From the age of six to fourteen, I lived with my family on the edge of Toila-Oru park, in the old laundry house of the palace complex. The palace itself was long gone by then, burnt down by the Soviet Army in the WWII. They didn’t quite manage to get rid of it all, so there was still something left for the Germans to blow up towards the end of the war.

The palace was a beautiful white building modelled on the Italian renaissance palazzos, surprisingly classy for a revivalist building. It was originally built in the end of the 19th century by a wealthy Russian merchant Grigori Jelissejev, who got bored by his summer houses in French Riviera (as one does). After the October revolution, Jelissejev emigrated to Paris, sold his house to an Estonian industrialist who gifted it to the Estonian state. Until the war, it served as the summer residence of the Estonian president, up to the sad end of both the palace and independent Estonia.

The park around the palace survives to this day, however, and although neglected during the occupation years, it has looked magnificent throughout. By now, the rose garden, the park gates, ponds, pavilions and fountains have been restored and there are still well over 200 different species of trees and bushes in the park. The trees are my favourite part, especially the rows of old lindens that look especially amazing in the autumn. The river Pühajõgi in its deep ancient valley runs through the park and makes the landscape more interesting than the usual flatness of Estonia.

When I was little, I knew that when I will become rich, I’ll buy the park and rebuild the palace. Unfortunately, Jelissejev-level wealth eludes me, but the park is still one of my favourite places in the whole world. It’s probably responsible for the fact that I always prefer English parks to the French ones. I can admire the geometric flower beds and manicured lawns, but in my mind, a proper park is a bit wild and certainly mysterious, closer to a forest than a garden. When I’ll finally buy the Oru park, I’ll make sure not to clean it up too much.

PS Unfortunately, I chose the worst possible time to take photos of the park – during the celebrations of the restoration of Estonian independence, when the park was full of people and there was no clean shot to be had.