The Paul Keres Monument honours Estonia's greatest chess player, born in Narva in 1916. Keres was one of the strongest players never to become world champion, a grandmaster admired for elegant attacking play and for surviving the political pressures of the Soviet chess world.
The monument is deliberately approachable: Keres sits at a chessboard, inviting passers-by to sit opposite him. It is a small sight, but a good Narva detail, and one of the few monuments in town that feels playful rather than heavy.