History
The Museum Miia-Milla-Manda is housed in the building planned to be the centre of the Children’s Park. Designed by Alar Kotli and Villem Seidra, it was built in 1936-1937. The quite modern leisure centre was founded by the Board of Public Parks, chaired by Peeter Päts, the brother of the Elder of the State, Konstantin Päts. Supervised by the Estonian Sports Society’s tutors and coaches, the children could spend their free time here. Children were taught swimming in the swimming pools in front of the building, ball-games and rhythmics were practised in the courts. Children could also take singing lessons and learn about the nature and history of their homeland. Walking tours in the vicinity to the town were regularly arranged. In the big hall of the building a valuable film projection booth was set up. There were changing rooms and showers, storerooms for sports equipment and games, office rooms and living quarters for some attendants.
In Soviet times the premises were used by a sports school. Cycling, swimming, ball-games, rhythmic gymnastics, skiing are but a few of all the sports children have been able to do here throughout the existence of the building.
In 1953-1962 a small, 14 square-metre district library was housed here as well.
For quite some time the building housed Reet Krieger’s well-known dancing-club Palestra, founded in 1978.
In the course of time the buildings deteriorated. The auxiliary buildings, swimming-pools and stands were dismantled and it was deliberated whether the main building should follow suit. Fortunately, the milieu-valuable architectural relic was recorded in the list of protected buildings in 2003.
In 2007 the renovations started, helped along by the Tallinn Board of Cultural Heritage. On 25 September 2009 a new branch-museum of the Tallinn City Museum – the Miia-Milla-Manda was opened here. Children are again welcome here.
Friends’ room
Two interesting topics meet in this room.
The first is the history of the house.
The building in which the Museum Miia-Milla-Manda is housed was made for the children already when your great grandmother was a small girl. It was the main building of the Kadriorg Children’s Park. As you can see in the photos on the walls of this room, already then kids could play and do sports in and around this house. Where now the playground is in front of the house, there were swimming-pools then. Only the slide in the middle of the playground is the remembrance of them now. Once children slid straight into water along it. In addition to swimming model yachts regattas were arranged in the pools. Ball-games, gymnastics, singing, all these could be done here and sometimes out of town walking-tours were arranged. The room that is called Miia-Milla-Manda’s room now had a cafeteria and films were shown here also.
Later, when your grandmother was a little girl and even your mother was still small, there was a sports school in this building. Children came here for their training lessons. Swimmers, figure skaters, rhythmic gymnasts, cyclists, skiers, dancers and other athletes grew up and trained here. Quite a new style of dancing – athletic dancing was born in this house as well. This dancing style could be learned here for several years under the supervision of its creator Reet Krieger herself as the building housed her dancing club Palestra.
Before the museum Miia-Milla-Manda opened its doors here, the house needed to be thoroughly repaired. It had become so dilapidated that it was even doubted whether it can be renovated at all. Fortunately, it could be done. It is so good the house belongs to children again!
The other topic of the room is hidden in the two chests with colourful drawers.
You can find there what pupils of Tallinn School No 32 have written about themselves and their friends. Try to guess who is whose friend. In case you would like to crawl inside the big ball made of colourful ribbons, you will see children’s drawings about the times they spend together with friends. But in addition to that you might always find a surprise in the chests of drawers…
Find out what this room has to offer! Have fun!
Nature as a friend
This is a fine room indeed. Here you can see things you will not see in any ordinary room: an apple tree and a lime tree (linden), mushrooms, grass and insects, even stars have been brought here.
Nature is man’s friend. Thanks to the nature we have clean air to breathe in, pure water to drink and food to eat. A man cannot live without these important things.
But is the man a friend to nature? Does the man take good care of the nature? It seems that not always. There is often somebody who does not cherish the friendship, who litters or makes a fire at the place it is not allowed in. These people do not understand or care that they hurt nature. But when nature is sick, it cannot offer us much and destroying it we actually destroy ourselves.
What can we do to cherish nature? These are little things and you have certainly heard about them already. Rubbish goes into a bin. It would be good if you could sort the rubbish as some quite useful things can be made of our everyday waste and rubbish. For example waste paper can be made into new paper again and thus we save growing trees. We do not have to waste water. When brushing your teeth you needn’t have the tap on all the time. Saving electric energy means saving nature as well. When you leave a room, switch out the light.
You have to learn to know your friend. Do you know nature? When you are walking in the woods and see some animal traces, can you say which animal has passed? Do you recognize the song of a titmouse (chickadee)? …a crow’s cawing? What insects have you noticed in the grass? Have you found any really interesting pebbles when walking on the beach? It is exciting to learn to know nature that is so diverse and colourful.
Your friend nature expects to be discovered!
Museum as a friend
You will find five different workshops here: a grocery, a post office, a watchmaker’s, a tailor’s and a photographer’s studio. Looking around carefully you will notice that all of them look different from what these places are like today. At present we even do not use the word grocer’s or grocery any longer. In the past it was a shop that provided people with everything beginning from foodstuffs to, say, pins. In every one of these workshops you will certainly find things that are not used today any longer.
A large photo above every display makes it clear to you what these workshops were like. These old photos come form the Estonian History Museum. You can find some old implements and tools that come from the collections of the Tallinn City Museum. If you put on the headphones and listen carefully, you will hear the story of all these things.
The old things, not needed by their owners any more, may get into a museum. Museum is like a friend to these old things. The museum collects, stores, keeps and studies and displays these old things. Every one of them has its own story. They reveal how old they are, who they belonged to, what they were used for and what the times when they were used were like. The friendly museum can evaluate these old things best. Very much thanks to these old things we know today how people lived in the olden days.
Today people have all sorts of things. They are necessary. They may be taken for our friends too. In order to make a meal, we need pots and pans. To build a house, nails and a hammer are needed. To sleep well, you must have a bed. And toys are needed for playing. The more the better, you think, do you? In time everything gets worn out or breaks and then you do not want it any more. Unfortunately, not all old things can be accommodated at museums. You throw them out then but it would be a better idea to give them to somebody else if the old things are still all right. Somebody else may still need them.
What things do shop assistants, postmen, watchmakers, seamstresses and tailors, photographers need? Try to do what they had to do and you will be able to say what tools come in handy for these jobs.
Do you have only these things at home that you need for sure?
Do you take good care of your things?
Have a good and busy time in the room called Museum as a friend.
And just a hint: In the Museum Miia-Milla-Manda there are just the same workshops somewhere else. Find out where these are – grocery, post office, watchmaker’s, tailor’s and photographer’s!
Miia-Milla-Manda’s room
Miia-Milla-Manda has a room of her own. It is rather small but when playing the whole world can be accommodated in it. The ordinary grandfather clock may become a clock-tower and the child can fit herself into a doll’s house. Playing makes everything possible.
While playing, Miia-Milla-Manda gets all sorts of wonderful ideas. It is pleasant to think. Today Miia-Milla-Manda is mostly thinking about friendship. How to find a friend? How to be a good friend? How to make up when you have quarrelled with a friend? What should you do when you lose a friend? These are the questions that pique Miia-Milla-Manda’s interest at the moment. All her favourite games and activities are in some way connected with friendship. Miia-Milla-Manda has asked other children too what they think about friendship. Some of the thoughts can be shared in Miia-Milla-Manda’s room.
There are all sorts of interesting things in Miia-Milla-Manda’s room. Every bigger object has got a story that you can read to find out what it actually is. Miia-Milla-Manda is ready to share everything with you – be it creeping, crawling, climbing, playing or just thinking. If you are a friendly kid you can do all of it together with other children.
In Miia-Milla-Manda’s room you can think about the following:
How have I found my friends?
What should a real friend be like?
What are my friends like?
What sort of a friend am I myself?
Why do we need friends?
How to keep up friendships?
Is there, in this room, at this moment, a nice kid I could get friendly with?
And some advice: It is much better to be in Miia-Milla-Manda’s room without your outdoor footwear. You do not go to visit people’s homes in your boots, do you?
And Miia-Milla-Manda will be grateful if you use her things carefully and put them all back at the places they live in.
Have a good time in Miia-Milla-Manda’s room!
