Toomas Abiline, curator at the Tallinn City Museum, said that it did not take long for the beach, just east of downtown Tallinn, to get popular once it had been developed, during the period of the first Estonian republic. Certainly by the early 1930s it was a favorite of Tallinn residents and those from further afield too.

The beach is adjacent to a much older landmark in the area, the ruins of the Pirita Convent, founded in the early 15th century. Famously the convent ruins were used as a backdrop to the 1969 adventure-romance classic "Viimne reliikvia."

While this film might leave the impression primarily of the strict regime nuns had to follow in their day-to-day life (an existing, modern convent is adjacent to the ruins – ed.), according to Abiline, they could actually visit the beach, too.

"Surely they did go to the beach. It was actually much closer to the convent back then: The sea has been receding all the time," he told "Terevisioon."

Pirita had been a fishing village just outside of Tallinn for centuries before the modern resort-version of Pirita we know today started to appear.

This had its beginnings before World War One, when summer cottages were built on the Tallinn side of the Pirita River. "These new summer vacationers certainly required a pleasant beach and access to it," he noted.

The beach itself was reportedly still in bad shape after the war, until in 1925 the Harju County administration decided to fix it up and transform it into a bathing beach.

Examples of how to do it were taken from the existing resort towns of Pärnu, Haapsalu and Narva-Jõesuu, as well as nearby Kadriorg, whose golden age had been late on in the previous century.

In Kadriorg: "People used to swim near where the Russalka [statue] stands now, or a bit closer to the city," Abiline said.

"But by the 1920s the center of leisure had begun shifting towards Pirita, and Kadriorg was already considered part of the city," he added.

Initially, the connecting road between Tallinn and Pirita was poor because the Pirita road was narrow and went uphill at Maarjamäe (the current wider highway and shoreline was built up ahead of the 1980 Olympics, when Pirita hosted the boating events – ed.).

Abiline said: Buses were already running in the '20s. But sometimes people had to get out and push the bus from behind, to get it up Maarjamäe.

An alternative route was to go by boat from Kalarand to Pirita.

A grand pavilion was opened in the area, with a capacity of nearly 2,000, in 1929, replacing a temporary building from a couple of years earlier. "There was a luxurious 300-seat restaurant with a terrace where people could dance. An orchestra played there every evening, and a military band performed three times a week," Abiline said.

This pavilion is no longer standing but remained on the site up to the Olympics.

Each year a beach king and queen were also elected in Pirita, replete with a fireworks show.

According to Abiline, by the first half of the 1930s, Pirita had become the place for townspeople to see and be seen, even every Sunday. The phenomenon of suvilas – summer cottages – had not quite got underway at that point either, making it a popular choice too. "Looking at photos from that time, the beach was packed with people. There was a particularly pleasant atmosphere, it seems, when looking at those film clips," Abiline went on.

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