Day 28: Winter mood, Osip, and Mustvee

We decide to go north for once, after spending the last few days mostly in and around Kolkja. So we visit Raja, where we manage to film beautiful winter motifs of houses and people and the winter mood; also we visit the wonderful cemetery that's located right at the lakeside. As we go around Raja, we call Osip, the lay preacher of the local church. He's happy to see us again as we meet him for a talk near his house, and agrees to let us into his church again to complete our film and photo material on the icons and ceremonial items in there, as well as his photos and books, and of course the Frolov icons Osip loves to talk about, and which indeed are impressive pieces of art.

Not only are we as usual impressed by Osip's knowledge and intelligence, by the way he talks and by the gentle and positive attitude he simply has - also visually, Osip is the kind of man who could probably make a good career as a testimonial face in advertising, be it for some alpine chocolate or fish fingers.

Finally we head on to Mustvee, since we realized that despite of having visited the small town a few times, we didn't really have any material on it, and hadn't discovered anything nearly as interesting as in the villages down south. We drive and walk around, and again can't really find too much that's interesting either from a visual or from a storytelling perspective. There's a small Old-Believer's community and its church, as well as a local Old-Believers' museum, but at least from the outside, none of the places we can find provides interesting visuals. The town feels rather interchangeable, and lacks the specific character and mood of the smaller villages. So we decide that with its Statoil gas station, its regional bus station, a few cafes and an ATM, Mustvee would rather be our administrative place where we go to refuel, recharge, and deal with life's necessities. Still when going past the lakeside, we find at least a few nice motifs for photography.

Day 27: Songs, war stories, and a catch

We return to Kolkja already in the morning to visit Mother Varvara, who became one of the focal points of our trips here; a wonderful lady with plenty of stories to tell and information to share. Her son is on the lake fishing as we talk with her in her house; as we go along and chat about this and that, Varvara starts to sing some traditional songs for us.

Back on the road, we meet an elderly man without teeth, who is on his way to visit his friend, and spontaneously invites us to join him. We agree and go with him, yet as we arrive it turns out that his friend is ill and in bed. So instead of paying him a visit, the man we met sits down in front of his friend's house with us, and starts telling us about the war in Afghanistan, where he had to fight for the Soviet army. Tears roll down his face as he tells how the war left him disabled, with his legs full of nails and screws. We spend a rather long time talking, and every time someone walks past on the street, they greet the man. It's a small place, where everybody knows everyone, yet we also sense that this particular man is treated with a certain extra respect.

We drive back to Kasepää and go over to Timofey's house, but nobody opens the door as we knock. Maybe he's not at home, but we're afraid that maybe Timofey is at home, but prefers to spend the last days with his wife uninterrupted and alone. We leave and go back to Kolkja.

Where behind Varvara's house, we meet Vassily, a smile lighting up his entire face. Vassily had spent his day fishing, but unlike two days ago, he was indeed luckier today and brought home an impressive catch: A whole number of large fish, among them a superb pike. Vassily is laughing and looks very enthusiastic, the successful fishing day obviously made him a very happy man for the day. The men heat up the sauna and serve vodka to celebrate the fishing day's success, and Vassily tells us enthusiastically about the biggest fish his father ever caught, a pike that was so large that when you carried the fish over your shoulder, its tail fin would still touch the ground. Unfortunately, though, the fish was already pretty old when they caught it, and didn't taste good. Certainly today's catch will be very tasty though!

Day 26: Panorama, monster trucks, and a collapsed house

Early in the day we finish off yesterday's lake and fishing visuals by recording some additional panoramic takes of the lake, with the fishermen sprinkled as small dots across a vast empty and blindingly white area. What a difference between the seasons! As most of our team who's at the lake originally comes from Germany and Switzerland, we are well used to different weather in different seasons, but not to the extent in which it is the case up here in the North-Eastern corner of the European Union.

 The endless summer days in which the sun barely sets, sun and warmth, the lake inviting for a swim, everything is very green and everything simply smells of fresh and pristine nature... and then the winter, in which as it feels nature is asleep, and so are the people. The sounds are dampened, the air is crisp and clean and smells of nothing much but cold and ice, the lake has disappeared under a cover of ice and snow, and what's the shore in summer is nothing but a barely noticable bump in the snow blanket during the wintertime.

We go around the villages, saying hi here and there, taking some mood videos and photos, and in Nina we meet Igor, who is happy to show us his home-built monster truck: Built from two regular cars and airplane tyres, these sort of vehicles are a good way to get around on the frozen lake in winter. They're practical, and again thanks to the big tyres, they're less likely to sink if the ice breaks - in fact, with tyres like these, chances are you'd just roll on even if the ice underneath cracks and breaks at some point. Visually impressive vehicles - we're happy for the footage!

Later in Kolkja, we meet Vadim, who is just coming out of a door to clean up the house next door, which had collapsed under the weight of the snow. It turns out it's his house that had collapsed, yet Vadim seems in a surprisingly relaxed mood. He tells us he'd be rebuilding it all by himself, because he doesn't have any money to pay people to help, but he's not worried about it, and plans to have it rebuilt within two weeks. Looking at the collapsed house and the amounts of snow, we seriously doubt his time plan, but we don't say anything and rather just wish him luck, and offer our help in carrying some of the collapsed parts away - which he gently refuses, saying he would have no problem rebuilding the house. Wish you luck, Vadim.

Day 25: Ice fishing, water and visitors

Mother Varvara had invited us to go ice fishing with Vassily, who had treated us with his fish soup (and some vodka) back in October. At 9 in the morning we arrive in Kolkja at Varvara's house, only to find a number of fishermen at the shore behind the house getting ready for a day of fishing on the frozen lake. They're equipped with motor sledges, some of which need a bit of additional effort to start up, and of course Vassily and his friend show up, happy to see us again. And so are we - it's a good feeling (and also good for this project, of course) that by now we really know people in the villages, they consider it normal and even nice that we keep coming back, and are simply familiar with us.

Vassily gets his vehicle ready: An unbelievable construction, basically a motorbike of which the front wheel is replaced with a sledge foot, and two huge tyres are attached to the back - a trike made for driving on the ice, and with its huge tyres, apparently designed not to sink so easily should the ice break under the vehicle. We take our seats in the flat trailer that they attach to the trike, and out we go onto the lake, with Vassily's little dog running next to the trike.

The lake is full of fishermen: An amazing view, plenty of small black dots where the fishermen are spread out all over the frozen surface, and except for these spots - a perfectly flat, endless, white nothing. That's Lake Peipus in winter. Suddenly we stop, as Vassily has apparently found the right place to get started - we don't quite understand how he decided that, but he sure knows his trade. We jump off our vehicles, and Vassily starts to drill a hole in the ice using a special drill he brought along. Lure is attached to small fishing rods, and the hooks placed under the ice.

Unfortunately we're not very lucky that day, and only small fish take the bait - yet we know what a delicious fish soup Vassily will make from these later on! In addition to the fish, vodka is an important ingredient to ice fishing, and after half an hour on the frozen lake, nearly unprotected from the cold wind, with ice and snow under our feet, we perfectly well understand why. Our minibar is a wooden box from the trike, and indeed we value how the vodka warms us up.

After some hours we return to the mainland with our catch of the day and the vodka bottles emptier than they were in the morning, freezing and happy about the scenery and experience we could share. We decide to walk through Kolkja a little bit, and meet an elderly couple sitting on a bench in front of their house. The man explains that he used to go for long walks, but he recently had a heart attack, therefore he now prefers to simply sit in the fresh air, which anyway would do him good. We ask for some water, and he gladly helps and takes the short walk to the well to bring us some.

Later in the evening, Edgars and Ivite come to visit from Riga; Edgars promised to help with the soundtrack respectively the musical design of the documentary film, so it's good for him to see the actual place firsthand. We spend a pleasant and quiet evening with pasta and red wine, looking at old photos of the region, discussing the project and the musical part of it, again and again meeting the countless fishermen who apparently come from further away to stay in our guest house at the lake for a few days for their favourite wintertime hobby. Judging from voices and accents, some of them come all the way from Riga in order to fish here with their friends.

Day 24: Mother Zoya, food, and road trips

After freezing rain during the night, the roads are icy and slippery. We drive south to Varnja to visit Mother Zoya again, who had invited us yesterday to visit. We end up spending almost the entire day with her and her husband who joins us after a short while: Zoya tells us about the Old Believers and her views on religion, about her personal life, the regional history, and much more. Together with her husband they show us their photo albums, and of course there is no way to leave, as they start making food and we are being treated.

 

After a very long talk, much food and apple pie, Zoya gives us some apples for our way and some of the homemade caramellized sugar that Old Believers use and that she makes herself at home. She invites us to come back and learn how to make sugar in this way.

As we drive back home in the evening, the roads are even more icy than earlier, and the way back takes us more than an hour. Cold and silent lakeside.

Day 23: Ice, decay, and sad news

We arrived back to the lake late on Wednesday evening, on dark icy roads from Riga (Latvia), and felt this odd melancholic happiness of revisiting a place we had left a few months earlier. It's not exaggerated to say that we start feeling at home here, after all the visits, after all the time spent, after all the talks and chats and after all the experiences and impressions gathered. Arriving back to Aarde Villa late in the evening, only to find our same old guest house rooms, and the chimney room downstairs, felt like a return to a place that has indeed gone a step closer to being a home for us. And our mobile computers remember the Wireless Internet's network ID.

Today in the morning we woke up and stood still for a while outside the house, freezing and looking over the endless emptiness of the frozen Lake Peipus. As always when you come somewhere late in the evening when it's already dark, your real arrival is delayed until the following morning, and you spend the evening in a sort of limbo, having left one place but not yet properly arrived to your destination. As we breathe the ice-cold air coming from the lake, listen carefully to the total silence over the lake, compare the view with our previous views of the lake from the same place, and as we simply remain still for a few minutes in this early morning, we arrive one more time, this time for real.

After breakfast, our first journey of course leads us to visit some of the men fishing on the frozen lake. The ice cover on the lake is about half a metre thick at this time of the year. The silence is breathtaking. The further from the shore you go, the more silent it becomes. Occasional cracking sounds under your feet are worrying at first, but then you understand that the ice is indeed more than thick enough to carry a man, or many men, and also their vehicles. We talk with some of the fishermen, who show us how they drill the holes through the ice, and explain that during the day, they leave the smaller fish they catch on the ice, so the foxes would come out at night and eat them. The give and take of a life that has retained at least some connection with nature.

We went on to Varnja to visit Mother Zoya, who is renovating her house. The village feels empty. Zoya tells us that some people have died since our last visit, some have moved away. We wrote in this blog repeatedly how different the area feels in summer, when families come to visit and children crowd the streets and beaches, and there's the sound of laughter and play everywhere. Already in autumn, the place felt entirely different. And in winter, the contrast becomes even bigger. In fact, in winter, it becomes obvious how many of the houses in the villages are empty - you can see it from the snow. Entrances to many houses are covered with half a metre blankets of snow, leaving the houses inaccessible, and nobody cleans that snow. That's the case for a surprising amount of houses. Our happiness to return makes room for a certain sadness and melancholy. One more time we realize that we might actually be witnessing a disappearing culture.

As we go a little north and meet Timofey in Kasepää, we receive more bad news. Timofey's wife has brain cancer, and was just recently sent home from the hospital, the doctors saying that they could not help her anymore. Timofey is taking care of his dying wife at home now, and says it's a matter of days, maybe weeks.

It's winter.

Day 22: Wax candles, a librarian, and a museum

The Kolkja shopkeeper had recommended us to talk with the librarian of the Kolkja school, and so we went to search for that librarian. We found her at the school, and were immediately engaged in a very intense conversation. As it turns out, the librarian is an Old-Believer lady who is very criticial about the developments in the Old Believer region. She says that most of the traditions were lost long ago, and that what we see now isn't genuine. We are impressed with her emotional and enthusiastic attitude - she truly does speak with her hands and feet and is very much into the topic, very passionate about the local culture and identity, and about preserving them. She is a treasure of knowledge and understanding and information about the region and its history and culture, and most certainly a very, very interesting person to speak with.

Unfortunately she also says that she had made some negative experience with Estonian television earlier, and therefore didn't want to be filmed. After a bit of conversation, she agreed that we could film her when we come back in January, though.

A funny detail is that at some point, a friend of the librarian came by, and we were told this friend is a direct descendant of the Romanoff family.

We move on to the museum, where we want to talk with the friendly elderly lady whom we have already met a few times and asked for contacts and advice: Finally, we want to talk with her a little bit. She certainly knows much, yet the discussion is not overly interesting. We feel that she is telling these sort of things to many tourists, so the conversation feels oddly prepared, as if she was repeating a story that she has told too many times, and we don't seem able to get her to add anything really personal to this general story.

Certainly that makes her the perfect person to guide tourists through the museum and get them the basic insights and information about the region, but for us, it's not very interesting, so we look at the museum once more, listen to her to find out whether we maybe missed some important points until now, and then move on.

Also, we have a chance to learn a little bit about the candles which the Old Believer churches are using, and which are unusually pure. As Varvara tells us, they're made entirely of bees wax and no other ingredients, because nothing else would smell that particular way.

It's a rainy day, but in between, when the sun comes out, we use the opportunity to take photos around certain places which we will need for the project website. There aren't a lot of sunny moments, but... we manage.