Hermann Castle

Feel the wind first. It comes off the Narva River, cool and steady, and it carries the sound of moving water below the walls. Under your feet the ground is stone and packed earth. Above you, a pale limestone tower rises straight into the sky. Across the river, close enough to see clearly, a second fortress looks back at you. Very few places in Europe put two castles this close, face to face, on opposite banks.

This is Hermann Castle, in the city of Narva, at the far eastern edge of Estonia. The river below is not only a river. It is the border between Estonia and Russia, and so it is also an outer border of the European Union and of NATO. The fortress on the far bank is Ivangorod, on Russian soil. Two worlds meet here. They are separated by a strip of water that you could almost throw a stone across.

The story of this castle begins in the Middle Ages. In the thirteenth century, northern Estonia came under the rule of the Danish crown. Danes built a fortified post here, on a high bank above a river crossing. That crossing mattered. Traders moved between the Baltic Sea and the Russian lands to the east, and whoever held this spot could watch the traffic, tax it, and defend it.

In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Danish king sold his Estonian lands to the Teutonic Order. Soon the castle passed to the Livonian branch of that order, a community of German crusader knights who ruled much of the eastern Baltic. The knights rebuilt and expanded the fortress. They gave it the shape you see today: a compact, square stronghold arranged around a courtyard, with thick walls and that tall tower on one corner.

The tower is called Tall Hermann. Here is a small surprise. Tallinn, the Estonian capital, also has a tower called Tall Hermann, on its own castle hill. The two share a name, and both have become symbols. In Tallinn, the national flag flies from the top. Here in Narva, the tower stands as a lookout pointed east. Take a moment to follow its lines upward. The walls are plain, heavy and almost windowless — built for defence, not for show.

Now look across the river again, at Ivangorod. That fortress was built at the end of the fifteenth century on the orders of Ivan the Third, the Grand Prince of Moscow. It was a direct answer to this castle. For generations, the garrisons on each bank could watch each other's walls. Imagine the soldiers on both sides, looking at the same water, the same sky, each waiting for the other to move.

The balance did not hold for long. During the Livonian War in the sixteenth century, Russian forces captured Narva. A few decades later, Sweden took the town. For more than a century, Narva was a Swedish city, and an important one. Merchants grew rich here, and the old town filled with stone houses in the Baroque style, a decorative style of the seventeenth century with grand facades and curving gables.

Then came 1700. Just outside the town, the young Swedish king Charles the Twelfth defeated a much larger Russian army under Peter the Great. It was one of the famous battles of the Great Northern War. But Peter learned from the defeat. In 1704, his forces returned and took Narva. From then on, the town belonged to the Russian Empire, until Estonia became independent in the twentieth century.

The hardest chapter came in the Second World War. In 1944, heavy fighting and bombing destroyed almost all of Narva's old town. Those Baroque streets of the Swedish era were reduced to ruins. The castle itself was badly damaged. Much of what surrounds you today is the result of careful restoration in the decades after the war. So when you touch these walls, you are touching both medieval stone and later repair work, side by side.

Here is a second surprise. After the war, the city was rebuilt mostly with Soviet-style apartment blocks, and new residents came from across the Soviet Union. Today, most people in Narva speak Russian as their first language. As you walk around the castle, you may hear Russian, Estonian and English all in the same few minutes. This mix of languages is part of the living character of the town.

Inside the walls, the castle is home to the Narva Museum. The exhibitions follow the long history of the town and the fortress, from the knights to the modern era. In the courtyard and the surrounding grounds, there are often reconstructed workshops where craftspeople show older trades. Look out, too, for one unexpected figure in the castle grounds: a statue of Lenin, kept here as a piece of Soviet history rather than in a city square.

If you have time, walk down toward the river promenade. From the water's edge, you can see both fortresses together, and the bridge that links the two countries. In the right light, the stone of both castles turns warm and golden. The view is quiet, but it holds centuries of rivalry, trade and war. It is one of the clearest pictures of a borderland you can find anywhere in Europe.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment. Listen to the river moving below. Look at the tower of Tall Hermann, and then at the walls of Ivangorod facing it. For hundreds of years, people stood exactly where you are standing and looked across this water. Some saw an enemy. Some saw trading partners. Some saw family on the other side. As you walk away, notice the wind again — the same wind that has crossed this river since the first stones went up.