I have been taking photos of the souvenir shops of Tallinn since 2012, when I started feeling that some significant change in the face of the city had occurred once again.

Since I have been around for quite a long time already, I can recall the “pictures” of the past decades: the sixties when the Old Town went with the slow flow of time, the shops were quite empty and the souvenirs were not in great demand due to lack of tourists.

Then, the Soviet tourists of the 70s and 80s arrived with the special “tourist trains”, just to quickly queue up in front of the grocery stores. Then, the “foreign currency shops” of the beginning of the 90s that made the locals feel alienated. There are not so many things in these pictures.

Seven photographs from the archive of the Tallinn Museum of Photography, that show trade in Tallinn since the year 1896, are also part of the exhibition. There is no excess of things in these pictures, either.

There are lots of things in the 21st Century Tallinn, and these things speak.

Kai Kaljo

Kai Kaljo näituse “ASJAD” plakat