Baltic Visitor

Following a string of incidents involving tourists behaving badly at the Freedom Monument in Riga, a British visitor to the city has been imprisoned for five days for urinating on Latvia’s most potent symbol of the struggle for independence. I would like to think that the sentence will deter others, but having seen the behaviour [...]

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From today, passengers flying with a range of airlines – including Estonian Air, Czech Airlines, easyJet, SAS and others – will be required to check in at the new southern extension of Tallinn Airport. The extension includes nine new gates and will allow the airport to handle 2.3 million passengers per year, twice as many [...]

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Tallinn airport has announced a drop of almost 10% in the landing taxes which it charges to airlines, effective from March 2008. It is as yet unclear whether these savings will be passed on to customers, although one side effect may be to make Tallinn more appealing to Ryanair.
The low cost airline had refused to [...]

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Earlier in 2007 the Estonian Ministry for Economy and Communications said that Ryanair would be flying to their nation’s capital by the autumn. There’s still no sign of the aggressive price-cutting carrier in Tallinn, but the Baltic Times reports that representatives of the ministry held talks with the airline on 12 October, and there are [...]

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The good news, reported in Diena newspaper this week, is that tourist numbers were up in Riga this year and that visitors were spending more money. The bad news is that they were also complaining more. Top grumbles were about poor service and excessive prices – and with rampant inflation the latter issue is not [...]

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Visitors in Lithuania on September 1st may notice something slightly odd. For one day only, to mark the first day of the new school year, alcohol sales will be completely banned. This covers not only bars and restaurants, but hotel minibars and even ships flying Lithuanian flags.
Predictably, the move has upset restaurateurs and the Baltic [...]

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Estonian police have confirmed that this year’s Gay Pride march will be allowed to take place in central Tallinn on 11th August. There had been concerns earlier in July regarding the route, with the police concerned about the safety of participants following violence from homophobic protesters last year.
The route has been changed slightly, although organiser [...]

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The Baltic Times reports on two separate incidents which resulted in the arrest of British nationals over the weekend. In the first, two members of a stag party were arrested for possession of cocaine – a third was detained but released uncharged. In the second incident, a Scotsman climbed the steps of the Freedom Monument [...]

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The Baltic Times reports on the court hearing which dealt with the British citizen who was arrested for urinating close to the Freedom Monument while his friends took photographs. He was not present in court, having been allowed to leave the country, and was fined €64 for a charge of ‘petty hooliganism’. Unsuprisingly, he was [...]

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The Baltic Times has posted an entertaining piece by Joel Alas, who went out in Tallinn on June 5th – the Tuesday night that the new smoking ban was introduced. The journalist finds many of the city’s bars empty, with everyone outside on the pavement instead. He finds himself less than impressed by the atmosphere [...]

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