Estonia is a unique country. It may not be wealthy, but it has a rich artisanal tradition where locals have utilized natural materials for centuries to enhance their humble rural existence.
These stylish designer products and handmade decorative items infuse their homes with the character and warmth of a resilient family heritage, spanning generations.
Hunting for Souvenirs: Where to Buy Artisanal Products
The Estonian School of Design and Arts and Crafts continues the tradition of folk crafts and handicrafts. Each tourist site is surrounded by colorful handicraft rows where you can buy knitted and homespun items, author's ceramics, jewelry made of leather, metal, and gems, carved wooden utensils, and funny figures made of glass and porcelain.
When planning shopping tours in Estonia, take regional specifics into account. Haapsalu, for example, is home to beautiful down shawls with patterned edges, lace, and fringe. You can buy an original Haapsalu shawl at Haapsalu Pitsikeskus, the city's lace craft center.
Wooden carved decor and utensils are the hallmark of Pärnu County. Rarely will a tourist pass by the shop windows of Vaas&Vaas and Ehe ja Ehte Käsitöö and resist the temptation to look inside. Elegant figurines, stands, holders, and vases hypnotize shoppers with their graceful lines and the scent of freshly carved wood.
While visiting Rakvere, make time to visit the factory store of the Liliina textile factory, which sells bed linen, interior fabrics, and bath towels made of natural linen, undeservedly forgotten in the former Soviet Union. Linen finishing fabrics also come from the capital's textile design studio Zizi Disain.
Residents of the southern regions buy linen products from Võru. The Vestra EX store has a curious collection of home textiles, while the Piret Pilberg showroom can help you find spectacular designer pieces made from pure linen.
Woven floorboards and tapestries at the Piibe boutique at Ania Manor in Harjumaa will be an asset for a country or boho-chic apartment. At the Valley carpet weaving store in Pärnu, you can find original upholstered coverings made in the tufting technique, suitable for conservative interiors.
As a memento of a fantastic vacation in Kuressaare, we recommend buying a couple or three fun trinkets made of Estonian dolomite from the Lossi Kivikoda stone-carving workshop.
From the fishing island of Kihnu to the sheep farm of Mikkeni in Pärnu County, the artisans of Muhu Island specialize in embroidery, and the historic region of Setomaa is famous for its original multicolored lace weaving techniques. Setu men excel in artistic forging, offering handmade silver jewelry and household utensils for sale. A strong school of blacksmithing has also developed on the island of Saaremaa. A wide range of forged décor can be found in the Saaremaa Forge store in the courtyard of Kuressaare Bishop's Castle.
An interior doll from Estonia is a gift that is impossible to refuse: Estonians are considered to be the best doll makers in Eastern Europe. Author dolls by artist Reza Tiitsmaa from Tyuri are well suited to creative interiors, while traditional dolls from the Lossikamber store in Viljandi will protect your home from bad luck and misfortune.
Estonian Fashion
It goes without saying that neither Tallinn nor any other Estonian city even tries to compete with Milan and Paris on the fashion Olympus. The traditional niches of Estonian fashion designers are good business suits and stylish things for everyday wear in the city. Tallinn's fashion shops are concentrated in the Kesklinn district; the Kalamaja district has interesting salons of independent designers.
Estonian fashion has been strongly influenced by the Swedish school, which promotes constructive minimalism with rather original cut geometry. One example is the corporate style of the Baltic Group clothing factory, realized by five successful brands Baltman, Bastion, Monton, Mosaic, and Ivo Nikkolo. In the view of Tallinn's yuppies, the modern urban look starts with the company's signature boutiques on Fashion Street in the Baltika neighborhood.
Estonian underwear brand BonBon and practical children's overalls from Lenne are well known in Eastern European countries, which also have offices in Tallinn.
Youthful designers draw inspiration from ethnic motifs, reinterpreting traditional ornaments in a modern way. In Tartu, the ethnic clothing shop Etnostudio is a success, where all products are made only from ecological materials.
Tallina Liina Viira, a fashion designer from Tallinn, decorates knitwear with Scandinavian and Estonian prints, while the Silk Lab creates elegant headwear and accessories decorated with batik. Young ladies with a penchant for experimentation will appreciate the original findings of the creative tandem of Liisi Eesmaa and Karolin Kuuzik, who produce playful women's clothing under the Tallinn Dolls brand.
Tallin is home to international brands such as Emporio Armani, Burberry, Hugo Boss, Max Mara, Baldnini, La Perla, and Lacoste. Regal, custom-designed jewelry awaits the beautiful hostesses at the jewelry salon of the Austrian company FreyWille.
High-tech equipment and clothes for sports are available at the Escada&Escada sports store. The prices are certainly not for the general public, but they're no more expensive than the comfort and safety of an athlete performing risky stunts.
When to Go Shopping?
Shops in Estonia are open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays; on Saturdays, retailers operate on a reduced schedule, closing at 3 or 4 p.m. In resort towns, the opening hours of stores can be shifted by an hour and a half, so many establishments open at 10:00 and close at 20:00 or later. Author's studios keep a loose schedule, so it is recommended that you give your hosts advance notice of your planned visit.
On public holidays and Sundays, stores, with the exception of grocery stores, are generally closed. Large shopping malls continue to accept customers until 8 p.m., and grocery supermarkets are open 24 hours a day.
Fairs in Estonia: A Feast of Good Buys
Like in the old days, shopping in Estonia is more about the personal interaction between shopper and shopkeeper than about sales techniques. Estonian boutiques, salons, and design studios are free of intrusive advertising and salespeople with glued-on smiles.
In the backcountry, village fairs are still alive, where women in colorful national costumes pick fights with shoppers, generously sprinkling pearls of juicy folk humor. If you want to bargain for a discount, study English-Estonian phrasebook before your trip: locals enjoy hearing native speech from foreigners.
It's hard to return home without a "catch" when you have such great events behind you as the Viru Master Craft Fair in Jõhvi, the Spring and Summer Fairs in the courtyard of Narva Fortress, the Needlework Fair at Vanamõisa Manor, the St. Martin's Day Gift Fair in Tallinn, or the Handmade Goods Fair at the Heimtali Museum of Local History.
The capital of Järvamaa County, the ancient town of Paide, which is called "the heart of Estonia" in guidebooks, holds the record for the number of fairs organized. The focus is usually on events such as the Jüri Fair, Craftsmen's Fair, Christmas Fair, and County Fair, which are transformed into spectacular shows with carnival processions and theatrical performances.
Practical locals with a strong attachment to their dachas and vegetable gardens prefer organic food and gardening fairs. Especially respected by Estonians are the Türi Flower Fair and the Pärnu Plant Fair, which is held twice a year - in spring and fall, during the intensive field season.
In spring and summer, farmers' fairs are held in Jõhvi, Padivere, Iizaku, Kallaste, and Suviste. At the end of October, the inhabitants of three municipalities of Võru County come to Lindora village for the biggest agricultural fair, summarizing the results of the past year. Farmers from Vastseliina, Lasva, and Meremäe compete for the best harvest, putting up phantasmagoric installations of ruddy fruits and vegetables, scorching pies, delicate cheeses, and fragrant homemade liqueurs. The brisk trade is supported by all sorts of attractions, folk amusements, and performances of folklore ensembles.
Saving Money on Gifts: How to Avoid Overspending
A surefire way to save money on brand-name clothing and accessories is to time your shopping trip to Estonia to coincide with the start of seasonal sales in boutiques and department stores when discounts can reach up to 70 percent. Shoppers often refuse to believe their good fortune, but there's really no catch: in most cases, the price falls are caused by a lack of space in warehouses for new arrivals.
The summer sale season in Estonia falls in June and July, when stores that have bought new batches of summer clothes get rid of unsold winter and spring collections en masse.
Estonia's Christmas sales start in November, so don't put shopping on hold or you'll have to make do with what's left of your former luxuries. In December, Christmas fairs start in Rapla and Paide, and the Town Hall Square in Tallinn turns into a real medieval town of craftsmen, living by its own laws, just like in Tamara Grabbe's fairy tale play. By the way, the adaptation of the drama actively exploits the architectural heritage of the Estonian capital: the ruins of St. Birgitta's Monastery and Katarina's Alley are glimpsed in the footage.
Like everywhere else in the world, souvenir sellers in places of mass tourist pilgrimage tend to overcharge for goods. Tallinn's tour guides are in the habit of sending clients to Katarina's Alley and Masters' Court, as well as to Vene and Pikk Streets, where you have to pay twice or even three times as much for every trinket. We recommend visiting the Telliskivi Creative Village, located in a former industrial complex: the assortment is almost the same, but the prices are much lower.
Tartu's souvenir shops are neatly gathered in one place - in the store of the Tartu University History Museum, which will open in May after restoration work is completed. A similar scheme has been set up in Paide and Põlva to sell handicrafts.
People often form guilds in the medieval manner, helping each other to find customers and sell their finished works. The Mary Magdalene Guild is well known in Pärnu, which owns the ceramics workshop at Eddie's Pottery, the applied arts gallery near Steiner's Garden, and the familiar Valley store at the carpet weaving workshop.
The Viljandi Guild of Bonifacio's stained glass and paper composition studio, along with a wide variety of souvenir products for sale at the Old Viljandi Buyer's Center.
The creative association Baabad, which owns the Baabade Pood artisan shop and a concept cafe with appetizing homemade snacks and excellent coffee, is responsible for the realization of handicrafts in Kärdla.
In Old Tallinn's boutiques, you should only buy one-of-a-kind author's pieces - for example, replicas of medieval tableware and Hanseatic League-era jewelry from the creative workshop Krambude, ceramic tableware by renowned artist Helina Tilk, batik and beadwork by Aita Rõemus, and jewelry by Jaan Pärna. Also noteworthy are accessories, clothing, and decorative elements from small Estonian brands and independent designers, collected in the salons of Eesti esindus, Oma Asti, Tali, and Les petites.
Antiques and vintage, oddly enough, are best bought in Tallinn, and more specifically in the bohemian Kalamaja neighborhood. Every week there are flea markets and flea markets, where you'll often find cute and inexpensive vintage items. If money is no object, check out Kuressaare's famous antique shops - Lossi Antiik, eAntiik, and Arensburg Antiik.
Also in Kalamaja is the gorgeous Nolita Vintage retro fashion salon with a wealth of branded vintage clothing and accessories dating back to the 1940s. In the Foxy Vintage studio store, you can dress up in the style of the 70s, while picking up dressy shoes, jewelry, and handbags in the Oh Sa Retro accessories salon. All that's missing is an unlit record in hand, but that's no problem - there's a Biit Me Record Store a few blocks away.
Don't forget to pick up a couple of bottles of Vana Tallinn or Kännu Kukk, or your friends and family won't understand. The most favorable prices are offered by Liviko Alkostore's wholesaler in Kuressaare.
What you definitely shouldn't buy in Estonia is amber - contrary to what the sellers tell you, the Republic of Estonia has never had its own reserves of the sunstone. At best you will overpay, compensating the manufacturer for the cost of importing amber from the Kaliningrad region, Lithuania, or Latvia, and at worst you will be presented with a cheap imitation made of casein resin.
