Pärnu

The name first belonged to Old Pärnu, a town founded around 1251 by the bishop of Ösel–Wiek at the mouth of the Sauga River, which declined in the shadow of its rival and was destroyed around 1600. That rival was a second town founded by the Teutonic Order, which began a castle nearby in 1265. As Pernau it joined the Hanseatic League and became an important ice-free harbour for Livonia. Poland-Lithuania held it from 1560 to 1617, when Swedish forces took it at the second attempt, and the town was fortified with ramparts and a moat, of which the Tallinn Gate survives.

From 1699 to 1710 the university of Tartu, then the Academia Gustavo-Carolina, worked in Pärnu, and the university still has a college here. Russia took the town in 1710, and the port flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries on exports of timber and flax. In 1838 the first bathing establishment opened by the beach, the start of the resort, and in the 19th century the fortifications were demolished, leaving only the Tallinn Gate and a bend of the moat, now a park.

On 23 February 1918 the Estonian Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony of the Endla theatre, a day before it was proclaimed in Tallinn. In the 1930s Pärnu became one of the Baltic's important resorts, with functionalist buildings near the beach. The Endla theatre burned in 1944, and under Soviet rule a new theatre building and several sanatorium buildings went up. In 1996 the town adopted the title of summer capital.

The resort sets the tone. Finnish and Scandinavian visitors have known Pärnu for generations, and in summer the town fills with holidaymakers, concerts, festivals and night life. The bronze statue of the musician Raimond Valgre, who played here in the 1930s, sits in the park near the old Kursaal, a concert hall of 1880, and by an old story couples walk to the end of the jetty to seal their love with a kiss.

Endla, the second-oldest professional theatre in Estonia, has been part of town life since 1911, and the Pärnu Concert Hall, opened in 2002, is the home of the city orchestra. The International Documentary and Science Film Festival, begun in 1987 on an idea of Lennart Meri, is the oldest film festival in the Baltic states, and the Museum of New Art, run by the filmmaker Mark Soosaar, brings contemporary art to a summer town. A memorial museum in Ülejõe is dedicated to Lydia Koidula, Estonia's national poet.

The town has its own architecture of resort life: wooden summer villas among the trees of the beach park, the Art Nouveau Endla building of 1911 that no longer stands, the functionalist buildings of the 1930s, and an unusual 750-metre terraced building from the Soviet decades.

Just over 40,000 people lived in Pärnu at the start of 2022, making it Estonia's fourth-largest city; in 2011 about 83 per cent were Estonians and 12 per cent Russians. The population swells in summer, when the hotels, guesthouses and holiday flats fill up.

Services and tourism dominate the economy alongside a varied industry, and Pärnu is the main industrial centre of western Estonia, with electronics and wood processing the largest branches. The resort side runs on spas and rehabilitation centres, conference and concert venues, hotels, golf courses and restaurants, and Finns and Swedes are, after Estonians, the main visitors. The port at the mouth of the river handles exports from the county and the rest of southern Estonia and has grown into an important regional harbour. The university college keeps a student presence through the year.

Life follows the seasons more than in most Estonian towns. Summer is crowded, loud and long-lit, with the beach full by day and the parks and bars busy at night. From autumn the town quietens, the residents have their streets back, and spa guests and conference visitors keep the hotels open through the dark months. Residents live in the old town, in Ülejõe across the river, in the beach district and in the suburbs along the bay.

Pärnu's cooking is the Estonian coastal table. Baltic herring, räim, is the national fish, often eaten salted, and the sprat, kilu, appears on kiluvõileib, an open sandwich of spiced salted sprats with a slice of boiled egg. Herring also goes into rosolje, a salad of beetroot, potato and herring, part of the traditional cold table. Black rye bread, leib, accompanies almost every savoury meal.

Inland traditions of the south reach the town too: mulgikapsad, sauerkraut with pork and pearl barley, and kama, a dish of milled roasted pea, barley, rye and oat flour soaked in milk or buttermilk. Cakes and buns, kringel scented with cardamom and curd pastries, are eaten with coffee in the cafés of the old town.

In summer much of the eating moves outdoors, to the terraces along Rüütli Street, in the parks and near the beach. Locally brewed beer is the usual drink with food, with coffee, juice or water the everyday alternatives.