Maardu is a town and a municipality in Harju County, Estonia. It is part of Tallinn metropolitan area. The town covers an area of 22.76 km² and has a population of 16,529 (as of 1 January 2010).
The Port of Muuga, the largest cargo port in Estonia, is partly located in Maardu.
According to the 2000 Census, the population was 16,738. 61.7% were Russians, 19.9% Estonians, 6.6% Ukrainians, 5.7% Belarusians, 1.5% Tatars, 0.9% Finns, 0.6% Poles, 0.5% Lithuanians, 0.2% Latvians, 0.2% Germans and 0.1% Jews. The proportion of Estonians was one of the lowest (if not the lowest) in Central and Western Estonia.
Outside the town (in Maardu village), south of the road to Narva lies Maardu manor, one of the oldest preserved baroque manor houses in Estonia. It traces its origins to 1389, but the current building dates from the 1660s with additions made in the 19th century. The landlord of the manor Herman Jensen Bohn in 1739 funded the printing of the first bible printed in Estonian.
Maardu may be divided into four parts:
Mademoiselle remembers too well
How once she was belle of the ball
Now the past she sadly recalls.
Mademoiselle lived in grand hotels
Ordered clothes by Chanel and Dior
Millionaires queued at her door.
Oh, she pleased them and teased them
She hooked them and squeezed them
Until like their empires they'd fall
She very soon learned
That the more love she spurned
The more power she yearned
Until she was belle of the ball.
Oh, Mademoiselle, such a soft machiavel
Would play bagatelle with the hearts of young men as
they fell
Mademoiselle would hide in her shell
Could then turn cast a spell on any girl
That got in her way.
She would crave all attention
Men would flock to her side
Woe betide any man who ignored
For she'd feign such affection
Then break down their pretension
When she'd won she would turn away.
Turn away, thoroughly bored.
Mademoiselle, long ago said farewell
To any love left to sell, for the sake of being belle
of the ball
Mademoiselle knows there's no way to quell
Her own private hell, just a shell,
With no heart left at all.
Poor old Mademoiselle.