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 19: Planning, autumn, fish factory

The weather is getting colder, even during the day we had close to 0 degrees Celsius, and the trees are now losing their leaves fast. We're spending the morning inside the cozy house and make plans for the rest of this trip: Whom do we meet when, where do we go on what day, whom did we not yet call, what topics require further exploration?

As it looks, the weather won't be good enough in the nearest days to go fishing. We hope that maybe at the end of the week, just before we leave, we might still manage. That's not too sure though. Instead, we visit Mrs. Filipova at the fish factory today, and we go to take some of the pictures that we will need for the navigation structure of our project website. Oh yes, regarding the project website: Programming has started, we're working on these photos that are needed, and we asked an old friend to draw a map of the region that looks better than regular maps do. Stay tuned - the site won't be ready anytime soon, but it's in development since a while now.

Toward the evening, we film some more impressions as we drive through, and also shoot some scenes in the little shop in Kolkja. It's a quiet day, just one real meeting and a lot of organization, but that's crucial as well. We can already feel that we have relatively little time left, and there's still so much we want to know and see.

Day 14: Lab's end, sea vs. lake, arrival

We're back in Estonia! Along with all the other teams who are working on projects as part of the First Motion program (more information here), we are in Viinitsu. Looking over the sea from this wonderful place feels just like looking over "our" lake that's a bit further to the South-East. We mentioned earlier how Lake Peipus feels like the sea - here, at the actual sea, we get the proof.

The First Motion lab in Viinitsu is very interesting and exciting, and among other events and lots of action, we also pitch our project and its status to the group - successfully, as we think. The lab takes place in the Viinitsu Conference and Culture Centre, which interestingly is owned by the former manager of ABBA.

We film some original smuggling tools on Super8 in the local history museum; canisters that were used to smuggle things across the water to Finland. In the late afternoon on October 7, we leave Viinitsu by car to drive back to the lake, where we have booked ourselves into the beautiful Aarde Villa. So we have a new place to stay! It's not that we didn't like the previous one, the Nina Houses were fantastic, but it's autumn now, and already rather cold. We're afraid that a lifestyle that features open-air showers could get us all down with a cold pretty quick, and endanger the project's development. So we opted for a more classic accommodation option in an actual hotel. As it's not tourism season anymore, though, we're apparently the only guests in the house that's right at the lake.

It's a quiet evening as we're settling in. There's a kitchen; there's a lobby room with sofas and tables and bookshelves and plants, and of course a big window to the lakeside; there's a fireplace; and there are our cozy rooms. The lake is maybe 20 metres away, and when it's windy, you can hear it even through the window. Except for the lake and the sound of the wind in the trees, it's silent out here. And we know we're back.

Day 13: Church service, fish and onions, and departure

Our last day started with the visit to the actual church service with Osip, which he promised us a few days back. Unlike in Kasepää, where Father Andrej didn't want us to film in the church, Osip in Raja doesn't seem to have any problem with this - well, it's natural and also beautiful that everyone has an own approach to these sort of things, and we of course respect their views.

The celebration in Raja was amazing, colorful, interesting, and breathtaking. The celebration was about the opening of the apple eating season, so a basket of apples was blessed. The visitors of the service were friendly and apparently didn't feel disturbed by our presence; actually at the end of the service, an elderly lady came to us and said that she had expected us to be disturbing, and that she was very happy that we were behaving so considerate. Very nice indeed, since of course we're there to observe, and not to go on people's nerves or to make them feel uncomfortable in something that for them certainly is a very intimate moment.

We spent the last few hours filming a few more scenes outdoors, after the service, eating the remaining fish and onions, and getting ready to leave the region until we will return in October. We said goodbye to some of the people we met (those we could contact or find in this day). As melancholic to leave the region as we somewhat are, we are also happy at the same time that we are visibly welcome, we are not perceived as intruders, but are treated very friendly and open, and we even believe to see that many of the people we met repeatedly are indeed happy to see us, interested to talk with us, to share their views, to have a conversation. So after 13 days, we think we're on a good way, we have collected some very intense and very interesting footage and statements and views, and are optimistic about this project and what will come out of it.

So this blog will take a break as well, while all of us are traveling back home and will get busy with other projects and with planning the next steps in this one. We'll be back in October. Back here on this blog, and back at the lake.

Day 5: Organization, preparation, lake

Clearly, it takes some time to get started in such a project. Even after eliminating most of the small everyday problems, and after already spending quite some time making phone calls, visiting people, organizing meetings and the like, there is still much of exactly this to do.

Today's biggest achievement was that our host and landlord organized a trip to Piirisaare for us, with the help of his acquaintances at the Estonian Border Guard, who recommended a neighboring fisherman to bring us over there on Saturday.

Except for that, we're shooting more impressions, so we can later concentrate fully on the people we want to portray. Doing these impressions first, walking around the villages, being visible, all this obviously helps to get acquainted.

Day 2: Morning, difficulties, first contact

Waking up at the lakeside is a beautiful event: You stand up, look out of the huge windows of a cozy house, the sun is shining, and you start preparing the breakfast table. It looks like there's a very holiday-like feeling to this project in the early mornings and late evenings, when we're not yet starting or when we already finished the days' work. Making sure this holiday mood of being at the lake doesn't interfere with what we have to do will be no small task!

But we don't forget that it's a work trip, and are reminded of this on this second day by a big number of small problems. As always, small problems start to look big when they come in big numbers. Let's list a few of the ones we found this day:

Mosquitos, lots of them. And we mean: Lots. Enough of them to make it difficult to sleep at night, despite of the mosquito net at the door.

Dead fish in the lake, and algae. Not a huge amount, but enough to be noticed. We're wondering what's up, until we're told that in such amounts, that's normal, the wind had come from the lakeside, and there's nothing to worry about.

The sleeping situation: We rented two houses, but since there's also a baby now, that means one house is for the baby and its mother, Mairi, as nobody else could possibly sleep there without waking up all the time. So for the time being, one sleeps in a tent. We're taking turns.

The Tele2 3G Modem we bought was certainly a nice idea, but we didn't expect that the Tele2 coverage here is so poor, respectively - actually pretty much inexistant. Inside or near the houses, there's no Tele2 whatsoever. You can catch a signal if you go some 50 metres away, in a particular direction, but then what do you do there? Work while sitting on the grass for as long as the computer's battery lasts?

This problem is caused because the houses' WiFi network doesn't reach the houses in which we stay.

And we don't have a fridge, which creates quite some problems, too.

So first of all, it's a day of problems and difficulties. None of them big, all of them of the kind that can be solved, but as said: If you have enough small problems, they start looking pretty big, and an apocalyptic mood sets in. After all, we're here primarily to film a documentary, and that's pretty hard work that requires a lot of concentration. You need good sleep, and you need good infrastructure, otherwise the film will suffer. We're a little worried now, and even consider moving elsewhere, despite that we like these houses so much.

A first excursion into the nearby villages raised the mood. It's a sunny day, people are nice and friendly and interested in what we're doing, so we do a few first trial shots and just walk around to see what's going on.

Some first trial shots, testing the equipment, making contact with people

 Friendly onion seller

Liza, a small girl who spends her summer holiday in Kasepää, and whom we meet regularly on the main street. Very talkative and open.

















By the evening time, we're still not sure what to do with all the little problems and difficulties we are facing, which seem to make it very hard to do our job. But at least we're in a better mood - we've spent some time going around, talked to a few people, had some dinner. The weather didn't stay so well though: In the evening, a major storm passed the region, though our lakeside home wasn't much affected.

About the project

This blog's purpose is to document the making of a documentary, respectively a crossmedia project. The topic: The Russian Old-Believers who live at the shore of Lake Peipus, the life and daily reality of people here in these villages, their stories and memories and thoughts. While the Old-Belivers and their traditions are the main topic, we also look around and keep an open eye for whatever else interesting is going on.

From August 7th until August 19th, 2010, we come here to first look around and get to know the area and people, and then also to film and take photographs of what we find. There will be a second trip to the area approximately in October, and a third one in winter 2010/2011.

Our plan is to create a website that will collect various stories, people, memories from the villages, and provide an insight into the life of these people. Parallel to this, we will produce a documentary film.

The project team are Marc Brummund, a freelance director from Hamburg; Bettina Herzner, a freelance DOP from Hamburg; and Rene Fischer, a partner at the advertising agency The Matter. They are supported by Katerina Hitruhhina and Mairi Hüüdma from Tallinn. Photos on this blog are taken by all these five.


"Fish & Onions" is supported by and part of the First Motion program, a cooperation between the Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein GmbH and the Baltic Sea Programme 2007-2013.