Low tree assessment likely sealed oak’s fate in Tallinn

A low dendrological assessment likely led to the removal of an old oak beside the A. H. Tammsaare Museum in Tallinn’s Kadriorg district, ERR reported, prompting local anger and questions about the city’s environmental policy.

The tree was cut down on the last day of August, witnessed by local resident and director Arbo Tammiksaar, whose home is next to the museum. He said the sight was shocking because the oak was large, healthy-looking and as old as, or older than, the museum building.

Tammiksaar said the tree stood beside an exceptionally wide dead-end road resembling a runway. Because he had been travelling, he saw the felling too late to call the police, when only two branches remained.

As the tree stood directly beside the property of the Tallinn Literature Centre, which includes the Tammsaare Museum, initial public criticism was directed at museum director Maarja Vaino. Tammiksaar later apologised, saying he had reacted emotionally and that the museum had no authority to decide whether the tree should be removed.

The museum could commission a hazard assessment, Vaino said. She referred to an assessment ordered after a 2024 storm, when a hollow silver poplar broke and damaged the museum’s fence. However, it remains unclear whether that assessment was used as the basis for removing the oak.

Another assessment was commissioned by the company renovating the museum. According to Vaino, the chain of events began when the renovation project’s designer, P.P. Projekt, commissioned a dendrological survey.

The survey placed the oak in the fifth, or lowest, value class. It was carried out by Evelyn Ivask, who works for the environmental company GrünE.

Ivask cited a long strip of bark damage, the tree’s large crown and the resulting possible danger to pedestrians, as well as root damage caused by road construction. In a telephone conversation with Tammiksaar, she said the main reason for assigning the tree to the lowest class was public safety.