“For sheer romantic medievalism, Narva ranks even above Tallinn,” wrote author Ronald Seth in 1939, unaware that this atmospheric city of cobbled streets was about to be pummelled into oblivion by German-Soviet artillery battles. On the country’s far eastern border, with a population that is over ninety percent Russian-speaking, Narva initially seems a world apart from Tallinn, although Russia’s status as a problematic and unpredictable neighbour has led to a recent increase in Narva’s sense of Estonian identity.

Founded by the Danes in 1229 and bequeathed to the Livonian Order a century later, the city on the Narva River marked for centuries the frontier between the Teutonic-ruled western Baltic and the emerging Russian state. The building of Narva Castle on the western side of the river was soon followed by the construction of Ivangorod on the opposite bank; the two strongholds continue to glower across the water at each other to this day.

The River Promenade