Changing through the Ages
Over different historical periods the Estonian economy has exhibited quite a different character in terms of its international context. To be more specific, we can mention the medieval flourishing of the free Hanseatic towns of northern Europe when Tallinn and other Estonian Hanseatic centers played an important role in trade between the east (Novgorod) and the west (basically towns of northern Germany and the Netherlands). Later, after an intervening period when Estonia was part of the Swedish Kingdom, it evolved as a western region of Tsarist Russia with its own specificity, somewhat different from the rest of Russia.