About

The Pseudo Tours story

Pseudo Tours is the pioneer brand of street art tours in Estonia. The founder and guide Salme carried out her first street art tour in Tartu in 2014 and has been involved since with street art related events; today she is one of the organizers of Rural Urban Art, a street art festival for small towns. The street art tours are based on Salme’s experience gained through coordinating street art events and collaborating with artists, as well as thorough research on the Estonian and international street art scene from 2012 until today. The newest tours are created in collaboration with all Pseudo guides.

Our guides give these tours for a reason – from admiration for street art & graffiti and from a wish to share knowledge.

Our tour guides

Salme

In 2013 I took part of Berlin’s Alternative Tour and suddenly it became clear to me what was my calling. The sense of adventure, amazing artworks with fascinating stories and skilled tour guides were just too inspiring. Being deeply passionate about street art and graffiti, unexplored areas and traveling as well as enjoying communicating, I realized that I had always wanted to become a street art tour guide and therefore founded Pseudo Tours.

In 2016 I wrote my Master thesis on the history & development of street art; I’ve contributed to numerous street art related events and today co-organize the street art festival Rural Urban Art.

Timo Parts

Nothing bores more than a freshly painted white wall. That kind of wall has no stories to tell. Street art brings colors to the cityscape and gives inanimate objects character. The city does not belong to officials or architects. It belongs to the people, who must have a say in its development. The streets don’t always speak what we want to hear. They speak in their language using their words. It can be a painful truth, simple entertainment, or vile slander. A city that is open to street art is colorful, diverse, and beautiful. The messages are usually in suitable places, not plastered on cultural monuments. Zero tolerance creates havoc, vulgarity, and filth. Luckily Tartu is colorful, diverse, and beautiful. Come on a tour and see what the streets are saying!

Kerly Ritval

I love travelling – conquering mountain tops and discovering the citys.

For one year I studied extreme sports and hiking in Norwegian folkhighschool and after that travelled for one year around Europe with a campervan. Back in Estonia I studied art science and visual culture in Estonian Academy of Arts. There I started to have deeper interest in public space and in street art. I love taggers for their rawness and mentality, stencil art for their critique about society and mural makers for their talent to fill the space with unique atmosphere. Every art piece has a story and I am more than happy to share these!

Anna Leena Neering

Being a lawyer by profession, I have left my heart open to the freshness of streets, both positive and negative. Street art fascinates me as part of the street culture. During my three-year career as a street art guide I have discovered that street art has something for everyone. Street artists have the unique ability to create a dialogue between people who might otherwise never interact. For example, there is a stencil opposite to the Supreme Court building in Tartu that depicts Sammalhabe, a nature loving hippie-like character from an Estonian children’s book, being arrested. In the children’s book, he had cranberries growing in his beard but in this stencil they have been replaced by cannabis plants. The author of this stencil, Edward von Lõngus, has skilfully mediated the dialogue between Sunday smokers and judges. The beauty of street art is that sometimes all it takes is a tag or a sticker from a small artist to provoke thought, inspiration, laughter and, of course, irritation.

Hannariin Lamp

I’m adventurous and joyful and like to get into new and exciting situations. I finished Tallinn Art School as a hobby and studied design for half a year in the Netherlands. I travel a lot, like to take part of projects and in new cities always try to find alternative spots that fascinate me. Being interested in art, the history behind it and especially street art, I wish to share these stories with people and bring colours in to their lives through showing beautiful and meaningful masterpieces.