Back in the USSR

The surface features of daily life in provincial Tartu make it easy to forget how recently it was -- in historical terms -- that Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union. Unlike in Tallinn, it is rare to hear Russian spoken on the street in Tartu, and the city as a whole feels very Estonian. Yet during the Soviet era, Tartu was a 'closed city', with foreigners completely banned from visiting it for over 40 years. The excuse for this was the presence, just a few miles away, of one of the largest airforce bases in the whole Soviet Union. But I suspect it was more than just this coincidence that led to the soviet authorities closing off access to Estonia's intellectual capital.

But if you look more closely, there are clues to be found of the recent soviet legacy. The shelves of books in my office in Russian, including the works of Karl Marx. The presence, still, of a few Russian-speaking senior academics scattered across various departments in the University. The derelict hulks of Soviet collective farms scattered around the Estonian countryside.


And then there are the stories told by colleagues, especially Margit and Endla, both of whom are in their 40's and thus had their academic careers straddle the shift from the Soviet era to Estonian independence. Endla talks about eating her first banana at the age of 30 after getting a scholarship to study in Scandinavia. There are also various features peculiar to the Soviet academic system, some have died out since and others have persisted. During Soviet rule it was, for example, impossible to get a phD in English at the University of Tartu. English was considered a poltically sensitive subject, so the only PhD's granted were from institutions in Russia on which a closer eye could be kept ... . Another peculiar feature of the time was the practice of so-called 'forward Marxism.' Academics working in politically innocuous fields, such as philosophy of science, were pretty much left to publish without outside interference. But to be on the safe side, these academics would typically insert a few remarks at the beginning and end of each paper saying how much their work owed to Marxist thought and upheld Marxist ideals.

One practice that has persisted is that of publishing conference proceedings before the actual conference has taken place. This struck me as rather odd, since it does not give those presenting a chance to modify their papers in response to audience comments before having them published. It was explained to me that this was a hold-over from the Soviet era when conference proceedings were pre-published so the authorities could vet the content prior to the conference taking place.

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Farewell Party

The day before I left Estonia, the Philosophy Department threw a farewell party for me in the Centre for Ethics. Left to right in the above picture are Margit Sutrop, Head of Department (and host of my visit to her family's summer house a couple of weeks earlier), Daniel Cohnitz, Extraordinary Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (on a several year appointment, from Germany, and with an impressive-sounding job title), Endla Lohkivi, Docent in Philosophy of Science (and the main person responsible for arranging my Fulbright), and me.


I had been discussing Estonian foods with various members of the department the previous week, and unbeknownst to me the secretaries and administrative assistants in the different subdivisions of the Philosophy Department (some of whom are pictured above) had each prepared a different Estonian speciality for the farewell party. Moreover they were all specialities which they knew I had not yet tried!


In the above picture, proceeding clockwise from the bottom left corner: Baltic herring open sandwiches; rhubarb cake; ham stuffed with garlic, cheese, and mayonnaise; oatmeal cookies with cherries. The packets in the bowl in the top right of the picture contain bars of hardened cottage cheese covered with chocolate. These come in different flavors including plain, vanilla, coconut, and kiwi. To the right of this bowl is a red jug containing a bag of a sour milk / yoghurt hybrid. In front of that is a large package of 'Kama.'


Kama is a flour made from a mixture of various grains and peas. It is mixed with one or other of the sour milk products available in all Estonian supermarkets and then drunk as a refreshing summer drink. Either salt or sugar can be added to it, depending on one's preference. I tried it sweetened and found it quite delicious.

Finally, the picture below shows Bruno (a postdoc), Jaan (a PhD student), and Daniel again. In an unlikely coincidence, it turns out that Bruno had actually attended a series of 4 lectures that I gave in Cambridge in 2000 when I was there as a Junior Research Fellow and Bruno was doing an MPhil in Philosophy.


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Sending Flowers in Estonia

Estonians are big flower givers. Guests are expected to bring flowers if invited to dinner, flowers are widely given on people's birthdays, and there are semi-permanent flower stalls set up on many streets in Tartu. Unfortunately, at least for foreigners, is that there is a huge number of 'rules' about what you can and can't do when giving flowers. Here are the ones that I managed to uncover:

(i) Always give an odd number of flowers, unless it is a funeral.

(ii) Rule (i) can be ignored if you are giving more than 10 flowers (presumably on the grounds that people don't bother checking when there are that many).

(iii) There is a superstition in Estonia which says that yellow flowers are a sign of a coming loss of a loved one.

(iv) Only give red roses in romantic contexts.

(v) The flowers traditionally associated with Soviet monuments have been red carnations.

(vi) White flowers are generally avoided, with the exception of white roses.

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Trip to Lake Peipsi (Part 3)

Here is the third and final batch of photos from my day trip earlier in the month. The picture above shows the shore of Lake Peipsi as storm clouds began to roll in during the afternoon. The statue is some sort of war memorial and in the background to the right is a small fishing boat heading ashore.

Later in the afternoon, and further inland, I detoured to take in one of the many bogs that are a characteristic feature of the Estonian countryside. Selected bogs are equipped with board walks that enable hikers to get across them.


Another stop was at the renovated 19th-century schoolhouse attended by one of Estonia's best-known writers, Oskar Luts. I was impressed that the main classroom contained not only an abacus but also a chamber organ!


Finally, here is a rustic, Eastern Estonian bus stop ... .


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Trip to Lake Peipsi (Part 2)

I left Estonia last Friday (May 19) and am now back in Swarthmore. Packing up and getting organized to leave meant I didn't have much time to post over the last week. But I have quite a few more posts I want to write, so I plan to continue with the Estonia theme for at least a couple more weeks.

This post contains the second batch of pictures from my day trip to the shores of Lake Peipsi that I took last weekend. The other main attraction of the region, aside from the Russian Old Believer villages that I mentioned in the first post about the trip, is the 19th century 'manor house' at Alatskivi. The Estonians use the term 'manor house' for what is often more like a French chateau, and this is the case with Alatskivi. Reputedly modeled on the Queen's residence at Balmoral, Alatskivi was completed around the turn of the 19th century, but then became increasingly dilapidated during the post-war soviet era, during which time it was used as a military training center, a collective farm, and a technical college. The interior is currently being renovated -- a few rooms have been finished but most of the inside still needs a lot of work.


Surrounding the chateau are extensive grounds, including a landscaped garden and a large lake.



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Student Lock-Up

With only a few days to go before I leave Estonia I am rushing to get through the list of things to see and do. Today I visited the University Art Museum, situated in the Main Building just around the corner from my office, and consisting mostly of 19th century plaster copies of ancient Greek sculptures. More interesting was my trip up to the attic of the Main Building to see the preserved student lock-up which was used up until the end of the 19th century to incarcerate students for short periods of time if they infringed any of the University regulations.

It was fascinating to compare the punishments for different sorts of misdemeanors. For example,

disturbance of the night's rest......2 days
failure to return library books.......2 days
insulting a lady.........................4 days
insulting a cloakroom attendant.....5 days
cursing..................................5 days to 3 weeks
deceiving a shopkeeper.............3 weeks
duelling.................................3 weeks

To pass the time, students in the lock-up covered the walls and ceilings with pictures and graffiti. Some of this has been left on the walls of the restored lock-up. (There were originally five lock-ups in the attic of the Main Building, but three were destroyed in a fire in 1965 caused by an electrical fault and the other remaining one has not been restored.)


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Trip to Lake Peipsi (Part 1)

Yesterday I made an impromptu day trip to some bits of the Estonian countryside around Tartu that I hadn't yet seen. About 20 miles to the east of Tartu lies Lake Peipsi (see photo above), a large body of water (over 100 miles long and 20 to 30 miles across) that forms most of Estonia's eastern border with Russia. Along the shoreline on the Estonian side are a string of fishing villages inhabited by Russian speaking communities known as 'Old Believers'. These split off from the main Russian Orthodox Church in the late 18th century and have preserved many of their traditions because of their isolated position. In some ways they are Estonia's equivalent of the Amish, one difference being that the Old Believers have no problem with adopting modern technology.

Another difference is that the Old Believers see very few tourists, again largely because of their isolated location. I spent the morning wandering around several of the villages, watching boats coming in off the Lake, wood being chopped and piled for next winter, and farmers out in the fields ploughing and sowing crops. The Old Believer communities make their living catching fish from the Lake and growing onions. In the foreground of the picture below are onion fields waiting for the spring sowing.


Having eaten a couple of weeks ago at the only Brazilian restaurant in Finland, on the Lake Peipsi trip I managed to do one better and have lunch at the only Old Believer restaurant in the whole world. Given what I knew about their lifestyle, it seemed clear that I should focus in my menu choices on fish dishes and onion dishes. I started with 'Lake Peipsi sprat soup':



Then I tried 'Fried pike-perch in tomato and onion sauce', which also came with a side dish of spring onions in sour cream:


I washed this down with tea, served from a large samovar that was placed in the middle of the table. The teapot containing the (strong) tea sat on top. You pour the tea into a cup and then add water from the samovar tap to dilute it. It is served with hunks of raw sugar-candy, and apparently the correct thing to do is to munch on a piece of candy and then sip your tea to dissolve the candy in your mouth!


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