GRIFFITHS: Tallinn looks like a scene from a fairytale. Its chocolate-box charm was hidden away for fifty years during the Soviet occupation. When the iron curtain opened in 1991, many Estonians fled to the prosperity of the west. Now the traffic’s going both ways. Estonia has been embraced by the European Union and westerners are rediscovering Tallinn’s delights.
For centuries this city has been an attractive target for invaders. It’s been ruled by the Danes, the Germans, Swedes and Russians. Even now as the capital of an independent nation, it’s facing a new kind of invader, foreign tourists – many of them lured here by tour promoters touting cheap booze and women – and this medieval city is now trading on a new found reputation as the Bangkok of Europe.
Englishman Deane Jeeves is enjoying, or perhaps enduring his last days of bachelorhood. He’s an otherwise mild-mannered man in his mid-thirties, a golf club professional from the London suburb of Wimbledon. Tonight, courtesy of his closest friends, he’s being roped into what’s billed as a medieval lesbian strip show.
DEANE JEEVES: It’s your last foray into singledom so to speak and it was a good way to send me off. I just sat there and got on with it. Some parts of it I really didn’t enjoy. I don’t enjoy the fucking belt mark that’s across my arse at the moment.
GRIFFITHS: Deane Jeeves and his mates have come to Tallinn with the ominously named tour company – tallinnpissup.com. Its promises of a wild nightlife and beautiful women have made the city a favourite haunt for British bucks or stag parties. Tens of thousands flock here every year.
DEANE JEEVES: I don’t know what it costs to have a prostitute back in England but I would think it’s probably a damn sight cheaper here.
GRIFFITHS: The image of young Englishmen abroad has long been tarnished by lager louts and soccer hooligans. For the reserved and modest Estonians, they’re nothing but bad boy Brits.
DEANE JEEVES: That’s what it’s about. I want to have a laugh with me mates, I want to get pissed. I want to fall down in the street if I want to and then I’ll crawl out of bed the next day and do it again. Not everybody from the same nation is the same sort of person. I like getting pissed like the rest of them. It doesn’t make me a lout.
GRIFFITHS: Nelli Kalikova is no fan of this new breed of British tourist. Nor is she impressed by Tallinn’s tag as the northern Bangkok. A member of the Estonian Parliament, Kalikova has distinguished herself as a champion of sex workers.
NELLI KALIKOVA: Unfortunately, a large number of tourists from neighbouring countries – the northern ones like Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom – come here not to look at medieval castles but regrettably to buy sex.
BRITISH TOURIST: You come for a good laugh, you come for cheap beer. Tallinn is nice to look at for us boys I suppose but it’s like, bollocks basically. We don’t give a shit about the, you know medieval nights. It’s just the strippers you come to see.
NELLI KALIKOVA: Hooliganism is rarely seen amongst the locals. Now we have stag parties, and frankly speaking their behaviour is just odious.
GRIFFITHS: Far from nursing their hangovers, the British brigade are pulverising them. They’ve had a big night on the beer but none of them are admitting to finding a woman.
JAMES McQUEENEY: All the locals are stunning. The ones you have to pay for, they’re all stunning but expensive. It’s not as cheap as we’d thought it would be but, it’s true [laughing]. Oh dear.
GRIFFITHS: Their desire for a bit of cheap fun could have some hidden costs. Estonia has the highest HIV Aids infection rate in the European Union. It’s been dubbed a concentrated epidemic. Five thousand people are HIV positive, an alarming statistic for this tiny country of just 1.4 million people. Coupled with Tallinn’s sexually charged atmosphere, it’s a dangerous mix.
JAMES McQUEENEY: I’m not over here to try and play Russian roulette. If you are going to go and mess around with the locals you’d take precautions. You’d have to be a complete fool to go into anything without... go swimming without your trunks on, yeah?
NELLI KALIKOVA: One third of the men from any country be they Finns, Swedes or any others demand or ask for sex without a condom. They are ready to pay more for that and they try to sneak the condom off. The girls have complained about that.
GRIFFITHS: In her 28 years Olga Reet has felt the hard edges of life in Tallinn. She’s found happiness as a mother to little Roman but before he came along, poverty had forced Olga Reet into a life of prostitution. The late 90’s was a time of great deprivation in the former Soviet Union and sex work gave her a steady income of a few hundred dollars a week. She’s no longer working as a prostitute but she is HIV positive and trying to find a new job.
OLGA REET: When I started working, the first time it was frightening… but then it became a sort of a habit. It became routine – disgusting but routine.
GRIFFITHS: Most of Olga Reet’s clients were from out of town. Ninety five per cent of brothel customers in Estonia are foreigners. A three hour flight from London costs as little as eighty dollars. Finland’s capital Helsinki is just eighty kilometres away across the water, the wealthy Finns flood in by the ferry load.
OLGA REET: I have a very bad impression of the Finns. They are fat, drunken pigs – that’s how I would describe them. They just come here to piss up and pick up a girl.
GRIFFITHS: What do you think of some people who say that Finnish people come here to get cheap alcohol and find women?
MAN ARRIVING OFF FERRY #1: Yeah that’s true, that’s true. I believe that quite many, many come for both of those reasons and especially with alcohol.
GRIFFITHS: What do you think of the Estonian women?
MAN ARRIVING OFF FERRY #2: Ah Estonian women [laughing] well I guess, I guess many Finn’s like them, so....
GRIFFITHS: Police raids on brothels occasionally feature on Tallinn television. Prostitution isn’t against the law in Estonia – neither sex workers nor their clients are doing anything illegal. However any third party who profits from it is committing a crime but those laws are usually not enforced and pimps and brothel owners pay off corrupt police.
OLGA REET: With us everything seems to be allowed everywhere – do whatever you want. That is why the tourists travel here. This is a city of sex, honestly. A city of sex.
GRIFFITHS: The Estonian parliament is debating the laws on prostitution. Some argue that Estonia should follow Sweden’s lead and make it illegal to buy sex. Then the client would be the criminal not the prostitute.
NELLI KALIKOVA: Everything concerning selling or buying a body is a crime. It is naturally a direct exploitation of women. That is exploitation in its ugliest form – that is real slavery.
GRIFFITHS: Many Estonian sex workers and strippers are supporting extended families. Forty per cent of them are mothers. They money is just too good to pass up. Estonia is one of the poorest countries in the EU – one third of its citizens live in poverty. The British lads believe they’re doing their bit to help.
LEE DUBOIS: I mean we’re living life. It’s what youngsters have to do don’t they? Obviously we’re pumping a lot of money into the country so you know Estonia needs that. We’re just you know exploiting our freedom which we should do.
GRIFFITHS: It’s their last night of booze and women. Their bucks’ weekend in Estonia will be remembered for its hangovers and a passing parade of near-nude dancers.
DEANE JEEVES: When you look at British people abroad we are a pain in the arse. I think it would be fair to say that. I mean I look at people and cringe a lot of the time but then I don’t think that I’m like that and I think a lot of people aren’t like that so you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
GRIFFITHS: The buck sees it all as a necessary rite of passage but Deane Jeeves admits he’d be mightily embarrassed if his future bride were ever to see this report. He says he can’t wait to get home to her and their two young children.
DEANE JEEVES: They’re my life. There is nothing more important than your family. You know kids, I just love them to death. I’ve got two girls. Beautiful. And just you know make you laugh. They cry sometimes but you know they’re just wonderful.
GRIFFITHS: Long after Deane Jeeves is a married man, Tallinn’s notoriety as a European flesh pot will remain. Many Estonians view this with distaste and disappointment. Since throwing off the Soviet shackles, optimism has given way to foreigners who flock here with a lust for girls, grog and cheap thrills.
For centuries this city has been an attractive target for invaders. It’s been ruled by the Danes, the Germans, Swedes and Russians. Even now as the capital of an independent nation, it’s facing a new kind of invader, foreign tourists – many of them lured here by tour promoters touting cheap booze and women – and this medieval city is now trading on a new found reputation as the Bangkok of Europe.
Englishman Deane Jeeves is enjoying, or perhaps enduring his last days of bachelorhood. He’s an otherwise mild-mannered man in his mid-thirties, a golf club professional from the London suburb of Wimbledon. Tonight, courtesy of his closest friends, he’s being roped into what’s billed as a medieval lesbian strip show.
DEANE JEEVES: It’s your last foray into singledom so to speak and it was a good way to send me off. I just sat there and got on with it. Some parts of it I really didn’t enjoy. I don’t enjoy the fucking belt mark that’s across my arse at the moment.
GRIFFITHS: Deane Jeeves and his mates have come to Tallinn with the ominously named tour company – tallinnpissup.com. Its promises of a wild nightlife and beautiful women have made the city a favourite haunt for British bucks or stag parties. Tens of thousands flock here every year.
DEANE JEEVES: I don’t know what it costs to have a prostitute back in England but I would think it’s probably a damn sight cheaper here.
GRIFFITHS: The image of young Englishmen abroad has long been tarnished by lager louts and soccer hooligans. For the reserved and modest Estonians, they’re nothing but bad boy Brits.
DEANE JEEVES: That’s what it’s about. I want to have a laugh with me mates, I want to get pissed. I want to fall down in the street if I want to and then I’ll crawl out of bed the next day and do it again. Not everybody from the same nation is the same sort of person. I like getting pissed like the rest of them. It doesn’t make me a lout.
GRIFFITHS: Nelli Kalikova is no fan of this new breed of British tourist. Nor is she impressed by Tallinn’s tag as the northern Bangkok. A member of the Estonian Parliament, Kalikova has distinguished herself as a champion of sex workers.
NELLI KALIKOVA: Unfortunately, a large number of tourists from neighbouring countries – the northern ones like Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom – come here not to look at medieval castles but regrettably to buy sex.
BRITISH TOURIST: You come for a good laugh, you come for cheap beer. Tallinn is nice to look at for us boys I suppose but it’s like, bollocks basically. We don’t give a shit about the, you know medieval nights. It’s just the strippers you come to see.
NELLI KALIKOVA: Hooliganism is rarely seen amongst the locals. Now we have stag parties, and frankly speaking their behaviour is just odious.
GRIFFITHS: Far from nursing their hangovers, the British brigade are pulverising them. They’ve had a big night on the beer but none of them are admitting to finding a woman.
JAMES McQUEENEY: All the locals are stunning. The ones you have to pay for, they’re all stunning but expensive. It’s not as cheap as we’d thought it would be but, it’s true [laughing]. Oh dear.
GRIFFITHS: Their desire for a bit of cheap fun could have some hidden costs. Estonia has the highest HIV Aids infection rate in the European Union. It’s been dubbed a concentrated epidemic. Five thousand people are HIV positive, an alarming statistic for this tiny country of just 1.4 million people. Coupled with Tallinn’s sexually charged atmosphere, it’s a dangerous mix.
JAMES McQUEENEY: I’m not over here to try and play Russian roulette. If you are going to go and mess around with the locals you’d take precautions. You’d have to be a complete fool to go into anything without... go swimming without your trunks on, yeah?
NELLI KALIKOVA: One third of the men from any country be they Finns, Swedes or any others demand or ask for sex without a condom. They are ready to pay more for that and they try to sneak the condom off. The girls have complained about that.
GRIFFITHS: In her 28 years Olga Reet has felt the hard edges of life in Tallinn. She’s found happiness as a mother to little Roman but before he came along, poverty had forced Olga Reet into a life of prostitution. The late 90’s was a time of great deprivation in the former Soviet Union and sex work gave her a steady income of a few hundred dollars a week. She’s no longer working as a prostitute but she is HIV positive and trying to find a new job.
OLGA REET: When I started working, the first time it was frightening… but then it became a sort of a habit. It became routine – disgusting but routine.
GRIFFITHS: Most of Olga Reet’s clients were from out of town. Ninety five per cent of brothel customers in Estonia are foreigners. A three hour flight from London costs as little as eighty dollars. Finland’s capital Helsinki is just eighty kilometres away across the water, the wealthy Finns flood in by the ferry load.
OLGA REET: I have a very bad impression of the Finns. They are fat, drunken pigs – that’s how I would describe them. They just come here to piss up and pick up a girl.
GRIFFITHS: What do you think of some people who say that Finnish people come here to get cheap alcohol and find women?
MAN ARRIVING OFF FERRY #1: Yeah that’s true, that’s true. I believe that quite many, many come for both of those reasons and especially with alcohol.
GRIFFITHS: What do you think of the Estonian women?
MAN ARRIVING OFF FERRY #2: Ah Estonian women [laughing] well I guess, I guess many Finn’s like them, so....
GRIFFITHS: Police raids on brothels occasionally feature on Tallinn television. Prostitution isn’t against the law in Estonia – neither sex workers nor their clients are doing anything illegal. However any third party who profits from it is committing a crime but those laws are usually not enforced and pimps and brothel owners pay off corrupt police.
OLGA REET: With us everything seems to be allowed everywhere – do whatever you want. That is why the tourists travel here. This is a city of sex, honestly. A city of sex.
GRIFFITHS: The Estonian parliament is debating the laws on prostitution. Some argue that Estonia should follow Sweden’s lead and make it illegal to buy sex. Then the client would be the criminal not the prostitute.
NELLI KALIKOVA: Everything concerning selling or buying a body is a crime. It is naturally a direct exploitation of women. That is exploitation in its ugliest form – that is real slavery.
GRIFFITHS: Many Estonian sex workers and strippers are supporting extended families. Forty per cent of them are mothers. They money is just too good to pass up. Estonia is one of the poorest countries in the EU – one third of its citizens live in poverty. The British lads believe they’re doing their bit to help.
LEE DUBOIS: I mean we’re living life. It’s what youngsters have to do don’t they? Obviously we’re pumping a lot of money into the country so you know Estonia needs that. We’re just you know exploiting our freedom which we should do.
GRIFFITHS: It’s their last night of booze and women. Their bucks’ weekend in Estonia will be remembered for its hangovers and a passing parade of near-nude dancers.
DEANE JEEVES: When you look at British people abroad we are a pain in the arse. I think it would be fair to say that. I mean I look at people and cringe a lot of the time but then I don’t think that I’m like that and I think a lot of people aren’t like that so you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
GRIFFITHS: The buck sees it all as a necessary rite of passage but Deane Jeeves admits he’d be mightily embarrassed if his future bride were ever to see this report. He says he can’t wait to get home to her and their two young children.
DEANE JEEVES: They’re my life. There is nothing more important than your family. You know kids, I just love them to death. I’ve got two girls. Beautiful. And just you know make you laugh. They cry sometimes but you know they’re just wonderful.
GRIFFITHS: Long after Deane Jeeves is a married man, Tallinn’s notoriety as a European flesh pot will remain. Many Estonians view this with distaste and disappointment. Since throwing off the Soviet shackles, optimism has given way to foreigners who flock here with a lust for girls, grog and cheap thrills.