The tradition of masters, however, was once strong in the cultural scheme developed in Estonia. The historical heart of the Estonian towns, once members of the Hanseatic League - Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu, Viljandi - still manifest traces of the organisation of city life which was originally based on guilds. And it was primarily through medieval urban culture that Estonia established close links with what one might call the European mentality. One glance at the old town of Tallinn is enough to detect the gothic and baroque, art nouveau and historicism, albeit expressed with a certain boreal reserve.