Mattiesen Bookstore

Mattiesen Bookstore / Описание

The Mattiesen Bookstore

You feel like taking out a moment and relax, have a leisurely stroll between bookshelves, and thereafter, grab a cup of aromatic and refreshing coffee. A real bliss, isn't it. Yet it isn't just a pleasant daydream, IT IS JUST REALITY! Believe it or not. Taking an easy walk, one or two blocks from any spot in center, downtown. And you will find yourself in one-and-half-century-old building -- this is where the Mattiesen Booksellers is ready to welcome you.
It is very easy to find, on the corner of Ülikooli and Vallikraavi streets. It's the very same building where Karl Mattiesen's printing shop once operated.

Historians have written in their books that Carl (Karl) Gottlieb Mattiesen, by extraction the first Estonian typesetter, printer, and owner of the printing shop, acquired this estate in 1848. Yet it was the place that gave a significant impetus to the development of literature printing in the Estonian and Russian languages. All the almanacs of St. Petersburg's Academy of Sciences (Russia) were printed here. The later important landmarks in the local domain of printing include the Estonian Encyclopedia in the 1930s. To mark the second centenary of publishing the Bible in Estonian, in 1939 the Mattiesen's printing shop issued the "Grand Bible", which included beautiful colored illustrations and had immense value for this nation's spiritual education. Likewise, this printing shop printed the journals of the "Loodus" (trans. Nature) publishers.

In 1996, the Greif Corporation was added to the list of Karl Mattiesen's successors.

In 1998, the bookstore Mattiesen Booksellers was opened in this building. It was done as a token of recognition to the grand old man in Estonian printing and publishing.

When visiting the bookstore, you can swiftly take a furtive glimpse of some historical items such as printings, typesetting tools, and carefully renovated old printing presses. The coffee corner has also grownto be today Cafe Wilde.