A new sign has gone up by a block of ruins in Tallinn's Old Town, informing passers-by that what they see before them was the work of a Soviet bombing raid in March 1944 -- a truth that could only recently be told.

Since Estonia won its independence a year ago from the wreckage of the former Soviet Union, this old city is free to say and to do whatever it pleases -- which, more often as not, is artfully designed to put as much distance between itself and Moscow as possible.

The signs and symbols of Soviet rule, first the hammer and sickle, and now even the ruble, have vanished, replaced by fluttering white, blue and black Estonian flags and the newly printed kroon, Estonia's two-month-old currency. The Russian presence is still here -- ethnic Russians make up half of the city's population -- but where in the old days Russians were the ones who spoke the loudest as they walked the Old Town's cobbled streets, now it is Estonians who flaunt their language, their history and their traditions.

In fact, Tallinn's Old Town managed to maintain its character throughout the Soviet period, unlike so many other parts of the empire where the crude and ugly face of Soviet power obliterated relics of other times. This city, perched on a hill overlooking the Baltic Sea, still looks like the Hanseatic League port it once was, a medley of Gothic and Baroque spires, medieval towers and old, red-roofed buildings clustered around narrow streets that wind their way to the Upper Town.

At the top of the hill is Toompea, or Castle Hill, site of a long-gone 13th-century fort that was to be occupied in successive waves by the Danes, the Teutonic Knights, Swedes and then Russians, who first came in the 18th century under Peter the Great. The Russians, at the end of the 19th century, left their mark on Castle Hill: a heavy, brooding Orthodox Church that squats on a commanding position overlooking the city.

Set back among the attractive cobblestone streets is the Toomkirk, a more modest, gray Lutheran Cathedral, built and rebuilt over the centuries, with a fine Baroque altar and the tombs of several distinguished Russian admirals.

From the Upper Town are the best views of the Lower Town and its heart -- the Town Hall Square, or Raekoja Plats, a broad, sloping market square ringed by medieval buildings. From there, a walk in any direction brings fresh evidence of Estonians' long experience of living under someone else's thumb.

On Pikk Street, with its splendid examples of medieval houses, are arrayed the great guilds, many of which were barred to Estonians. The Brotherhood of the Blackheads, at 28 Pikk, was a merchants' guild, whose members had to be both of foreign descent and unmarried. Its patron saint was the Christianized Moor, St. Mauritius, hence its name. On the facade of the building, considered Tallinn's only example of Renaissance architecture, are the coats of arm of Bruges, Novgorod, London and Bergen, the most important cities of the Hanseatic League.

Next door is the Oleviste Guild (St. Olai's) Guild, which was open to Estonian craftsmen, who were forbidden to wear silk, velvet, taffeta, furs or gold jewelery -- luxuries reserved for the ruling German merchants.

Russian churches also dot the Old Town, including the Preobrzhensky (Transfiguration) Cathedral, with an iconostasis presented by Peter the Great.

But 50 years of Soviet occupation, so devastating for the country as a whole, left few scars in Old Town. And Estonia took good care of its historic heart, bringing in Polish restoration teams, who once had the best reputation in the then-Soviet bloc for such work. Since that time, there has been criticism of the Polish technique, which tended to fix up the facades of buildings and gut the interiors, losing precious architectural details in the process. But at least Tallinn kept its face, and its considerable charm.

"In the Soviet time, there were a few good things," said Arsi Kook, president of Eesti Restauraator, a company that has done most of the major restoration projects in Estonia. "In that period, neither the economy nor our technology permitted the kind of large-scale destruction of historic architecture that you see in the West, where land in the center of cities is worth a lot, and where it was more profitable to take down a two-story wooden house and build a 20-story apartment block. In Estonia, since land had no value, we kept a lot of the old wooden architecture."

Back then, Tallinn was already known for its small cafes, where beer and coffee had more taste, where the service was more polite and the bathrooms were cleaner than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. For people from other republics, especially Russians, a trip to Tallinn was considered the next best thing to a trip abroad -- which in those days was virtually impossible.

Now, Old Tallinn is in transition, like everywhere else east of the Elbe River, groping its way from state socialism to some kind of undefined capitalism. And, here as elsewhere, uncertainty reigns, although Estonia, which was the first to officially break free from the ruble zone last June with the introduction of the kroon, likes to think that it will have a head start, at least on the other former Soviet republics.