Baltic States Travel Writing
Helsinki to Tallinn
In the spring of last year I travelled around parts of the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia, largely out of intrigue to get a feel for how things have changed since these countries obtained their independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Whilst there was an abundance of quaint town hall squares and medieval architecture to marvel at, what follows is a largely anecdotal set of travel notes reflecting experiences of life in a region which is still coming to terms with the implications of its new found freedoms.
A convenient gateway for the Baltics is Helsinki , where I stayed at the Stadionin Youth Hostel built into the side of the Olympic Stadium. As I arrived the crowds were dispersing from the ice hockey stadium nearby. This seemed an appropriate sport given the sub-zero temperatures that prevailed. If I was hoping for better weather in the Baltics I was to be disappointed. In Estonia and Latvia mid day temperatures hovered around -8 degrees, backed up by a biting Baltic Sea wind so much so that it was too cold for the motor drive on my camera to function.
The next morning I made the five hour ferry crossing from Helsinki to the Estonian capital, Tallinn. Immigration at Tallinn reminded me of a scene from a war movie, where invasion is imminent or the bomb is about to drop – a swirling mob, trying to edge their way ever closer to the custom’s check point.
Fortress Veronika
Some two hours later, having cleared this obstacle, I checked out the availability of “private rooms’ with a local accommodation agency, and found myself lodging with the President of the Moldovan/Estonian Culture Society, Veronika Palandi and her daughter. If the drab exterior to the three storey building in which her apartment was contained and its dilapidated staircase gave a sense of foreboding, once she had turned back the locks, took off the chains and pushed open a metal door that would have done Fort Knox proud, the apprehension vanished. Her apartment was a real Aladdin’s cave, largely relating to Moldovan history. We got by in French and she explained that she made her living from translating Moldovan and Romanian books or documents into Estonian. From the number of phone calls she had, business was brisk.
It was not too long before she dug out the old photos of her daughter and other relatives, and of cherished places that she had left behind in her native Moldova some twenty years ago. “But where is your husband?” I enquired. She pointed down to the floor. “Ah, he is downstairs” I said. “Non, Il est mort!’ came the response.
One hour after I had arrived at her residence, and having been given the tour de force of her Moldovan poets’ picture gallery, Veronika vanished for the day, appointing me as trusted keeper of her atmospheric palace. With the snow falling fast outside and with the accommodation amply fitted with piping hot radiators, the thickness of which seems to be found only in Eastern Europe, I could quite happily have stayed in doors for the whole of my two day stay in the city.
Death of a Skoda
Tallinn’s medieval town hall square provided a flavour of “communism meets commercialism” During my first morning there, I wondered about the purpose of the huge pointed wooden stake planted in its midst – it did not look very medieval to me. On returning at midday the mystery deepened impaled on the stake was a Skoda that looked like it had been in one hell of a crash.
In the driver’s seat was a mock corpse. Blood appeared to be oozing from the body, and down the car doors. Finally, three hours later to a live fanfare provide by a local rock band, a procession of BMWs drove into the arena, forming a circle around the Skoda. Out of the cavalcade stepped a group of car sales men. “Death to the Skoda, long live the BMW” seemed to be their message.
The streets of Tartu
On to the quaint university town of Tartu, with its pastel coloured wooden houses, cobbled streets, and where, as across the Baltics, church spires compete with the domes of Russian orthodox cathedrals for attention – hardly surprising as 30% of the country’s population is Russian, and as I was to find out old ethnic hatreds run deep.
In Tartu I stayed at the University, and spent a couple of days chatting to Estonian students. “Was life worse under Soviet rule?” I enquired cautiously. Yes, seemed to be the consensus we are able to travel more freely to visit friends across Estonia now. But life in the year after independence was hell. The Russians stopped all food supplies into Estonia. This meant that the Estonian Government had to borrow money from the West, to import food stuffs from the West … how true all this was I could not say.
I asked some students whether they could suggest an alternative place to visit which did not involve churches or town hall squares . They directed me to a residential part of town where Russians had co-existed with Estonians. However at the onset of independence, with the Russian authorities about to withdraw, the Russian residents (fearing a backlash from Estonian Nationalists) upped and left quickly – but not before they had razed their houses to the ground, so that their property could not be subsequently used by Estonians. It was quite an eerie feeling to see every other wooden house reduced to a burnt out shell , with the smell of ashes still hanging in the air.
Riga – Religion and Survival
Onto Riga, the Baltic’s biggest metropolis. The 1970s English teeny bopper pop group, Slade, were playing gigs in town – the posters around the city acclaimed them as ‘rock legends’. At Paddy Whelan’s Bar, where an eclectic gathering of business men, students, diplomats and assorted spooks rubbed shoulders , an Estonian women commented that she had just shared a drink with Slade band members at a city hotel. “Why they all looked like old men!” she exclaimed. “Ah that’s definitely them,” I replied.
Riga’s central produce market absolutely demands investigation and is housed in five giant hangers (one for fruit, one for meat and so on) that were previously used to build zeppelin airships. However, set apart from the quaint old town in which mobile phones and (again) BMWs seemed a must, it provided a sobering indication of the living standards of a large chunk of the population. As well as the licensed stall holders, there were maybe hundreds of older people trying to sell that half dozen eggs or the five pairs of shoe laces they clutched, or scavenging around the stand up cafes for unwanted crusts of bread. It really felt like desperation stakes. Whether it was any different before independence, I could not say.
However deliberations at Paddy Wheelan’s bar suggested that the withdrawal of the Soviets had resulted in the elimination of pension payments, effectively producing a displaced generation, who are often forced to go out and beg in sub zero temperatures.
Amidst all this depression, I went to the Russian Orthodox cathedral for some enlightenment. Under Soviet rule, the only study of “other worlds” allowed here had nothing to do with religion – the place was a planetarium. The tranquil music generated by the choir and high priest was not bad therapy. It certainly kept the large congregation transfixed. However the end of service brought me back down to earth – the flowing cathedral steps were lined with families begging. Maybe Karl Marx was right about religion being the opium of the masses.
Salaspils Death Camp
To cheer myself up I caught the train and got off some ten miles out. From here I walked for another mile through a wood until I came to the large site of the former Nazi concentration camp of Salaspils, where 100,000 people had been murdered. Unfortunately the Soviets saw fit to erect giant Stalinesque “workers of the world unite” sculptures across this expanse to commemorate the atrocities committed by fascist forces against their Union, rather than interpreting it as the mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis. Again a very eerie feeling stood in the middle of this snow covered complex with not a person (I was going to say soul, but there may well have been a few of them) in sight.
Stalin and Hitler
Pick up a Latvian English newspaper, and if you had not already realised it you soon become aware of the use of the Baltic States as a bargaining chip between the East and West axis powers over the years. During my visit the papers were full of concern about the Clintont/Yeltsin summit taking place across the water in Helsinki. “Baltics ‘Yalta’ fears rise” was a common headline (a reference to the 1945 conference at which the victorious super powers redrew the map ofEurope, handing back the region to the Soviet Union).
A moving account of how Latvia was brutally oppressed during WWII, by Stalin, Hitler and then Stalin again is provided in graphic detail at the Latvian Occupation Museum. A wide range of photographs, documents and artefacts illustrate the annexation of the country by the Soviets in 1940 and deportations to Siberia, subsequent Nazi atrocities and the return of the Red Army after the war.
Last Man Standing
On a lighter note, I went to the cinema to see Last Man Standing, a gangster movie set in the 193Os, with Bruce Willis. It was advertised as having subtitles – ah, I thought a film in English with Latvian subtitles. Wrong! It had Russian subtitles and was dubbed in Latvian throughout by one Latvian female, even down to the last written credit. Yes, a female Latvian taking off Bruce Willis.
St Petersburg Bound
I left the Baltics in style on the first class sleeper to St Petersburg, and I found myself sharing a compartment with two vodka swilling men, and an older lady who just got on with her knitting. It soon became apparent that not to join in with them would be taken as a deep personal insult (no of course I don’t mean the knitting!). And so the show started – a glass of vodka, followed by a glass of tomato juice, followed by a glass of vodka, followed by another glass of tomato juice and so on.
Eventually I managed to escape from their clutches into the corridor. However it wasn’t long before the occupants of the neighbouring compartment came out, demanding to know where I was from. To help me determine this, they unravelled a huge map of western and eastern Europe and Russia, with all the place names in Russian. But then, oh no!, out came more bottles of vodka, and another party commenced – the wall map is now somewhere at home. As the train crossed into Russian, the reception party boarded. I’ve never had my passport studied in so much detail by a custom’s officer. An eternity was spent scrutinising every stamp on every page, once and then twice. I was dying to laugh out loud. Perhaps the man with blood shot eyes before her did not match the angelic picture in the passport.
Salaspils, Salaspils novads, Vidzeme, Latvia
Riga, Vidzeme, Latvia
Tallinn, Harju maakond, Estonia
Helsinki, Helsinki sub-region, Uusimaa, Southern Finland, Mainland Finland, Finland
Damian Rainford, 1997
(All images are authors)
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