Survival in the Stone City: Tallinn in the Literature of the 1970s and 1980s
Survival in the Stone City: Tallinn in the Literature of the 1970s and 1980s

Summary/Abstract: “There is no black soil in Mustamäe” (Kallas 1985: 57) – such is the conclusion of Uku Peterson, a character in the short story Muld (Soil) of the Estonian writer Teet Kallas, after he has searched in vain for fertile soil to grow flowers in, amidst blocks of houses in the early 1980s city-space of Tallinn. The cry of the urbanized man who has had to leave his rural background behind and come to terms with the new way of life. The city of Tallinn went through some major changes during the 1960s and 1970s. New mass housing residential areas were built. Mustamäe was the pioneer and Lasnamäe soon followed suit. In this article, I will discuss some of the cultural aspects of those residential areas and their depiction in Soviet Estonian urban fiction of the stagnation era.

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