At the Smart City Exchange Forum in Tallinn, one message rose above the rest: resilience is no longer a side issue. It is becoming the basic condition of urban survival.

At the Smart City Exchange Forum 2026, held in mid-March in Tallinn, the word resilience gradually shed its conference-polish vagueness and became something far sharper: the organising principle of urban life in an age of overlapping shocks.

By the end of the day, after speeches and panels covering everything from floods and climate risk to cyberattacks, emergency coordination, digital dependency and EU funding, one conclusion had become difficult to avoid.

Continue reading Why resilient cities matter more than ever at Estonian World.

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris has opened a major exhibition of Estonian art, bringing together the work of Olga Terri, Anu Põder and Kris Lemsalu in a striking cross-generational show that introduces French audiences to nearly 90 years of Estonian artistic experience.

Titled Estonian Realities, the exhibition is a collaboration between the Art Museum of Estonia and the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art. Through the work of three women from different eras, it traces a long and complex journey in Estonian art history – from the anxieties of the 1940s to the freer, more performative language of contemporary art.

Continue reading A Paris exhibition spotlights Estonian women artists at Estonian World.

From 9 to 12 April 2026, Tallinn Music Week returns to Tallinn, Estonia, bringing more than 200 artists from around the world to one of northern Europe’s best-known new music festivals.

Now in its 18th edition, the event has evolved far beyond a conventional showcase. Alongside concerts across clubs, churches and concert halls, Tallinn Music Week also hosts a major international music industry conference and a city festival of exhibitions, films, food events and public discussions. The result is something broader than a run of gigs: for four days, Tallinn becomes a stage for thinking about what culture can do for a city.

Continue reading Tallinn Music Week returns to Estonia’s capital with music, ideas and a city-wide festival at Estonian World.

More than 130 organisations will take part in Ilves 2026, a nationwide exercise designed to test how the state responds to sabotage, disinformation, unrest and drone threats.

Estonia will hold one of its largest ever national crisis exercises in June, as the Government Office brings together more than 130 organisations from the public, private and third sectors to rehearse how the country would respond to a major emergency.

The exercise, named Ilves 2026, will run from 8 to 12 June and is intended to test Estonia’s comprehensive defence system – the ability of the state, local authorities, businesses and volunteers to continue functioning under pressure during a wide-ranging crisis.

Continue reading Estonia to stage one of its biggest ever national crisis drills at Estonian World.

Škoda Group has unveiled a new fleet of battery-powered trolleybuses in Tallinn, as the Estonian capital presses ahead with efforts to modernise its public transport system and cut urban emissions.

The Czech transport manufacturer presented the vehicles in Tallinn on Wednesday, with officials and journalists taking part in a first test drive.

Under the deal, Škoda will deliver 40 trolleybuses to Tallinn this year: 22 articulated 18-metre Škoda 33Tr vehicles and 18 12-metre Škoda 32Tr models. The contract, which includes maintenance and servicing as well as an option for up to 30 additional trolleybuses, is worth more than €50 million including options.

Continue reading The new Škoda battery trolleybuses enter service in Tallinn at Estonian World.

The redevelopment of Tallinn’s Volta quarter moved into a new phase this week with the laying of the cornerstone for Volta Skai, two 12-storey residential towers planned for the former industrial site in Põhja-Tallinn.

The ceremony marked the latest stage in the remaking of the wider Volta quarter, a former factory area that is being turned into a mixed-use district of housing, commercial space and services.

The quarter takes its name from the Volta factory, founded in 1899. Over more than a century, the plant produced engines, generators and, at times, submarine and military equipment. Like several former industrial sites in Põhja-Tallinn, it was part of the area’s manufacturing base before that role declined.

Continue reading The Volta quarter enters a new phase in Tallinn’s redevelopment at Estonian World.

06 April 2026 – 12 April 2026

Not sure where to be this week? Every week, in partnership with Gamma, we present a hand-picked selection of the five most compelling events taking place in and around Tallinn – it’s time to plan your week with purpose.

Sip and Create – Ceramic Workshop

MyWorkshop keraamikastuudio, Kentmanni 28, Tallinn

Saturday 11 April, from 2.30pm

Sip wine, shape clay and leave with a piece you actually made yourself. This two-hour pottery session is part creative reset, part low-key social ritual: you’ll get all the materials, hands-on guidance, a glass of wine and the chance to craft your own mug or plate.

Continue reading Your Tallinn hit list: the top 5 events this week at Estonian World.

Coop Estonia, the country’s largest domestic food retailer, is to buy the 13 Estonian stores operated by Prisma Peremarket from its Finnish owner, SOK, in a deal that will strengthen Coop’s position in Tallinn and reshape the supermarket sector.

The agreement, signed by Coop Estonia and SOK, Finland’s largest cooperative retail group, remains subject to approval by the Estonian Competition Authority. The parties have not disclosed the value of the transaction, although it is being described as the largest domestic retail deal in Estonia’s history.

The significance of the sale lies not merely in its scale, but in its direction: an Estonian company is buying the local store operations of a long-established Finnish retailer.

Continue reading An Estonian retailer to buy the Finnish-owned Prisma stores at Estonian World.

In the latest episode of The Tallinn University Podcast, Professor Matthew Crandall joins host Terry McDonald to unpack one of the most pressing questions in international politics today.

In this clip, Professor Matthew Crandall reflects on how the twin pressures exerted by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have recast Europe’s defence spending.

The conversation opens with the broader erosion of international norms. While the current geopolitical moment may feel exceptionally turbulent, Crandall argues that many of the forces behind it have been building for years.

Reflecting on developments since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, he notes that actions once considered politically unthinkable are gradually becoming more commonplace.

Continue reading Podcast: what is the US foreign policy now? at Estonian World.

Estonia may count among the least religious nations in the world, yet when it comes to religious holidays, Estonians tend to give a respectful nod – often blending them with their own time-honoured folk traditions.

Easter, which commemorates the crucifixion and celebrates the resurrection of Jesus – the Jewish preacher and religious figure at the heart of Christianity – may have held little meaning for Estonians prior to the arrival of the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century. Yet in the Estonian folk calendar, Easter came to be marked as a spring festival, heralding the return of light and warmth.

Continue reading Easter in Estonia: cleaning, predicting the weather and painting eggs at Estonian World.

The Estonian government, together with private investors and several figures from the country’s early tech scene, is said to be exploring a plan to buy Skype back from Microsoft and turn it into a flagship project for Europe’s digital sovereignty.*

Estonia is preparing to buy Skype back from Microsoft and relaunch it as a secure European communications platform, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

The proposal, which is said to have been quietly developed over recent months, would position the iconic service as a European alternative to existing global platforms at a time when Brussels is talking ever more seriously about digital sovereignty and strategic autonomy.

Continue reading Estonia to relaunch Skype as Europe’s sovereign platform at Estonian World.

30 March 2026 – 05 April 2026

Not sure where to be this week? Every week, in partnership with Gamma, we present a hand-picked selection of the five most compelling events taking place in and around Tallinn – it’s time to plan your week with purpose.

Sip and Paint Your New Season

Kartul, Kopli 16, Tallinn

Tuesday 31 March, from 7pm

Missed January’s “new year, new me” rush? Spring offers a second chance. Begin Again Vision Board Night is a cosy sip-and-paint evening where good intentions meet a little creative flair – and where this year’s goals might finally become something worthy of a place on your wall.

Continue reading Your Tallinn hit list: the top 5 events this week at Estonian World.

Estonia was placed on air alert overnight after fewer than ten foreign drones entered its airspace during a new wave of Ukrainian attacks on Russian military targets near the Baltic Sea, with debris from at least one drone later found in southern Estonia.

The Defence Forces said the immediate danger had passed by 6am on Tuesday, but the incident marks the second such spillover into Estonia in less than a week. Last Wednesday, a drone entering from Russian airspace struck the chimney of the Auvere power plant in north-eastern Estonia.

Drones entered from the south and east

Colonel Uku Arold, head of strategic communications at the Defence Forces headquarters, said the latest threat arose as Ukraine continued mass drone attacks on Russian military and war-supporting infrastructure in north-west Russia, including in Leningrad Oblast and the Ust-Luga port area.

Continue reading Estonia on drone alert after airspace breach at Estonian World.

As Europe, the United States and the wider world face diverging security pressures, the real test for the transatlantic alliance is whether it can preserve a common sense of purpose.

Since NATO’s founding in 1949, the alliance has been a cornerstone of international relations. Through collective security and deterrence, it has helped Western democracies protect their sovereignty and respond to external threats. It has endured because it has been held together by a shared understanding of those threats.

Alliances are sustained by common threat perception

International relations scholarship has long stressed this point: alliances are sustained not by power alone, but by common threat perception.

Continue reading Desiree Mumm: what will it take to keep the transatlantic alliance strong? at Estonian World.

Estonia still has what much of Europe has lost: vast bogs, wetlands and forests that store carbon, shelter rare species and shape a nation’s identity; but if this wild heart is to keep beating, it will need not only protection, but restoration, political will and the courage to value long-term resilience over short-term gain.

If you walk into an Estonian bog at sunrise, you can feel the land breathing. Mist rises over dark pools, cranberries glisten on the moss, and cranes call in the distance. Every season brings a different face to the bog. These quiet places – vast, wet and ancient – are among Europe’s last true wildernesses.

Continue reading Estonia’s wild heart: why its bogs, wetlands and forests matter at Estonian World.

Estonia’s diplomatic map has just stretched a little further across the globe – all the way to Tonga, the Polynesian kingdom so far from Tallinn that presenting credentials there feels like diplomacy with a dash of long-haul endurance.

On 25 March, Estonia’s ambassador to the Kingdom of Tonga, Jaan Reinhold, presented his credentials to King Tupou VI.

Behind the ceremony, however, was a serious conversation. Reinhold and the king discussed the role of small states in a changing world order, stressing the need for practical cooperation between Europe and the Pacific, strategic flexibility and a values-based foreign policy.

Continue reading Estonia extends its diplomatic reach to Tonga at Estonian World.

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Estonian World brings you the latest reactions from Estonia. For updates from 2022, please see a separate article.

22 February 2026 – Estonia and Japan launch housing project for displaced Ukrainians in Brusyliv

Estonia’s undersecretary for global affairs, Mariin Ratnik, has laid the cornerstone for a new apartment building for internally displaced persons in Brusyliv, a small town in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region.

The 18-apartment social housing building is a joint project between Estonia and Japan, aimed at helping Ukrainians forced from their homes by Russia’s war. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Brusyliv’s population has grown by 40% due to the arrival of displaced people.

Continue reading Updates: Russia’s war against Ukraine – Estonian perspective at Estonian World.

A drone that entered Estonia from Russian airspace struck the chimney of the Auvere power plant in the early hours of Wednesday, in an incident that underlined how the war in Ukraine is spilling dangerous consequences into the wider region.

No one was injured and Estonia’s electricity system was not damaged, according to the authorities and Enefit Power. Enefit’s Auvere power plant is in north-eastern Estonia, in Ida-Viru County near Narva, close to the Russian border.

The Estonian Internal Security Service said the drone hit the plant’s chimney at 3.43am on 25 March. Rescue Board explosive ordnance disposal specialists were sent to the scene, while the Office of the Prosecutor General opened proceedings and the Internal Security Service began an investigation.

Continue reading A drone from Russian airspace strikes the chimney of an Estonian power plant at Estonian World.

On 25 March 1949, the Soviet regime deported 20,000 Estonian men, women, and children to Siberia; in just a few days, nearly three per cent of the country’s population was seized and sent to remote, often inhospitable regions.

In the summer of 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as a result of the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on 23 August 1939. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Estonia lost approximately 17.5% of its population.

The Soviet occupation brought with it an event that until then had only been read about in history books and which became the most horrific memory of the past centuries – mass deportations that affected people of all nationalities living in Estonia.

Continue reading Estonia remembers the victims of Soviet deportations at Estonian World.

23 March 2026 – 29 March 2026

Not sure where to be this week? Every week, in partnership with Gamma, we present a hand-picked selection of the five most compelling events taking place in and around Tallinn – it’s time to plan your week with purpose.

Cocktail Masterclass

Whisper Sister, Pärnu 12, Tallinn

Wednesday, 25 March, from 6 PM

Ever been curious about what really goes on behind the velvet curtain of a proper speakeasy? Step into the world of Whisper Sister for an interactive Cocktail Masterclass that trades guesswork for hands-on experience.

Continue reading Your Tallinn hit list: the top 5 events this week at Estonian World.