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.

Day 7: Sunrise, fish, harbour

We all get up rather early every day, partly because we don't stay up too late, partly because of all the fresh air we get, and partly of course because it's good to get up between 6 and 7 and then have some breakfast and discussions, and get to work early. But today, Bettina got up extra early in order to film some sunrise sequences and storks - she was out there sometime between 3 and 5 in the night, while she let the rest of us sleep.

Today, we went north, to Kallaste, actually to get some money out of the ATM there. There aren't exactly a lot of ATM's around, and Kallaste is the nearest we know about. We did some shopping, and on the way we noticed a cute little cafe in Kallaste, so we decided to visit it, and during lunch decided that it might be interesting to have a little interview-style chat with the owners on video. The place is Anna's Cafe, so we talked with Anna, a young lady who owns the cafe and lives in the same building with her mother, who had originally started the place.

This turned into a very funny and of course also interesting conversation about life, ambitions, living in a very small town, careers and activity. As we know already, there isn't a lot of work in these places, so most people live from their pensions and/or from selling onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, or fish, whatever they can catch or grow. There are some work places in the area for instance at the Kallaste harbour where fish is processed, but not a lot. So we were rather impressed with these two ladies from Anna's Cafe who, facing this situation, simply decided to become entrepreneurs and start their own cafe and guesthouse, catering to tourists, who apparently like this cozy place very well.

As we walked around their house to have a look at their garden, next to the small cliffs that form a part of Kallaste's lake shore, we stand there and see a neighbor grilling fish. We must have looked rather curious: He suddenly came over to the fence, started talking with us very interested and in fluent English, told that this is his summer house and he actually lives in Tallinn, and then gave us two hands full of the fish he was just grilling. A great snack!

We went on to the harbour in Kallaste, where behind some abandoned buildings a rather new yet small building is home to the fishing harbour, receiving and processing the catch of the day. Some fishermen refused to be filmed, but a few kids who were playing there were immediately ready to talk with us about how they see the place.