Tallinn's Croissants
Alina Birjuk - Photography
Alina Birjuk (b. 1996) is an Estonian photographer living between Zürich and Tallinn. Her work moves between documentary and staged imagery, exploring intimacy, love, food, and everyday rituals. She embraces imperfection and playfulness, favoring the unpolished over the composed. She studied photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts and Design, then Trends and Identity at ZHdK Zürich. These days, she’s drawn to slower rhythms: slow living, longevity, and the quiet value of taking time. That’s the thread running through her current project “Ruhe” (German for peace and quiet), which tells the stories of sustainable food artisans in Switzerland and Estonia.
We live in an increasingly fast world, one where even what we eat is more and more mass-produced. This series looks at croissants from bakeries across Tallinn, exploring how a seemingly “simple” pastry can carry the signature of the person who made it. Every croissant is photographed on a neutral white background and at the same scale, giving each one its own space to be seen and studied on its own terms. Placed side by side, small differences start to surface: one croissant is more layered, another baked a shade darker, another wider or airier. These differences hint at how each one was made, and they give every croissant its own character. The goal was never to compare or rank them. Quite the opposite, it’s to celebrate how differently the same pastry can turn out in different hands. Bakery names have been left out on purpose, so what’s left is just the croissants themselves. That way, attention can go to their shape, layers, texture, and character, without a name or brand shaping what we expect or notice. And yet, anyone who knows Tallinn’s bakeries well might recognize a few. At a time when production keeps pushing toward speed, efficiency, and flawlessness, this work is a reminder that there’s still room for individuality in how food is made. Every croissant carries traces of its own process, from how the dough was folded and left to rise, to how it was baked and shaped in the end. With this series, I want to invite you to notice these small differences, the ones that give food its character and make the process of making it feel personal. Maybe it’s worth looking at a croissant not just as something to eat, but as something that holds the time, skill, and touch of whoever made it.
