He also brought with him the Hanseatic business rectitude that he had learnt in Hamburg.

ECONOMIST: Face value

In drawing such north-south comparisons, there is a danger of falling into stereotypes and romanticising, say, Germany's influence through the old Hanseatic League.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne: Latvian lessons | The

In pubs in cobbled Tallinn, Estonia's perky capital, whose Hanseatic flavour now far out-smells its Soviet one, Mr Ilves, aged 44, clad in billy-cap and leather jacket, has an easy rapport with Estonia's go-ahead young.

ECONOMIST: Toomas Ilves, Estonia��s American-European

He tackles the big issues past and present, such as the formation of the Hanseatic League, set up to organise maritime trade, the slave ships which trafficked 11m Africans across the ocean between the 15th and the 19th centuries and the recent collapse of the cod fisheries.

ECONOMIST: The Atlantic Ocean