Hey you guys! I’ve always been interested in visiting the Baltic countries and have wanted to visit Estonia for a while. I thought that Estonia was one of the safest places in the world, but as I’ve been doing more research on crime rates by European countries, the Baltic countries tend to always be at the top for violent crime and murder??? I know that Europe is mostly safe, but I was not expecting these areas to be the most dangerous parts of the continent (excluding Ukraine of course). Are these figures true or not? If they are, why are the murder rates here higher?

This site says Tallinn has the highest crime rate in Europe:

25 Most Dangerous Cities in Europe

This one has it ranked third:

15 Most Dangerous Cities In Europe (2022)

This (2019) says that Europe’s highest homicide rate is in Latvia, with Lithuania and Estonia being very close the top:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268504/homicide-rate-europe-country/

I don’t mean to offend and still plan on visiting when I can! Just would like some clarification as to why these sources are saying the crime rates are higher here than other parts of Europe.

15 comments

  1. The first source seems completely backwards if you look at the actual numbers. It also doesn’t seem particularly trustworthy.

    The homicide rate is more than 4 times lower than in the US. Also, firearms are next to nonexistent. Overall, since EU countries in general are some of the safest in the world, the new additions are bound to stand out from some of the statistics. The actual numbers, on a broad comparison basis are exemplary.

  2. The thing about murder rate – nearly none of the sites tend to look further than the number.

    Most of the murders are done by alcoholics who kill their drinking mate. According to official police issued commentary(I can find it if you’d like but it would take some translating) about 90%( if I remember correctly) murders are committed when one or both of the parties are under the influence.

  4. Keep away from a certain obvious population and their areas. Especially from the ones that speak the obvious language. Avoid crowded areas, as some fingers are longer than others. Purchase of pepper spray is legal here for common folk. Video taping in public is also allowed. Use taxi apps in order to avoid possible pirate taxis. Be cautious with Forus, some drivers are not literate enough to read what Google Maps show them. In case you rent a car or bring your own and decide to explore distant roads, don’t get pushed by tailgaters. Take a stop at the rest stops or bus stops and let the traffic behind you pass. It’s not worth it to risk death by minimum wage plebs who purchased their used BMWs registered in Germany from garbage car dealers.

  5. 2021 statistics 20 kills and 7 murders(attempts included). 90% of killers were drunk. 75% of victims were drunk.

    Typical case is like killer and victim drink alcohol together and then they cant solve some pseudo problem without violence.

    Rational motive is like less than 5 cases per year over entire country.

  6. It’s mostly bum-on-bum violence. Low population doesn’t really help with those statistics, they seem way higher than they actually are.

  9. Most of this crime happens among the Russian minority and among lower social classes. It remains within those groups and they are mostly drunken brawls etc., i.e. it doesn’t carry over to the streets.

  10. Believe me, Estonia is probably one of the safest countries in European union. One of the lowest criminal rates. I have been living my whole life in Finland, and gang violence/robbery started to became mainstream there and it did not feel safe country anymore as you can get easily robbed when walking at night. And yes, I have seen a lot of that shit in Finland.

    So I moved to Tallinn 3 years ago to raise my kids and it is really safe here. Here we do not have these gang issues and no one is going to rob you. Criminal rates are really low here. Only downside in Tallinn is that car traffic is not as calm as in Finland.

    Edit: I have no idea why your research are like that. When I did my research regarding safe countries, Estonia often popped out as really safe country and here I’m and happy with my decision and can confirm that it is safe compared to many other countries.

  11. Estonia is a very safe country – even during the evening news they show how birds return from south or how new museums are opened.

  12. Estonia is mostly a safe country and Tallinn is mostly a safe city, trust me. Of course there may be “relatively” a-bit-dicey zones (I even try to avoid to call them “no go”), like partially Kopli or partially Lasnamäe or partially Mustamäe, but you wouldn’t consider visiting them. The problem with the crime rates should be related to low population.

  14. In any dataset some are bound to be in the top, some in the bottom. What you actually need to worry about is the overall number or the number compared to where you live right now. Do you feel safe where you live? How does it compare to where you want to live? Also consider that you are not going to live in all of Estonia at once, but most likely in Tallinn so you should not look at the overall data for Estonia but for Tallinn (a lot of murders take place in poorer and smaller villages/towns).

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