Tallinn

District Administration address:
Tallinna Kesklinna Valitsus
Reg. no. 75014221
www.tallinn.ee/kesklinn
Nunne 18, 15058 Tallinn
Phone: (+372) 645 7200
Email: [email protected]

Area 30.6 km², population 62.311. 

Types of buildings: fairy tale-like Old Town (Vanalinn) featuring houses from the year 1230 A.D. to the 21st century office buildings.

Renting price avg: €500 per month

Buying price avg: €120,000

Your typical neighbor: ranging from busy corporate people and hipsters to students and pensioners. Besides locals, also Finns and Belarusians, Scots, Italians, Americans and so forth.

Why Kesklinn? Living in the center, it is the densest and busiest that you can get in Estonia but not as overwhelming as NYC or Hong Kong. Lot of culture and world class restaurants, not to mention pubs and clubs.

History brief: besides the Old Town the regulated designing of the streets and dwellings of Kesklinn started in 1857 after Tallinn was excluded from the list of fortifications. Most of the buildings were completed from 1920s to 1940 and from 1945 to 1950s. It took off again in 1990s and has not stopped yet.

Key center: the triangle between Vanalinn (the Old Town), Viru Keskus (shopping center) and Vabaduse väljak (the Freedom Square) has a lot to explore in a short distance that can be covered in less than five minutes on foot.

Special events: you name it, you’ve got it. For example, in every September the Tallinn Marathon (10k, 21k and 42k distances), in November the internationally recognised PÖFF (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival) and Restoranide Nädal (Tallinn Restaurant Week), during summer the Tallinn Bicycle Week (also known as Tour d’Öö), Uue Maailma festival, concerts (like Moby, Rammstein, Robbie Williams), festivals (the International Song Festival) and many others.

District Administration address: see Kesklinn.

Area 1.1 km², population 4,184. Density 3,850 ppl/km²

Types of buildings: medieval buildings dating back as old as 13th century A.D. Basically every house here is a living museum, most of them are modernised with modern plumbing and other standards in mind so don’t be afraid that you have to take a medieval bath.

Renting price avg: €700 per month

Buying price avg: €220,000

Your typical neighbor: hipsters and young urban professionals. See also Kesklinn.

Why Vanalinn: you will be living and working in the historic center of Tallinn. Very romantic cobblestone streets and centuries old dwellings, cozy pubs and modern boutiques.

History brief: this is the very heart of our capital and it’s listed as one of the UNESCO world heritage protection sites. The first mention of Tallinn was in an Arab geographical text in the year 1154 A.D. Even the world wars could not devastate this beautiful neighborhood, which continues to stand the test of time.

Key center: Raekoja plats (the Town Hall Square).

Special events: Vanalinna Päevad (the Days of the Old Town Festival).

District Administration address:
Nõmme Linnaosa Valitsus
Reg. no. 75014882
www.tallinn.ee/nomme
Valdeku 13, 11621 Tallinn
Phone: (+372) 645 7333
Email: [email protected]

Area 29.17 km², population 37,518. 

Types of buildings: cozy brick or timber private and small apartment buildings with private gardens with many trees.

Renting price avg: €400 per month

Buying price avg: €83,000

Your typical neighbor: cool pensioners, young and not so young families.

Why Nõmme? The garden neighborhood with hundreds of thousands of pine trees, this is the least densely populated and quietest suburb of the capital with street vibes from 1920s and 1930s. Highly recommended.

History brief: only a few tiny villages before the 1880s when Nikolai von Glehn started to sell and rent plots. In 1900 already 300 romantic summer cottages and smaller villas were built. During the war years the building process slowed down but continued after that.

Key center: Nõmme Keskus (Nõmme Center) has the Cultural Center (Nõmme Kultuurikeskus), a market (Nõmme turg) and a tiny shopping mall.

Special events: The Cultural Center holds events, like dancing, occasional cinema and theater shows.

Area 18.7 km², population 18,997.

Types of buildings: mainly private housing

Renting price avg: €550 per month

Buying price avg: €120,000

Your typical neighbor: as 80% of the people living in Pirita are Estonians, you hardly hear any other language around. But as a second language, English is here widely spoken as elsewhere in Estonia.

Why Pirita? Endless white sand beaches, pine forests, good connection to the city center and not so heavily populated as the outlying districts. Second best after Nõmme if you are looking for a quiet neighborhood.

History brief: similarly to Nõmme, the area had only few villages before the 20th century. The building intensified in the 1950s as people recovered from the war and started building private residences, small in scale but cute and cozy. Today it features some of the modern gems of villa architecture.

Key center: The Pirita marina and the Tallinn TV tower.

Special events: yachting, kayaking and surfing events take place from May until September.

Area 22,32 km², population 49,925. 

Types of buildings: mostly concrete blocks of flats, on the Kakumäe peninsula some beautiful private houses.

Renting price avg: €350 per month

Buying price avg: €85,000

Your typical neighbor: quiet, self-sustaining type who takes a walk or a run along the beach. The sea air makes people happy.

Why Haabersti? Recreational areas along Kakumäe Bay and Kopli Bay for kilometers, nationally important are the Tallinn Zoo and the Estonian Open Air Museum (a life-size 18th-century rural/fishing village).

History brief: the heart of the district is the residential area of concrete panel apartment blocks of Väike-Õismäe, built in the 1970s. Natural advantages are good so since 1990 new areas of small residential buildings have been built in Haabersti.

Key center: Rocca al Mare shopping center and the Saku Suurhall Arena.

Special events: around the year festive events at the Open Air Museum, like Christmas and Midsummer Day traditional celebrations.

Area  7.83 km², population 32,941 

Types of buildings: from housing from 19th century to Soviet era 1950s blocks of flats to modern private housing that have been built there since 1970s and onwards.

Renting price avg: €350 per month

Buying price avg: €87,000

Your typical neighbor: kids and families, working class, pensioners. People that like to live away from the Soviet-era projects but close to the city center.

Why Kristiine? Very close to the center, but away from the busy vibe.

History brief: in 1653 the Swedish queen Christina gave an order to survey the area into plots for citizens to purchase. Most of the housing stock was built during 1880 to 1980.

Key center: the Kristiine shopping center; the suburb is quite homogenous and there is no other urban center.

Special events: this is probably the only neighborhood that does not hold an (annual) event on its own. Even the neighborhood council holds its events in the city center (as it is very close) or elsewhere.

Area27.47 km², population 117,606. 

Types of buildings: mostly concrete blocks of flats

Renting price avg: €330 per month

Buying price avg: €65,000

Your typical neighbor: more than two-thirds are Russian speaking people that include Ukrainians, Belarusians and even Tatars. No matter what their mother tongue is, the younger generation almost always speaks English or some other foreign language.

Why Lasnamäe? The largest neighborhood of Tallinn has probably the lowest rents. Eighty-five percent of the housing is 5–16 stories high concrete panel blocks of flats, built between 1973 and 1992.

History brief: the first inhabitants settled here about 5,000 years ago. During the 1920s mainly farms and the Tallinn Airfield were located there. With the Soviet occupation after WWII came major changes – the start of mass housing for largely Russian workers in 1973 changed everything.

Key center: Lasnamäe Centrum shopping center at Mustakivi and Tondiraba Ice Arena.

Special events: ice skating competitions held at Tondiraba ice rink arena.

District Administration address:
Mustamäe Linnaosa Valitsus
Reg. no. 75014267
www.tallinn.ee/mustamae
Tammsaare tee 135, 12915 Tallinn
Phone: (+372) 645 7500 and (+372) 645 7511
Email: [email protected]

Area 8.09 km², population 66,245.

Types of buildings: mostly blocks of flats built in 1960s and 1970s, some private housing exists.

Renting price avg: €330 per month

Buying price avg: €72,000

Your typical neighbor: all types of people, local families and working class to university students and foreign professors.

Why Mustamäe? This is a neighborhood that has a lot of parks and other types of public green areas – 44% of the area is green, creating a positive vibe to the place.

History brief: the first villages in the area have been traced back to the year 1686. As with Lasnamäe, the Soviet occupation resulted in major changes in the area. Fortunately new office buildings, private housing and also apartment buildings have been built during the last 20 years that add great economic as well as aesthetic value.

Key center: Mustamäe Center (Mustamäe Keskus) that features restaurants, a cinema, multiple services and, of course, shopping. One of the best universities in Estonia, Tallinn University of Technology, is also based in Mustamäe.

Special events: in winter a light festival called the Might of Light (Valguse Vägi) is held. It also may be worth to pay a visit to the University of Technology (Tallinna Tehnikaülikool) to see what’s going on among the academic bunch.

Area 15.19 km², population 59,694.

Types of buildings: much of the housing stock has been built between 1890 and 1940, mostly apartment buildings in timber and brick. You can find some private housing as well.

Renting price avg: €430 per month

Buying price avg: €75,000

Your typical neighbor: Russian-speaking multinationals, from blue to white collar, from the yuppies and artists in Kalamaja to the pensioners in Pelgulinna.

Why Põhja-Tallinn? One of the most unique neighborhoods of Tallinn, as it is surrounded by sea on three sides (the most popular for recreation is the Stroomi aka Pelguranna beach), but at the same time there is an excellent tram connection to the center. An unpolished gem that will blossom in a few year or decades, though Kalamaja, sometimes called the “hipsterville” of Tallinn, is already in blossom!

History brief: before there were some villages of fishermen but the industrial revolution and shipyards needed workers, so extensive apartment buildings were erected in the end of the 19th century.

Key center: Telliskivi street in Kalamaja. The former industrial complex – the “Telliskivi City” – has been turned into the creative centre of Estonia where artists, music promoters and community activists mingle with the startup community.

Special events: Kalamaja days (Kalamaja päevad), concerts, art fares and street markets held in summertime.