Haapsalu

The town's name comes from the Estonian haab, "aspen", and salu, in the old sense of a wooded island; in Swedish and German it was Hapsal. The first written record dates from 1279, when the town was chartered and became the capital of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, after earlier seats at Lihula and Vana-Pärnu. For three centuries the bishops ruled the west coast and the islands from the castle and cathedral they built on the shore. The castle was badly damaged in the Livonian War, lost its military role under Swedish rule, and after Russia took Estonia in 1710 Peter the Great had its walls partly torn down, leaving the ruins of today.

From the 13th century until 1944 Haapsalu and the surrounding coast were the heartland of the Estonian Swedes. In 1825 the military doctor Carl Abraham Hunnius opened the first mud-cure establishment, and news of the curative sea mud spread quickly among wealthy visitors from St Petersburg; the Romanov family came to the spas, Tchaikovsky wrote his piano suite Souvenir de Hapsal here in 1867, and the town's women became known for their fine lace shawls. A railway arrived in 1904, and its long covered platform served the summer crowds.

In 1944, before the Soviet army arrived, almost all of the Swedes of the area were evacuated or fled to Sweden. Passenger trains stopped in 1995, but the resort survived: the mud cures, the Promenade and a calendar of summer festivals still draw visitors, and the fencing school founded here by Endel Nelis became the setting of the film The Fencer.

The castle is the centre of the town's cultural life. Its walls host the August Blues Festival, held since 1994 and the biggest in the Baltic states, and its cathedral is home to the legend of the White Lady, a maiden whose image is said to appear on the chapel wall at the August full moon — the inspiration for the White Lady Days. Since 2005 the town has also staged a horror and fantasy film festival; in 2017 local pastors publicly called for its municipal funding to end, and the same year it drew record crowds. Summer brings a run of other events, from the American Beauty Summer Meet to an Italian Wine Party.

Crafts and memory matter here. The Haapsalu shawl, a delicate knitted lace shawl that originated in the town in the early 19th century, made the town famous in the 19th century. The Swedish heritage survives in place names across the bay at Noarootsi and on Vormsi, and in the Swedish Market square at the head of the main street. The illustrator Ilon Wikland, who has had a strong bond with the town since her childhood, is remembered in a children's centre devoted to her pictures.

Fencing has an unusual place in local life thanks to Nelis's school, and the town has produced Olympic fencers including Katrina Lehis, bronze and team gold medallist at the 2020 Games. Haapsalu is occasionally promoted as the "Venice of the Baltics", an apparent exaggeration aimed mostly at foreign visitors.

About 9,400 people lived in Haapsalu at the start of 2020, making it a small county town by any standard and the administrative centre of Lääne County. It is divided into six neighbourhoods, from the old centre on its peninsula to the newer residential areas and the spa district of Paralepa.

The economy rests on public services as the county seat, on tourism and above all on the spas: three mud-cure establishments still operate, alongside thalasso treatments built on seawater and marine ingredients. The town fills with holidaymakers and festival-goers in summer and grows quiet again once autumn arrives.

Daily life is shaped by the sea and the seasons. The shallow bays around the town warm quickly in summer and freeze in hard winters, when ice roads may be opened from nearby Rohuküla to the islands. The old railway bed has become a cycle path, and regular buses link the town to Tallinn and Kärdla.

Haapsalu eats in the western Estonian way, close to the sea. Baltic herring (räim), the national fish, and sprats (kilu) appear on the cold table beside pickles, sausages and rosolje, a salad of beetroot, potatoes and herring. Spiced salted sprats on an open sandwich with a slice of boiled egg — kiluvõileib — are a classic appetiser.

Black rye bread accompanies almost every savoury meal, with pork, potatoes, barley and dairy as staples. Smoked or marinated eel and crayfish are considered delicacies, and pancakes (pannkook) and kama, a mixture of roasted pea, barley, rye and oat flour soaked in milk or buttermilk and eaten uncooked, are everyday favourites.

The town's cafés and restaurants cluster along Karja Street and around the Swedish Market, near the castle, and along the Promenade by the Resort Hall, which come alive in summer. Beer is the usual drink with food, and at Christmas mulled wine (hõõgvein) joins the table.