The story of St. John's Church

Look closely at the walls of St John's Church and you will find faces looking back at you. The church was once decorated with more than a thousand hand-made terracotta figurines, each one different from the others, and about 200 have survived. Because there were so many individual faces, some have wondered whether they were modelled on the people of Tartu themselves; yet some figures wear crowns, which hints that they may depict someone else.

This red brick Gothic church is dedicated to John the Baptist. Its oldest parts date from the 14th century, but a church stood here at least from the first half of the 13th century, and archaeologists think there may even have been a wooden one in the 12th century. In 1775 the Great Fire of Tartu started near the church and destroyed nearly two hundred houses, yet St John's was spared.

Since 1999 it has two new bells, Peetrus and Paulus, named after the city's patron saints.