Tallinn’s Cruise Terminal sits right on the water, all glass and timber, built for evenings that need a view. On 14 July, it hosted this year’s French National Day reception. It was bigger – and started later – than any before it, running from 17:00 to 21:00 as the sun stretched out over the sea.
Danielle Coimbra, Public Relations Manager, and Natalia Suurtee-Pavlova, Head of Client Success for White-Label, represented Wallester among a crowd of embassy partners, Estonian officials, and the wider business community. It was exactly the kind of setting where meaningful business conversations tend to start.
Music First, Then the Speeches
The French Lycée Choir opened the evening with the Estonian and French national anthems, and the speeches that followed carried more weight than usual.
For Ambassador Emmanuel Mignot, this wasn’t just another National Day. After three years in Tallinn, he’s leaving for a new posting in the Middle East, and the reception doubled as his goodbye. He thanked the Estonian government for three years of partnership, the evening’s sponsors, the students of the French Lycée, and the French military personnel stationed across Estonia throughout the year.
Then he turned personal: “As I leave Estonia to take up my new post in the Middle East, I will cherish the memory of a friendly, welcoming and innovative Estonia, where I loved every minute. I’ll remember the beauty of the sunsets over Toompea, the joy of picking mushrooms in Lahemaa Park, and the horseback rides through the meadows of Otepää. Elagu Eesti!”
What the Other Speeches Added
Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s Minister of Defence, followed with a shorter, firmer note: “France stands with Estonia, as Estonia stands with France and its allies.”
Jonatan Vseviov, Secretary General of Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, put it even more plainly: “This is not just a diplomatic relationship. It’s a people to people relations.” His parting gift picked up the same theme: an aerial photograph of Tallinn highlighting the Ministry’s own building, which he said has, without much modesty, the best view of the city, maybe of Europe, so the Ambassador could “bring back the good memories of the Foreign Ministry.”
By the end of the evening, the speeches had said what the room already knew: some relationships outlast the people who build them. The evening carried on well past the podium, into champagne, oysters, croissants, and the kind of conversation that never gets put on an agenda but tends to matter most.
Evenings like this do real work for Tallinn and for Estonia’s business community, keeping the ties between local companies, embassies, and international partners active instead of occasional. For Wallester, it’s simply the kind of evening you don’t want to miss.
