I've been lucky -- I happened to live in America's most livable city, Charlottesville, Virginia (according to Frommer's 2004 and 2005), for the three years before it received the title. As with many of these things, the title is a mixed blessing and it means the city will have to work all that much harder at balancing development and conservation.
Eesti Päevaleht published its reader poll of the most livable cities** in Estonia yesterday. What do you know, I live in the ninth most livable city in Estonia, the much maligned Tallinn. I expected to find it somewhere between Narva (which is surprisingly in the middle of the pack) and Karksi-Nuia (byword for "the sticks" in my book, but also quite high on the list).
Rakvere, which I enjoyed very much on my visit (which I undertook knowing that it had a theatre and a meat plant but not much else), placed sixth.
Buried lead: Tartu placed first; respondents cited something about the spirit of the place.
Haapsalu and Pärnu, often thought of in comparison, are next; here the smaller Venice of the North (the reference is most likely to the shared ultimate fate of both) beat out the Capital of Summer (no, parliament does not hold sessions in Pränu in July) for number two.
Kuressaare, one of my favourites, is fourth.
Speaking of towns in Estonia, an unrelated question -- are there any fictional ones creaed by Estonian writers? That is, has any novel or series been set in a town that is an addition to the landscape, and is not just a real town that is disguised, roman a clef?
** 301 readers could give each town up to 10 points each. So I guess the minimum score for any town was 301.
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2 comments:
Dunno... seems improbable - little of classical Estonian fiction concerns itself with towns in the first place, and it would be a bit disingenuous, the place isn't really big enough.
I could swear this comment was up before I hit the publish button.
And my ID card was in the reader.
I did have you somewhat in mind with that question, because it could be in the scifi genre.
I'm going to have to do a better job explaining what led to the question, but it was the feeling of walking around the Old Town and finding a street you've never gone down before.
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