The Estonian city of Tartu will be the European Capital of Culture in 2024, together with the southern part of the country. The city is one of the most important in Estonia, in clear competition with the capital, Tallinn, which is two hours away by train, but with a totally different atmosphere.
The traveler walking through Tartu has the feeling of being immersed in a classic opera set. The urban planning of its historic center, one of the few in the area where Soviet-style urbanism did not prosper, responds to non-classical aesthetic criteria, and its aligned streets transmit harmony and balance. The facades of the 18th-century buildings have been delicately restored and painted in pastel tones, and there are some sections of the streets that look like they have gone straight through an Instagram filter.
Many of these historic buildings now house bars, art galleries, museums and restaurants that host much of the city's intellectual and bohemian life. Tartu is a university city, and the student atmosphere is noticeable even when there are summer holidays.
The University of Tartu was founded in the 17th century and is currently the most important in the country. The period in which the university was founded was the most peaceful in the city's history; it later suffered attacks from Russia, Sweden and Poland-Lithuania.
The main building has a portico with Doric columns, and is located at the foot of Toomemägi Hill, as is the University Art Museum, which contains, among other curiosities, the Mummies Chamber painted to look like the interior of an Egyptian tomb, and the attic where the most undisciplined students were punished and could remain in confinement and solitude, sometimes for weeks.
But without a doubt one of the most beautiful parts of the city is the aforementioned Toomemägi Hill, called Cathedral Hill. It is a quiet park where you can walk among trees, university buildings and museums. Here are the origins of the fortified city.
The most spectacular building on the hill is the ruins of the Gothic cathedral, built in the 13th century by the knights of the Livonian order, which currently houses the university library and museum. It contains such eclectic objects as the funerary mask of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, an engraving by Dürer, a human hand used to study anatomy and a collection of cutlets prepared by students for their exams.
The old astronomical observatory completes the visit, where you can see historical scientific observation instruments still in perfect working order. Already in the city, the AHHAA science center promotes learning with a museum of interactive exhibitions especially designed for children.
Tartu e extends along both sides of the Emajõgi River, and has numerous parks to stroll through. In 1775 a fire destroyed almost the entire historic center, allowing the subsequent reconstruction in the current classical style. But the Town Hall Square, surrounded by harmonious buildings, is the jewel in the crown of the city's urban planning. The historic Town Hall building, built in the Dutch style and crowned by a tower and a monumental weather vane, combines Rococo and Baroque elements and has an elegant neoclassical façade. The curiosity is that it has a clock added later to encourage students to arrive to class on time.
In front of City Hall, stands a statue of two students kissing under an umbrella. This statue has become one of the symbols of the city, but there are many others that stand out for being curious and, sometimes, even eccentric, such as a fountain that, when viewed from a certain angle, is a caricature of a professor, a sculpture of a pig already marked by the butcher to be butchered in the market, or a baby the size of a man holding the hands of a man the size of a baby, a self-portrait of the artist and his son.
One of the buildings that mark the square is the Leaning House and it is estimated that it is the most inclined building in Europe, more so than the famous Tower of Pisa. The wooden neighborhoods, from the 18th century, that surround the historic center are another of the city's charms.
Coinciding with the 800th anniversary of the founding of the city, Tartu will be the European Capital of Culture 2024, and will have as its motto: “Arts of Survival”, a way of expressing the power of knowledge, skills and values to build a better future.
The four main survival arts, as explained by the organization, are singularity, which seeks a balance between the local and the global; sustainability, claiming a good future life; consciousness, linking knowledge, science, technology and education through the arts; and co-creation, which emphasizes the relationship between generations, between sectors and between nations.
For this celebration, a thousand events are planned between Tartu and the cities in the south of the country. Events and projects that are planned around four axes: Tartu with the Earth, Tartu with humanity, Tartu with Europe and Tartu with the universe. The organization hopes to receive one million visitors throughout the year.
