by CKR
I get rather carried away with my flowers and birds, and I forget that most of WhirledView’s readers have probably never been to Estonia and might enjoy seeing what I’m seeing. I’m also finding so much to think about and possibly to write about that I get overwhelmed. I have at least three or four weighty posts, but I don’t have the time or the real opportunity to do them just now.
So here’s some scenery, with a little commentary. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
The tower is the town hall in Tallinn’s Old Town. Until two years ago, the spire was dirty gray rather than white. Then they sandblasted the limestone clean. After the Soviet Union collapsed, you could see that sort of filth in all the republics and satellites. Factories belching smoke were a symbol of the industrial progress of the Union. To be fair, the free world also believed something like this. I recall a stamp commemorating some anniversary of the American Chemical Society in the 1950s or 1960s that featured smoking chimneys.
On the horizon, you can see the apartment houses of Lasnamäe. The Soviets built the houses for workers, mostly Russian, immigrating into Estonia. The apartments have all the charm of the “projects” in American cities, although they have not been trashed in the same way.
Still some snow on the north shore beaches, in shady places. It’s been cool, long-sleeve-shirt and jacket weather. But the few patches of snow were melting, and I haven’t seen snow anywhere else.
A Stalinist-period apartment house in Sillamäe. I have many photos and much to say about Sillamäe. It turns out that the New York Times had even more wrong in that article than I recognized off the top of my head.
Peipsijärv at Remniku, looking toward Russia. Remniku is on the north shore of Peipsijärv, the third largest lake in Europe. The border between Russia and Estonia runs through it. Alexander Nevsky held the Germans back in a winter battle on the ice in the mid-fifteenth century. The Germans misjudged badly and fell through the ice somewhere toward the middle, horses, armor and all.
There isn’t what I consider a single satisfactory English name for this lake. A literal translation of the Estonian name might be Lake Peipsi, but I’m not willing to give that kind of free advertising, even one letter off. Sometimes the translation is given as Lake Peipus, but that seems to me to be one of those pretentious Latinizations that the Swedes went in for during their flirtation with empire. I could be wrong, though; many Estonian words end in –us. The Russian name is Čudskoye Ozero, which translates to Lake Chud. This seems to have no relation whatsoever to the Estonian name; the map I’ve got shows “Peipsijärv” as the name on the Estonian side of the border and “Čudskoye Ozero” on the Russian side. You can see both in this photo [wink].
A house with a stork’s nest. (You didn’t really think I could do without a single bird or flower, did you?) Storks build their nests on electrical poles, poles that people have deliberately erected for them, and I saw one in a rather wonderful tree—a dead branch in the center of an oak, surrounded by live branches. Many nests span several electrical wires; I keep wondering why the storks don’t get electrocuted. This nest seems to be on an electrical pole that is not connected electrically.
A small church on Hiiumaa Island. Hiiumaa is one of the larger islands west of the Estonian mainland. Notice that the roof is thatched.
Pühajärv, or Holy Lake, near Otepää. If you’re into cross-country skiing, you may have heard of Otepää. Major cross-country skiing races like the Tartu Marathon are held here.
The beach at Pärnu. That’s where I am now; actually in a hotel a few blocks from the beach. Too cold for swimming, but I love having these places to myself. I’ll walk on the beach again today.