Robert Hampton

Another visitor! Stay a while… stay forever!

10th May 2011

Night Kapp
Posted by at 6.03pm | Gay, Out and About | No responses

Artwork in KappI’m still not done – this is part 6! If you’ve just joined us, catch up by reading part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5!

When the prospect of visiting Estonia was first mentioned, I will admit that the gay scene didn’t figure into my plans too much. If we were going to Berlin or Amsterdam, sure – but Tallinn? A small-ish Eastern European city? In a former Soviet state, no less?

Our guide book — which devoted two paragraphs out of 96 pages to gay and lesbian Tallinn — was not exactly enthusiastic either: “While attitudes to homosexuality in Tallinn are more relaxed than in fellow Baltic capitals Riga and Vilnius,” it cautioned, “they could hardly be described as enlightened.”

Naturally I studied the legal situation in this area before departure (wouldn’t it be nice not to have to worry about things like this?). Homosexuality only became legal in Estonia in 1992, but some progress was made and with that coveted EU membership in 2004 came some protections against discrimination. But in other ways the country lags behind: there is no recognition of same-sex partnerships, and much of Tallinn’s gay population prefers to keep things quiet and discreet.

Perhaps the most shocking development was when Andrew took advantage of the widely-available free wi-fi to fire up Grindr, which had trouble finding any “nearby buddies” closer than Helsinki – just a short fifty-mile ferry ride away.

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