traces and legitimizing hegemonies and political configurations, rather than offering opportunities. In this sense, the Children of Freedom have been accused of not appreciating their given freedom, ignoring patriotic feelings or even betraying the nationhood for being critical with the current authorities (Nugin 2010 and Maruste 2014). Paradoxically, the label Children of Freedom is highly ideological itself and takes the past as burden; likewise, it creates a hierarchy of generations. Therefore, a better definition would have been Children of disorder or Children of high-capitalism.

Faadism in Tallinn

Once Estonia regained independence (1991) the subsequent processes of privatization and changes in property ownership had a strong impact on Tallinns economy and cityscape. The most important part of this process of political legitimization was legal continuity with the first Republic of Estonia (191840), thus the properties nationalized in 1940 were returned to

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their pre-war owners. Likewise, and on a symbolic level, there appeared a historical rush to erase from the city any physical representations of the Soviet era. Restitution and the wave of privatization was endorsed by a neo-conservative government, which welcomed market liberalism as an opportunity to catch up with the living standards of the West.

The economic changes of the mid-1990s also gave rise to a building boom in Tallinn, which led to the construction of a number of business towers and expansive shopping malls. As Andres Kurg explains: The changes were also easily accomplished and readily accepted due to the sharp conscious break with the demonized past. Deregulation, which coincided with ongoing land reform, left the municipality of Tallinn with less property than ever before (2006:48). Urban planning in Tallinn took place without a master plan for a whole decade after the regaining of independence. Indeed, the first decisions in spatial organization declared the citys Soviet master plan obsolete without imposing a new one right away (Feldman 2000). Likewise, the worst forecasts about non-residential character and banalization of the old town announced in Kurg and Laanemets volume have been accomplished, as we can see in the predominant dark windows at night of this detached area of the city.20

In Tallinn, the touristification of the city is evidenced in the material forms and uses of the old town, which fulfils a representative role and hosts establishments for visitors rather than utilities for those living in the Estonian capital. During the last decade there were several official strategies that improved the life-quality in the city, such as the transformation of the former rail track into a pedestrian path for a seaside walk (actually, in danger of disappearing with the new urban plan for the area), the restoration of historical buildings, the re-design of Vabaduse Vljak (Freedom Square) and the setting of cycling roads that run from Lasname to Pirita, Kadriorg and the Laulukaar (Singing Arch). Likewise, there are changes that might be described as not strictly positive or negative; for instance, the progressive disappearance of kiosks, the multiplication of advertisements and the increasing number of limousines in the cityscape (with their picturesque clumsiness). We find also transformations that still have to demonstrate their outcome, as the provision of free public transport (for those registered in the Estonian capital)21 or the renovation of the Rotermanni quarter. This complex has won several awards, looks cool, but it took a long time to people to go there and business tenants have been changing every year (Kurg 2009b).

In the last decades, we observe a proliferation of shopping malls and parking lots22, commodification of public spaces23 and the extension of alco-tourism. Meanwhile, we still

20 (The transcriptions of this round-table were published in Kurg and Laanemets book, 2002). Participants: Kalle Komissarov, Andres

Kurg, Mari Laanemets, Markus Kaasik, Andres Ojari and Ilmar Valdur.

MK. The old town exists completely separated from the rest of the environment. Thus the old town can literally be considered as a theme

park. AO. We are unable to use the old town; we cannot manage even with the streets. AK. The old town will disappear from the local

city life and will be like a small centre of money-making, rather than being somehow integrated. MK. The thing about tourism is that one

day there is none of it left, it washes away. Tourism swallows itself, the moneymaking machine dries up. AO. All the attention is paid on

the fact that tourists could enjoy their walks during the day, but not to keeping alive these who would light up the windows in the evenings.

ML. But does it make sense then to concern yourself with the old town or should we leave it to tourist? IV. The city is not anyones

monopoly. MK. I remember the old town days, which was quite a progressive event in the 80s; everyone went there. Nowadays it has

turned into a charade.

21 According to the official Population Registry date, the number of residents in Tallinn grew by 3.5% in one year (between January 2012

and 2013), therefore this popular measure has contributed to the depopulation process of rural areas and the concentration of the public

resources in the capital .

22 For more on the topic see Tuvikene, Tauri (2010). From Soviet to Post-Soviet with Transformation of the Fragmented Urban Landscape:

The Case of Garage Areas in Estonia, Landscape Research, 35, 5, 509-528.

23 Particularly in the old-town during the summer, for instance by terraces and tourist offers.

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suffer the chemical-trains from Paldiski (quite the symbol of another era) crossing the city centre (Kopli-Kalamaja-Pelgulinn). Additionally, the practice of asking a taxi driver to take you to a brothel or the encounter with prostitutes in the city centre have not disappeared entirely, as we can see from many websites or in the book Tallinna Praktikad Practicies of Tallinn (2005).24 There are still several ghost points in the cityscape such as the Kafkaesque situation of the art-academy25 or the disturbing and magnetic Linnahall26. The authorities have attempted for years to rent out this giant Soviet created concert hall to private investors, but such attempts have all proved fruitless. At the beginning of 2012, we have learned that the negotiations with Ronald S. Lauder (Este Lauders son) to transform the Soviet concert hall into a giant casino broke down despite the concessions offered by the local government. The activities were terminated in the Linnahall in January 2010 and the need for restoration is clear.

The Linnahall arena is not only problematic because of the lack of functionality and economic income, but also because of its hetero-memento character, which disturbs the hegemonic discourse that exposes transition as a lineal journey, from bad to good, from tyranny to democracy, from oppression to freedom, from waste and disposal to welfare and equal opportunities. Nevertheless, and as shown in the article On the Iconic Quality of a Soviet Concert Hall in Tallinn (Estonia)27, most of the people with whom I talked about the Linnahall had a redemptive feeling towards the building, empowered by the sorrow of its contemporary shape, biographical remembrance and the ability of the ruin to recall the past from multiple voices and trajectories. The abandoned building still serves as a companion to afternoon beers looking at the sea. Beyond the criteria of usefulness, the Linnahall stands as a palimpsest of local identity, encapsulating biographical time, ruination and history.

Further on, all the memento sites of contemporary Tallinn are related to hegemony and vengeance. This became evidenced with the removal of the Soviet Bronze Soldier (also called Alyosha). Originally placed in the city centre, next to a busy traffic line and not far from the actual Museum of Occupations (which distinguishes between the good and bad occupations and unifies Russian with Soviet), the statue commemorating the Soviet liberation of Estonia was removed in order to enforce the new zone of discursive and monumental freedom, drawn from the Parliament (Riigikogu) to the museum (Okupatsioonide Muuseum) and Freedom Square (Vabaduse Valjak); intertwined with symbols of the inter-war period and the new post-1991 era of independence.28

In the Soviet aftermath, the Bronze Soldier became the gathering point for both: celebrations that honored Soviet traditions and Estonian nationalists who protested against. As pointed out by Andres Kurg, if we see this monument as the main framework for dialogue between marginal and hegemonic parts of the society, then once it is removed the communication is

24 Those interested in encountering prostitutes, they can go to Luise Street, Clazz or Caf Amigo in Viru Hotel. The last offer I heard was in

October 2012 in Clazz, 100 euros for a massage by Natasha. Still I keep the phone number.

25 Dispersed and relocated twice, whilst the space projected to the university has been a parking lot for several years and will probably host

an office tower. Otherwise, the art academy is to be relocated again, this time in the former Suva factory of socks, a building not bigger than

the old one an in obvious need of renovation.

26 The ground is still owned by Tallinn municipality.

27 As exposed in another work of the author, the new main municipal building is to be constructed nearby the Linnahall. Also, the concert

hall has been used for half a year as a storage place of the Shreck comedy scene and the Estonian police organizes trainings of persecution

there (shooting with fake bullets). See Martnez, The Redemption of a Soviet Concert Hall in Tallinn (Estonia); forthcoming.

28 For more on the topic see Burch and Zander (2010), Preoccupied by the Past. The Case of Estonian's Museum of Occupations. Scandia:

Tidskrift FR Historisk Forskning. 74, 2, 53-73. And Tamm, Marek (2008), History as Cultural Memory: Mnemohistory and the

Construction of the Estonian Nation Journal of Baltic Studies, 39, 4, 499-516.

12

disrupted and the minority is potentially ostracized. Thus what was lost in the monuments removal from its site within the city was the public space (in the widest political sense) tha filled the gap in representational politics for the Russian speaking counter-public (Kurg 2009a).29

Even when the riots broke out, several accounts have claimed that the protests were not merely about the removal of the Bronze Solider and that the engagement was not as simple as Estonians fighting against the Russian minority (Norman 2009). After being sacrificed from the city centre, the Soviet Bronze Soldier rests nowadays in a military cemetery behind the bus station. Nevertheless, and as Siobhan Kattago points out (2009), the physical erasure of the Bronze Soldier does not mean that its existence has been forgotten. The discussion around the monument serves as a pertinent reminder that Estonia, like most of the post-socialist states, is faced with the difficult question of what to do with the Soviet heritage, an issue often intoxicated with ideological confrontations, power relations and ethnic marginalisation. Unsurprisingly, this matter has been of course transferred onto space: the waterfront is seen as a direct reference not only to the soviet period but to foreign dominance in general. The seaside appears as fulfilled with national emotions and it is regarded in a very ambivalent way; whether because it is related with a potential freedom or as tool in the hands of foreigners in order to control natives (Berg, 2002). This ambivalence has been also evidenced in the decisions of planning after the collapse of the Soviet regime (Unt, 2010), and the tensions between commercial interests, the city government, heritage protection authorities and local communities are still strong (Martnez, 2013).

Further to the discussion of sacrifices and afterlives of monuments, we can refer to the interesting research done by Raina Lillepld (2014), who has drawn the topographical routes followed by the monument of Lenin in Tallinn, Tartu and Narva and the redesigns once the monument vanished. An enlightening visit related to this issue is the zoo of Soviet monuments found at the backyards of the Estonian Museum of History. Similarly, Veronica Della Dora and Helen Soovli have defined the Alexander Nevski Orthodox Cathedral as a landmark of contested memories: a non-human agent able to encapsulate human hopes, fears, and ironies thanks to its massive presence, to its being in the world - and in the landscape (2009: 217). Nevski Cathedral is a remnant of a bygone era, but also a spectral landmark upon which ghost and fears are continuously projected: as if its massive physical presence made this possibility more concrete, more real. For the Estonian Russian Orthodox population the cathedral continues to serve as a place of worship, yet represents also a physical and visual tie with an imagined homeland and an imagined pre-Soviet past. Estonians do not like it. And yet there it stands, restored in all its provocative beauty and grandeur (Ibid). Ironically, the Nevski cathedral also constitutes one of the most visited tourist heritage attractions in the city, and is thus a source for incoming capital into the country. Neither the Nevski Cathedral nor the Linnahall are a plaque or a statute, but a lived space. Despite the guide Lonely Planet deeming to confer no more than ten words to the Linnahall (and that in the section on Live Music), tourists and locals are constantly dropping onto the ruined Soviet ziggurat.

FIG 630

A users guide to Tallinn remembers how Hasso Krull and Urmas Muru described Tallinn as an over-politicized city in 1991. At that time, the over-politicization was related to civic engagement and a new articulation of power relations and institutions. The city is still politicized but now by banalization and faadism, which has become a tool used by

29 Still, for the 6.5% of the population of Estonia citizenship is undetermined.

30 The author saying 'Hello!' to a Lenin. Picture taken by Anne Vatn at the referred zoo of Soviet Monuments.

13

politicians in order to hold the power demagogically. The social isolation of the old-town has also been intensified as it has become an open-air shopping mall and a theme park. Moreover, the medieval heritage is constantly presented as the unique and defining quality of the city (ignoring other parts). The old-town is also used and abused as a source of money-making and tool for political purposes, exhausting the space and transforming it into a Potemkin area.

During the last decade, there was also a succession of attempts to use the city in a discursive way. We find the best example of that in the Vabaduse Vljak (Freedom square). This plaza was recently reconstructed to function as a stitching point of the Estonian national identity. Re-built by the state (it was a parking lot) and packed with memory symbols (the Liberty cross, the War of Independence Memory Column, the Clock of Freedom), the site was planned as an obvious Lieu de Mmoire (Nora 1989).

In the framework of the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, the Ministry of Defence decided to erect the Cross of Liberty (reproducing a military award of 1919) in a prominent site of the plaza. However, the monument does not address the idea of democratic liberties, promoting instead freedom as the outcome of a war. In spring 2008, hundreds of white posters with the text VABADUS (freedom) appeared in the public space of Tallinn overnight, inviting the passers-by to share their understanding of freedom and to express their opinion about the design of the new square. The posters were announcing a contest to find out the best solution to the Freedom public debate.

Nevertheless, the critical intention of this anonymous31 poster action was not entirely obvious, with the medias first speculation being as to whether this was some kind of advertisement campaign. On the street level the empty space of the posters was principally utilized as a public garbage bin where dirty words were written, but there were also people who used the opportunity to express their opinion about the Cross of Liberty. The freedom posters were immediately criminalized by the authorities and coincide with the heated debate about the Bronze Soldier.32

As the Vabadus intervention demonstrated, oblique and unexpected interventions within the city influence public discourses33 and question how power is exerted by authorities. In fact, such spontaneous practices within urban space reflect the fragmented and entropic character of this post-socialist city, rather than apolitical panegyrics of development and transition. This example also confirms the falsity of the notion that authentic political action requires an extrication of individuals from their ordinary life and shows how urban activism might become an exercise of democracy (Martnez 2014b). Public spaces themselves have particularly suffered the different changes of regime in Estonia, being very much under control. Indeed, several of the informants with whom I talked with (in informal settings) during the elaboration of this article have considered the city of Tallinn as very introvert. This might relate, in my view, to the way its public spaces have been occupied for centuries, depending upon military strategies, traditionally, and by political and economic ones, nowadays.34

31 Afterwards it was known that behind the intervention were Flo Kasearu, Andra Aaloe, Tanel Rannala and Juhan Teppart.

32 As a reaction to the mass protests that followed the relocation of a Soviet bronze soldier in Tallinn in April 2007, the government

proposed a law amendment, the so-called April package, aiming to increase the powers of the police. For more on the topic see the text

written by Airi Triisberg about the intervention: http://flokasearu.eu/index.php?/publicspace/freedom-posters/

33 For more on the topic see Rancire, Jacques (2004). The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Continuum.

34 In 2011, there were organized multiple cultural projects associated with the European Cultural Capital. The leitmotiv of the program was

to re-gain the connection of the city with the sea. However, the city hall experienced huge difficulties in regaining some strategically

important grounds for regeneration of the coast side due to the private ownership of the land and the drastic rise in market prices. According

to several accounts, the main outcome of the project was to set up a pedestrian path along the seaside, what is nowadays known as Cultural

14

In post-socialist contexts a debate about heritage criteria is always crucial. During the recent years we have seen in Tallinn impressive Soviet buildings torn down to make space for a shopping mall without any referendum and deaf to public protests; other old buildings were privatized (ie. Patarei prison) and have no social occupation or care; and there are cases in which faadism and abrupt contrasts are predominant (such as the Postimaja reconstructed as H&M clothes shop). The new credo says that Kalamaja wooden houses should be preserved, but not old garages or most of the Soviet buildings. Fifty years ago it was the opposite, and there may come the time when they are valued again, restored and even kept as a museum piece. Or perhaps not, and it will be the McDonalds and shopping malls that will be considered to be the cultural heritage.

Urban entropy

One of the points I want to make in this article is that in the context of continuous radical changes and unfinished projects, liminality and the need for repair increase, conditioning any process of adaptation. The succession of ruptures produces an accumulative affect and effect, here described as entropy and referring to a high degree of uncertainty when new transformations are introduced. In a way, the study of post-socialist cities is like the work of the meteorologist, who examines the evolution of the weather and attempts to predict storms and disturbances with very few certainties.

In order to examine the accumulation of radical changes and unfinished projects in a given space and time, I bring to urban studies the notion of entropy. Ludwig Boltzmann was the first to realize that the increase in entropy could be considered as the expression of a growing disorder. Max Planck emphasized that the second law of thermodynamics distinguishes between various types of states in nature, some of which act as attractors for others. In his view, irreversibility is the expression of this attraction (Planck 1930). A practical consequence of this is the impossibility to predict future changes with precision, since a small initial variation might produce a great change in the system.

Any discussion of entropy raises issues about discontinuity and how transformations might be driven by an external source of energy. Originally, entropy is a thermodynamic term first used by Rudolf Clausius in the 1865. In physics, entropy described the amount of energy in a closed system that becomes unavailable, not by leaving the system, but by becoming irretrievably disordered. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created, nor destroyed, which directs us to a world where energy might be lost. The second law states that entropy always tends to increase in a closed system, describing a world that is constantly winding down.35 Changes encompass a reversible part and an irreversible one, since they

Kilometer. Some buildings have been renovated during the last decade, for instance the former Seaplane hangars were transformed into a

beautiful maritime museum. Many of these renovations were charged to the European Structural Found. Estonia became a full member of the

European Union and of NATO in 2004, adopting the euro as currency in January 2011. Both dates were supposed to confirm the definitive

undertaking of post-socialism, however, such condition has not been supplanted but supplemented, undermining the socialist patterns yet not

replacing them and adding a huge charge of incertitude and confusion.

35 According to the second law, entropy increases with time (except for equilibrium situations), whilst Liouvilles theorem tells however

that the entropy of a system can never change. This paradox is unevenly resolved by chaos. While the numerical value of the volume remains

strictly constant, the entropy is expressed as a turmoil shaping the whole system, which stretches in some directions and contracts in others.

New tendrils keep appearing and stretch everywhere. Knots of all sorts form and become more and more complicated. The structure keeps

getting finer and finer. The underlying scale becomes smaller and smaller, but the value of the volume remains the same, as guaranteed by

Liouvilles theorem. The result is an order through fluctuations, in which small causes can have large effects.

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cannot happen in reverse.36 The action of rapid and radical transformations increases the charge of irreversibility in a society and consequently the tendency to become disordered.

The succession of unfinished projects accumulates changeless elements in the cityscape, testifying to failures and demanding a constant need of repair. Most post-socialist cities have demonstrated a surprising persistence in terms of their material culture, social infrastructures and spatial forms. Overall, Anique Hommels (2005) proposes obduracy as a term to refer to the tendency of complex built environments and infrastructure networks to resist change. In this sense she finds three categories of persistency: 1. Frames, as mental models and constrained interactions 2. Embeddedness, as relations conditioned by fixity and mobility 3. Traditions, as enduring archetypes and trajectories. Robert A. Dodgshon also addresses these phenomena in Society in Time and Space: A Geographical Perspective on Change (1998), wherein he presents societies as self-maintaining systems with inner norms, rules, goals, projects, centre, periphery as well as interacting with biological and built environments. Dodgshons crucial concept here is inertia, since in his view societies resist changes because they have invested in institutions and build environments that encompass persistency.

Grounding these sociological approaches in the field of urban studies and material culture, we can say that the multiple manifestations of entropy (inertia, obduracy, redundancy) might be recognised through the study of the different remonts (reparations) accumulated in the cityscape. As exposed by Ekaterina Gerasimova & Sofia Chuikina (2004) and Wladimir Sgibnev (2013), remont functions as both the expression of a state of permanent incompleteness and a way of negotiating modernity. As the rings in the trunk unveil the age of the tree, remonts show us the accumulation of radical changes in the city. Entropy gradually restructures itself in order to dissipate the energy; in this sense, matter, urban elements, the cityscape, acquire attributes associated with social life. Entropy manifests itself by being physically present but temporally remote. It is a site and a non-site simultaneously, depicting something beyond by intertwining the here and the elsewhere. Also it responds to contextual circumstances, appearing as a breakdown in the relation between elements and favoring constellations not envisaged by design or plan (Kriv 2010).

Urban archipelago

In this section I explore how the study of the changing material culture talks about broader social phenomena. Urban materiality and its use are visible, tangible, and approachable, thus convenient for understanding personal experiences and social transformations. According to Serban Vetii (2011), changes in post-socialist cities are intricately connected with narratives of success and failure. In his view, this is not only reflected in the material forms and uses, but also in the way people living there are affected (Vetii 2011). In this line of thought, Stephen Collier shows how reforms and transition did not totally abandon the previously existing normality but rather shaped it, being simultaneously shaped by it (Collier 2011).37

An example of this is Polymer, where motor-bikers, mechanics, anarcho-vegans, Satanists and artists coexist. Anybody may come, but only some stay. The place speaks to those who

36 As said by Ilya Prigogine (1997), transformations produce irreversibility, since the arrangement of sequences does not allow us to re-

experience an old experience. In short, it is not possible to reconstruct life towards the past, just towards the future. Towards the past we can

only redeem it because we cannot go against the flow of time and avoid improbabilities. Prigogine, I. 1997. The End of Certainty. Free Press.

37 Collier examines the interconnections between neo-liberalism and post-socialism by taking pipes, budgeting formulas and bureaucratic

norms of a small Russian city as privileged sites of study.

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doesnt fit, confirms Tanel Saar, head of the art residence and the daily manager.38 Polymer culture factory offered a chance to drop out of the prevailing rhythm of the city, a sort of switching off the hegemonic spatial organization. In the words of its founder, Madis Mikkor (2013), Polymer does not correspond to any model, yet it is strongly conditioned by the inherited material forms and uses. In his view, Polymer presents a different notion of collectivity. Taking art as a way of life also challenges the imposed production/consumption dichotomy. This non-utilitarian use of time and space is to be appreciated in a city whereby the public land was massively privatized within the space of only a few years.39

FIG 740

The building (2.500 sq. mt.) was previously a rubber toys factory. According to several informants approached in informal settings, the first rave parties and band rehearsals were organized in the late 90s in a non-legal way. The founder, Madis Mikkor, however, declares that: there was actually nothing before 2002, when I rented the first spaces in the huge derelict factory for a furniture workshop and a rehearsal space for live-action role players. Madis founded Kultuuritehas Polymer with his brother Tnis Mikkor and Alfred Rosenroth. They originally focused on historical preservation and worked hard to transform the space and renovate the building. Activities officially commenced as a civic initiative in early 2003 and Polymer Art Factory was registered as a non-profit organization by 2004. This was done in spite of the bitter understanding of the fact that the rental agreement was always extended by three months only and that the future of the building would most probably be demolished, confesses Madis.

Ten years after, in January 2014, the real state owners have cancelled the contract with the NGO that rules the art residency. Kultuuritehas Polymer has been a member of the European network of independent cultural centers Trans Europe Halles, paying rent monthly to the official landowner, who is a polemic real-state investor. Artists and activists have been working in the building for ten years, yet extending the original contract every three months. This has obviously impeded any long-term strategy or renovation, with the dwellers mostly focused on survival maintenance. Indeed, the art factory was developed with abandoned materials and filled with several fascinating leftover objects, like the printing equipment from hiselu, a letterpress printing-machine Victoria 1040-2 produced in the German Democratic Republic in 1972 and complete with all its typesetting equipment (Martnez 2014).

FIG 841

Ariran is another example of the urban entropy of Tallinn. This Russo-Korean locale was the first exotic restaurant opened in Tallinn (1991) and, at the time, the street of Telliskivi was a decidedly off-centre location. The owners are a couple (Sergei and Vera), and they live at the rear of the house. He is a Korean-born man, who moved to the Soviet Union at 17 years of age to study marine engineering. Vera is Russian, works as the chef of the bistro and managed to marry Sergei in spite of the opposition of his mother. They both moved to Estonia in 1970. He worked in the harbor of Tallinn until the collapse of the USSR and has been the Baltic billiard champion for 20 years in a row, yet neither of them knows the Estonian language

38 From my fieldnotes; written in Tallinn, in June 2012.

39 In Tallinn, the ownership of private dwellings rose from 24% in 1993 to 94% in 2000 (Ruoppila 2005). During the recent years, the legal

rights of property owners have often superseded local governments decisions and public good. Ruoppila, Sampo 2005. Housing policy and

residential differentiation in post-socialist Tallinn. European Journal of Housing Policy 5, 3: 279300.

40 Photo taken by Francisco Martnez in May 2014 at the entrance of the Polymer Art Residency.

41 Photo of Sergei and Vera serving in the Ariran restaurant. January 2013. By Anne Vaten.

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well. They have a son living in the United States and they liked Florida a lot when they visited him some years ago. The style of the restaurant is somewhat eclectic: real Russian objects and manners coexist with some imported Korean details and products. They have Russian TV channels playing, but when non-frequent clients enter the restaurant they switch to Korean TV. In the nineties, the clientele was composed of researchers, politicians, metal entrepreneurs, mafia bosses and so on, but nowadays few adventurers dare to give it a try. The offer of exotic restaurants exponentially grew in the town in the last years, but the couple blame the neighbor, Jri Liim (an Estonian nationalist figure) for the decline, as he undermined the image of the restaurant and threatened them through articles in the papers.42

Another place that mirrored urban entropy in Tallinn was the Georgian restaurant Argo, in Kadriorg. It had a loyal clientele, composed of neighbors, construction workers, and people from the suburbs (when receiving a phone call they answer: I came to the city centre, yet the bistro was hardly located, hidden away and 20 minutes walking distance from the old town). The lingua franca in Argo was Russian but I heard Lija, the owner and waitress, speaking in Finnish, Estonian and English language. After a dozen of times having lunch in the bistro, I asked her how many languages she speaks. Surprisingly, Lija told me that shes trilingual and does not know any of the previously mentioned languages. Her native languages are Armenian, Georgian and Russian, languages that she learnt in her childhood in Armenia and Georgia. Lija graduated in law at the University of Tbilisi. Then she married a German man and moved with him to Estonia. Having divorced in the late nineties, and remaining her university BA unrecognized, she took the restaurant from an Armenian entrepreneur.

Lija has worked in Argo for ten years however in November 2013 she was told to move out. The new owner of the land wants to construct an apartment building there. Since 1980 there has been a bar in this site. Just before the Olympic games, a canteen called White Bears was open, serving cheap beer for seamen. Lija has been searching all over Tallinn for new venues to rent, but found nothing cheaper than 5.000 euros a month. So in January 2014, Argo has been closed down. Sure, there were many things forbidden in the Soviet period, but we enjoyed stability and social differences werent that huge. People say that the Soviet system was alienating, but I have the impression that the current system doesnt need humans; or at least, it doesnt need people like me, laments Lija, who has lived the first half of her life in the Soviet Union and the second half in the independent Estonia. She stops her talk and goes to the bar to attend to the new client, who wants some food to take away. In the name of freedom and democracy there have happened a lot of injustices, said Lija in December 2013.43

In Argo, meals were quite genuine, not so expensive and with generous portions. During the summer the cooker (a Kurdish Iranian) prepared the shashlik (Eastern European kebab) in a booth behind the house. The food was accompanied by the music of Toto Cutugno, Joe Dassin, Adriano Celentano, some Soviet ensemble or Caucasian folk. Lija tried in the summer 2013 to make the restaurant look fancier yet the new elements did not totally match with the existent ones. For instance, they introduced long thick curtains, pompous wooden dividers between tables, plastic plants, and a new plasma TV (placed directly in front of the existing one). The TVs were never in sync, neither with each other, nor with the music or radio that would be left playing over them.44 As in the city, any attempt at modernizing Argo was made

42 According to Sergei and Vera, a court procedure upon the ownership of the place has being going on since several years ago; they have

gained the trial in the court of first instance and the sentence after the appeal is expected for 2013.

43 Lija complaints that among the 17 people who gained the BA in Law with her, just one has been able to make career as a lawyer.

Speculators have prosper, the rest work as beasts just to pay the loans (Interview done in November 2013)

44 From my field notes taken in Tallinn along 2012 and 2013.

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atop the previous exercises and was dependent on the skills of people; in a way, just superimposed over the residues of previous regimes and forms. These endeavors are always localized, thus recognizable in a territory and socially producing the space (Lefebvre 1991:332-334). In spite of being open for more than 30 years, Argo has been always a place in the making, an unfinished restaurant with a strong inclusive character. In the case of Ariran, the Korean restaurant, on the other hand, we find a consolidated location that was soon abandoned for its perceived direct association with post-socialism. In my view, they both contribute to the identity of the city and confirm the entropy of Tallinn.

As Lefebvre noted, practices, discourses and expectations tied to urban pasts are inherently political as a result of the manner in which they inform individuals decisions making. Here, post-socialist cities have been presented as entropic rather than clearly delineated and internally homogeneous. These are spaces of persistence, of unfinished pasts, of liminality, and redundant coexistence. We might also refer to them as places of unevenness, rather than proper segregation. For instance, Marciczak observes that owing to the legacy of socialism, gentrification in large post-socialist cities mostly occurred in the form of small-scale. Hence, luxury, new and renovated apartment buildings often mix with socially and physically dilapidated voids or ruined factories.45

Marciczak points out how, during late socialism and early post-socialist transition, the higher social groups captured the new residential developments erected in the inner city (amidst existing pre-socialist tenements) and in suburban areas of rural character. The entry of both areas of relatively affluent new residents to these locations had a heterogenizing effect on their structures but did not change it as a whole. In the central locations, the continuous absence of clear regulations and the vast preservation of socialist-era tenure rights moderated the pace of gentrification, leading to piecemeal residential and, consequently, further sociospatial fragmentation. Hence, housing dynamics in post-socialist cities expose shapes that are at once mixed and fragmented as the residential mobility of privileged groups forcefully confronts the relative immobility of the lower social strata, increasing urban entropy (Marciczak et al. 2013:345).

The shrinking population of many post-socialist cities (including Tallinn, until the newly approved free-transport for registered residents) is another example that shows the limits and problems of neoliberal solutions in most cases the response did not lead to an improvement of the situation, even aggravating social problems and inequalities after market-driven responses (Haase 2013).46 Rapid systemic changes; re-structuring shocks; retrenchment

45 Marciczak argues that segregation has not increased as a result of trends initiated during socialist urbanization and extending into the

first decade of transition. He presents six main areas of inquiry: suburbanization; gentrification; deindustrialization, brownfield regeneration, and inner city commercialization; gating and exclusionary practices and expatriate nicheing; the socioeconomic plight of the socialist-era

housing estates; demographic change in urban areas. (Marciczak et al. 2013:333-334). Currently, segregation and concentration are

generally understood as pattern (the degree to which members of different ethnic/social groups live apart from each other) and as process

(the processes by which such spatial segregation and concentration are produced. There are two common understandings of the term

segregation: (1) segregation as pattern the degree to which members of different ethnic/social groups live apart from each other; (2)

segregation as a process by which such spatial inequality is produced.

46 Electronic voting is possible in Estonia and the government aims at enticing transnational capitals and skilled foreigners to technological

clusters; however several thousands of people still have stateless passport as former Soviet citizens (here Arendts musings on The Origins

of Totalitarianism seem pertinent: those without passports ran the greatest risks, as only states -and their citizens- have rights). Also the most

representative Estonian IT company, Skype, has been acquired by Microsoft in 2011 (the other two multinational giants of the IT business,

Facebook and Google were also interested). Furthermore, the Estonianness of this company is arguable: among its five founders in 2003

there were three Estonians, a Danish, and a Swedish citizen; the headquarters were and are based in Luxemburg, and only 44% of the overall

employees are situated in Estonia. Likewise, the multinational eBay became the owner in 2005. Some economic insights about the country:

19

of the welfare state; labor market segmentation; growing income inequalities; new stratification of social classes; downgrading the social status of some neighborhoods; segregation rooted in the past rather than in the future all these phenomena have a profound visual impact on the cityscape, but their sociospatial evidence remains unclear in any study of the separate parts of the city.

Conclusion

Urban cracks, Interim uses, mismatching of elements in the cityscape, abrupt changes of smells and sounds. In this article, I have discussed how the processes of transformation are not totally independent from former elements, traces, vectors and regimes of knowledge. Hence, they need a long time-frame to be grasped. Urban archipelagos and social fractures were here studied by looking at empirical examples, literature, architecture and visual signs in Tallinn. And I have presented entropy and sutures as the main features of this post-socialist city, in which history is manifested through gaps rather than through layers of sedimentation. By bringing into urban studies the notions of entropy and sutures, my intention has been to reflect upon the accumulation of unfinished projects, vulnerabilities and need to repair. These concepts are taken from other disciplines, hoping to show how the cityscape acquires specific attributes associated with social life.

More than a sum of stratifications, in the cityscape of the Estonian capital we encounter a composition of elements without reciprocal relation. In other words, an urban Frankenstein constellated with liminal places and frequented by several communities that barely integrate but influence each other by their presence. The examples depicted from this post-socialist city show the interplay between antagonist elements, producing in the city a threshold experience in the post-socialist city. I therefore conclude that continuous radical changes increase the liminal character of the cityscape.

Historical breaks and past transformations are still of importance today, characterizing social patterns, the possibilities of action and the material culture. As illustrated in this article, the small scales are not necessarily erased by the emergence of bigger ones. As such, in this account of the Estonian capital I have focused on the study of long-term mutations of the cityscape, which I present as an intense conjunction of oppositions and a juxtaposition of unfinished projects. A fragmented analysis of a post-socialist cityscape makes its parts appear as interim, glossy, ugly and incapable of producing offspring. However, post-socialist transformations do not evidence uniform effects or transparent path-dependencies, but sutures and lack of contextual fit. Hence, I have attempted to examine the post-socialist transformations in a longer perspective, paying studied attention to the traces and multiple frames of meaning rather than looking at single parts in a concrete spot of time. Otherwise, if we ignore saturation and redundancy, the elements that occupy post-socialist cities seem to merely coexist without order, harmony or design.

major Estonian exports come from refined petroleum oil, assemblage of phones and cars and ferrous waste and scrap

(http://www.stat.ee/65312). According to the Gini report of 2012, Estonia is one of the few Eastern European countries in which inequality is

decline, in spite of the flat tax rate of 24% of the general income. The performance of the country in the Human Development indicators is

also moderately growing. Nevertheless, Estonias spending on social benefits and protection was the second lowest in the European Union,

at 16.1 % of GDP in 2011. Also, relevant inequalities as gender, ethnic, and generational, not measured by the Gini index, have been

increasing in Estonia (see for instance Kerly Espenbergs PhD thesis, Tartu University 2013). In short, I agree with Karl Polanyi (1944) in

not to socially disembed inequality in order to understand transformations.

20

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