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64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
Jan Kaus' collection of miniatures is a kind of expression of love for the author's hometown. The book, originally entitled "Love Songs", contains snapshots of people from all the byways and corners of Tallinn, their encounters and departures. The "Map of Tallinn" is an interweaving of both unique and universal manifestations of humanity, which inevitably flourishes under the variable surface of the capital. According to the author, the idea of the book is to unleash the poetic potential of space in the reader, a personal memory of place, so that his inner map would appear before the reader, which would give him the opportunity to follow his own most secret trajectories.
The "Map of Tallinn", first published in 2014, was Jan Kaus' second collection of miniatures. The 2021 reprint is illustrated by the author's illustrations, which are based on Eve Sepp's photographs. - translation of the Estonian language synopsis.

VIRU STREET
When he thinks of Paris, he also feels that his hometown is, in a sense, the furthest from Paris. Tallinn - the last place on the Earth where the Champs-Élysées would fit. It wouldn't fit here in any way, it wouldn't lead anywhere, there would be lobbying to pave it over. As a child, there were three large radio masts in the Uus Maailm [Translator's note: New World. A city district in Tallinn] sector of town, which were reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower, but really only a little bit. Walking in the Old Town in the summer and fleeing from the tourist cameras, it seems to him that the city's scarce inhabitants are hiding in basements and attics.
His girlfriend lives in a penthouse on Viru Street. Shortly before the Old Market, you have to turn at the portal, go past the smoking young Russian men, walk through the courtyard - there was once a cinema here - and enter the stairwell, where a sturdy staircase winds around a narrow elevator shaft. He remembers the first time he visited his girlfriend. There is a glass door in the girlfriend's hall. From there you can go out onto the terrace - if the snow drifts are not too high. The lion's share of Tallinners don't even know that the Old Town has a view over the roofs of houses, which is just like it is in Paris! So what if he's never been to France.