Rakvere

Rakvere (Tarbapea in ancient Estonian, Weisenberg in German, Rakowor in Russian) is Estonia’s fifth largest city and situated the northern part of the country, 20 km south of the Gulf of Finland and approximately 100 km east of Tallinn and west of Narva.

Understand


Its earliest signs of human settlement date back to the 3rd-5th century.

Nowadays, Rakvere is an attractive and rapidly developing town with quite an interesting character. The modern Rakvere perfectly reflects the phenomenon of the Estonian province: with visible lowliness and calm, a turbulent cultural life flows here. Every day there is a play or a movie in the theatre, there are a lot of cafés and restaurants in the city, and the architecture is diverse and quite original.

Rakvere is the place where the first Estonian Punk Song Festival took place. It’s also the host to the well-known international rock music festival “Green Christmas.” Since 1994, a biannual international theatre festival, called Baltoscandal has taken place in the unique, friendly and slightly crazy atmosphere of Rakvere. The city is also known in Estonia for its youthful hip-hop and electronic music scene. So it’s no wonder, that the motto of Rakvere is “full of power”.



Get in
Bus and train schedules are easily available online – read more under Estonia.

By car
Rakvere is a short distance from the Tallinn-Narva road and the Rakvere-Pärnu road #5. Tallinn 100 km, Narva 116 km, Tartu 133 km.

Get around
The major landmark is the castle and its mountain, which stretches from north to south, along Pikk Street to the west – the most historic part of the city. The central square (Turu plats) is located in a couple of blocks to the east.

On foot
Most attractions of Rakvere are within walking distance. The most distant point of interest is the railways station in the north of the city.

By bus
The public transport buses are operated by GoBus Rakvere – there is a total of 5 bus lines. All of them go at intervals every hour and are unlikely to be useful to the traveler, as the sights are in walking distance. The schedules can be found at Rakvere town website. Load a Pilet.ee mobile app to buy tickets.

See

 * Pikk Street – Completely preserved pre-revolutionary buildings, a kind of "assorted": stone mansions of the Russian type, typical for the Baltic wooden houses and, of course, the ubiquitous brick style. Particularly interesting are the one-storey mansion of the 18th century, later designed for modernity (Pikk 16), a wooden building of optics from 1887 with intricate carvings (Pikk 17), and a wooden dwelling house of the late 18th century (Pikk 21).
 * Wooden architecture – In addition to the various houses of the 19th century – more interesting from the ethnographic point of view – there are very nice buildings in the spirit of Art Deco. This includes the county government (Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 5, opposite the theatre), the apartment houses Koidula 4 and Adoffi 3 near the central square (Kastani 17), and the kindergarten (Koidula 14). These houses were built during the inter-war period.
 * Pre-revolutionary stone architecture – Represented by the dark red building of the court (Tallinna tn 3, 1786-87), where the exhibition house is now located, and the neighbouring manor house (Tallinna tn 5), in which the city administration is located. Go to the arch and into the yard – there are still some manor buildings of a completely German type. Another more monumental courthouse can be found at Lai 6, built at the end of the 19th century.
 * Pikk Street – Completely preserved pre-revolutionary buildings, a kind of "assorted": stone mansions of the Russian type, typical for the Baltic wooden houses and, of course, the ubiquitous brick style. Particularly interesting are the one-storey mansion of the 18th century, later designed for modernity (Pikk 16), a wooden building of optics from 1887 with intricate carvings (Pikk 17), and a wooden dwelling house of the late 18th century (Pikk 21).
 * Wooden architecture – In addition to the various houses of the 19th century – more interesting from the ethnographic point of view – there are very nice buildings in the spirit of Art Deco. This includes the county government (Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 5, opposite the theatre), the apartment houses Koidula 4 and Adoffi 3 near the central square (Kastani 17), and the kindergarten (Koidula 14). These houses were built during the inter-war period.
 * Pre-revolutionary stone architecture – Represented by the dark red building of the court (Tallinna tn 3, 1786-87), where the exhibition house is now located, and the neighbouring manor house (Tallinna tn 5), in which the city administration is located. Go to the arch and into the yard – there are still some manor buildings of a completely German type. Another more monumental courthouse can be found at Lai 6, built at the end of the 19th century.
 * Pikk Street – Completely preserved pre-revolutionary buildings, a kind of "assorted": stone mansions of the Russian type, typical for the Baltic wooden houses and, of course, the ubiquitous brick style. Particularly interesting are the one-storey mansion of the 18th century, later designed for modernity (Pikk 16), a wooden building of optics from 1887 with intricate carvings (Pikk 17), and a wooden dwelling house of the late 18th century (Pikk 21).
 * Wooden architecture – In addition to the various houses of the 19th century – more interesting from the ethnographic point of view – there are very nice buildings in the spirit of Art Deco. This includes the county government (Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 5, opposite the theatre), the apartment houses Koidula 4 and Adoffi 3 near the central square (Kastani 17), and the kindergarten (Koidula 14). These houses were built during the inter-war period.
 * Pre-revolutionary stone architecture – Represented by the dark red building of the court (Tallinna tn 3, 1786-87), where the exhibition house is now located, and the neighbouring manor house (Tallinna tn 5), in which the city administration is located. Go to the arch and into the yard – there are still some manor buildings of a completely German type. Another more monumental courthouse can be found at Lai 6, built at the end of the 19th century.
 * Wooden architecture – In addition to the various houses of the 19th century – more interesting from the ethnographic point of view – there are very nice buildings in the spirit of Art Deco. This includes the county government (Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi 5, opposite the theatre), the apartment houses Koidula 4 and Adoffi 3 near the central square (Kastani 17), and the kindergarten (Koidula 14). These houses were built during the inter-war period.
 * Pre-revolutionary stone architecture – Represented by the dark red building of the court (Tallinna tn 3, 1786-87), where the exhibition house is now located, and the neighbouring manor house (Tallinna tn 5), in which the city administration is located. Go to the arch and into the yard – there are still some manor buildings of a completely German type. Another more monumental courthouse can be found at Lai 6, built at the end of the 19th century.

Buy
Rakvere has got several big shopping centres both for clothes and home electronics.



Sleep
Budget accommodation is sparse in Rakvere. Better try the surrounding villages, or head for one of the observation towers in Lahemaa National Park.



Go next

 * Tallinn – The capital, and financial and cosmopolitan centre of Estonia, with a medieval Old Town. Beautiful and expensive.
 * Jõhvi – The capital of the county, but rather uninteresting from a travellers point of view.
 * Püssi – A poor but now recovering town with an interesting artificial mountain made of ash from its oil shale power plant, which has been depositing ash in the location since the 1930s. Nowadays, the mountain is used for motocross.
 * Käsmu – A coastal village inside of Lahemaa National Park.
 * Võsu – A coastal small borough inside of Lahemaa National Park.
 * Narva – Estonia's eastern-most and third largest city, on the Narva River, which is the border with Russia. Famous for the Hermann castle, right opposite of the Ivangorod's castle, and the Kreenholm factories. Even though it might seem grey and dull.