Tallinn, capital of the Baltic nation of Estonia, is a growing tourist destination but is also attracting companies seeking a north European base – and providing much-needed impetus for its housing market after almost a decade of volatility.

Unemployment is relatively low by Baltic standards – matching the EU average of 11.5 per cent, according to government figures, whereas in nearby Latvia it is 16 per cent – and property transactions are rising. But anyone who imagines homebuyers settling for the brutalist architecture dating from Estonia’s period as a Soviet republic (1940-91) will have to think again.

Although vast Soviet-era slab-sided industrial buildings exist near the airport and ferry port, and shoddy high-rises sit in the suburb Lasnamäe, the majority of Tallinn apartments are attractive and low-rise. They range from those in three-storey houses in the Old Town, dating from the 13th century, to those in the 20th-century city centre, where art deco blocks rub shoulders with contemporary units.

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