Tartu travel guide

Top 10 sights in Tartu

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 3.0 ee

   Tartu Cathedral

   A brick Gothic cathedral begun about 1230 on Toome hill, ruined in the Livonian War and never rebuilt. The university turned its choir into a library in 1804 and it now holds the university museum, with a viewing platform in one of the towers.

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   St. John's Church

   A brick Gothic church first recorded in 1323 and unique for the terracotta figures set into its walls and portal — about a thousand survive of some two thousand originally made. Burnt out in 1944, it was restored over decades and reconsecrated in 2005.

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   3© Sillerkiil · CC BY-SA 4.0

   University of Tartu Botanical Gardens

   A botanical garden founded in 1803 for the newly reopened Imperial University of Dorpat, on the line of the old town moat. It holds about six thousand species, with palm and tropical houses that matter at this latitude.

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   St. Paul’s Church

   A Lutheran church of 1919 in Tartu by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, of red brick with a sharply pitched roof, and among the first modern churches in Estonia. It was gutted in 1944 and restored by 2015.

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   5© Aron Urb /Visit Estonia · CC BY 2.0

   Ice Age Centre

   A museum at Äksi village in Tartu county on the ice ages — how they formed, what they did to the land, and what the last one left in Estonia, which was under ice until about twelve thousand years ago. It has life-size Ice Age animals and a research wing.

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   6© Sillerkiil · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Toomemägi

   The hill in the middle of Tartu, part of the ancient valley of the Emajõgi, where the first stronghold stood from the fifth century. The cathedral ruin, the university observatory and the Angel's and Devil's bridges are all on it.

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   Town Hall Square

   The square in front of the classical town hall of 1789 in the old town, sloping down to the river. The Kissing Students fountain in the middle has been the city's symbol since 1998, and the leaning house of 1793 stands at the lower end.

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   Dormition Cathedral

   An Orthodox cathedral of the mid-nineteenth century, built under Russian rule for converts from Lutheranism and now the cathedral of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. Its five onion domes rise over the streets north of the Emajõgi.

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   9© Bobo Boom · CC BY 2.0

   University of Tartu Museum

   The university's museum, housed in the choir of the ruined Gothic cathedral on Toome Hill. Its holdings extend to the Old Observatory, a marked point of the Struve Geodetic Arc, the natural history and art museums, and the botanical garden laid out in 1803.

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    Barclay Square

    A square and park beside Ülikooli street named after Barclay de Tolly, the field marshal who commanded the Russian army against Napoleon in 1812 and whose family estate was nearby. His monument stands at one side.

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1. 

   1© Dmitrijs Purgalvis · CC BY 3.0

   Snail Tower

   An apartment and office tower in Tartu whose floors twist slightly as they rise, giving it the look of a snail shell — Tigutorn in Estonian. Completed in 2008 at about eighty metres, it is one of the tallest buildings in the country.

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   2© Ivo Kruusamägi · CC BY-SA 3.0 ee

   Immaculate Conception Church

   The Catholic church of Tartu, built in the nineteenth century when Catholic worship returned to a region that had been Lutheran since the Reformation. It serves a small congregation and stands near the old town.

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   Saint Peter's Church

   A Lutheran church of 1884 built for the Estonian-speaking congregation — the older churches served the German elite — and the largest church in Tartu, seating about two thousand. Its neo-Gothic brick towers are visible across the river.

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   4© Ndrez93 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Tartu Song Festival Grounds

   An open-air song ground in Tartu with a shell stage, part of the Estonian choral festival tradition that goes back to the first national song festival held in this city in 1869. Those gatherings carried the independence movement through the Soviet years.

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   Tartu Synagogue

   A synagogue in Tartu. The building of 1903 by the local architect R. Pohlmann was destroyed by bombing in 1944; the present premises were established by the remaining community in the 2010s.

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   6© Sunshi79 · CC BY-SA 3.0 ee

   St. Mary's Church

   A Lutheran church in Tartu whose medieval predecessor was destroyed in successive wars, so that the present building dates from the twentieth century. It serves the parish north of the centre.

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   7© Eksootiline Lind · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Kärkna Abbey

   The ruins of a Cistercian abbey at Kärkna north of Tartu, founded in 1233 and one of the wealthiest houses in Livonia. It was destroyed in the Livonian War in 1558 and only foundations and fragments of wall remain.

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   Barclay de Tolly Monument

   A monument of 1849 in Tartu to Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, the Baltic German field marshal whose fighting retreat drew Napoleon into Russia in 1812. He is buried on his estate at Jõgeveste, southwest of the city.

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   9© No machine-readable author provided. Oop assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Tartu War of Independence monument

   A memorial to the Estonian dead of the War of Independence of 1918-20 against Soviet Russia. The Soviets destroyed the original; it was rebuilt and unveiled again in 2003.

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    University of Tartu Art Museum

    The art museum of the University of Tartu, inside the main university building, whose core is a collection of plaster casts of classical sculpture bought in the nineteenth century for teaching. An Egyptian mummy is kept in the same rooms.

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