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Yesterday, we inaugurated the new office of Skype Tallinn, by far the largest facility of Skype worldwide. This has been a year of moving and relocation, with Skype moving in London, Luxembourg, San Jose and now Tallinn. (We lost the chicken race to others.) I hear this is not the last offices-related news this year, so as always, watch this space for updates.

We’re still moving in and unpacking. No pictures of the interior yet, as there’s painters and ladders and installers and wires and cables around still, but here are some artifacts from last night’s opening party and the surroundings.

We’re in a building that’s pretty nondescript from the outside, perhaps only differentiated by the logo. This is probably one of the few buildings in the world where you actually see this logo on a house. While pretty subtle at daytime, at night it has a blue glow and is a piece of art on its own.

Inside, though, it’s a different story. You can get a feeling of the vibe here if you look at the videos from our previous offices and multiply the coolness factor at least five, if not ten times. It’s not too “fancy” or “posh”, though, as we don’t think much of those things. Rather, I’d say it’s smart and functional, being as Skype always was — to the point and getting things done.

Toby the Skype Tallinn mascot dog was there with us at the opening. Not itself, as it got nervous with all the people around, but on the meat dish and the cake. Someone told me:

Can we please stop evangelizing Tobi? Jaanus, don’t post several pictures of fake Tobi on cakes and stuff.

Interestingly enough, while Tobi is not even a human, it provides an interesting introspective and an original viewpoint (around the knee-height of most humans) into various aspects of our life here, and thus will continue to be a regular contributor to our sites and blogs.

Continuing the tradition of free office goodies, here’s our typical ice cream selection. The ice cream fridges are at various places throughout the office floors, this one is about five meters from my desk.

Here’s a view from my window. It’s towards forest where you can go running or biking at summertime, and skiing in the winter. … Ok, I cheated a bit. Between the office and the forest, there’s a car park. But still.

It’s shaping up to be a pretty good place to work and have fun. Last night’s opening party was spectacular as expected. And after having been separated across many temporary locations and homes (some folks stayed at home simply because there was no space for their desk, or not enough chairs… can you imagine?), we’re finally all together at the same place.