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.