Estonia: Tartu, a university town

We had decided to visit Estonia starting from Tallinn and going clock wise. Next stop planned after Nina was Tartu, a small University town with 80,000 inhabitants, among which 20,000 are students. We arrived there on August 20 (this is a honest admission of how behind I am in writing my blog!). We heard a band playing nearby in a square and got closer to check it out. Talking to a local, we were told that it was the day Estonians were celebrating their independence. I was a little confused since I had learned that the independence of Estonia had been obtained in February 1918. Why August 20?? Thanks to our "all time" connection to the internet, We were able to "google" it. Well, it turned out that they were celebrating their second independence from the Soviet Union, the one obtained on August 20, 1991.
It was touching to see old and young people united on this square, each holding a little Estonian flag. People of Estonia will not forget their long history of being dominated by Russia. From what we saw and heard, their wounds are deep.

Center of Tartu

Not sure what the "raison d'etre" of this beautiful cow is - Pokémon written on the side?? When I googled "Cow in Tartu" I came up with a few interesting, although surely unrelated, sites such as "Vegan and vegeterian restaurants" and "Tartu researchers to clone a super cow"! Oh well :))

A statue from a famous story...Beware that if you kiss in front of it, you may turn into stone :))

Colorful cyclist

Irish writer Oscar Wilde meets with Estonian writer Eduard Vilde (sculptor T. Kirsipuu, 1999)

Tartu's cathedral: built in the 13th century with addition in the 16th century, abandoned in the 1629 when Tartu became Swedish. The cathedral was never rebuilt.

Tartu's University

Outside the main entrance, unveiled in January 2008 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Market Hall, is the statue Pig, standing on the tub that it will lie in after slaughter. On one side of the tub is a tablet that shows the cuts of pork meat and on the other is a poem by Indrek Hirve (b.1956). The poem reads:

Stop, my friend, behold your brother

See how he does not fuss or bother 

Humans think they know better too

More often, they just play the fool 

Behind backs, it’s ducks and swerves,

Sell out, suck blood, chew your nerves

these bad thoughts, they need a re-jig! 

Pig’s more honest – he’s always pig.