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 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 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.

Day 20: Back to the island, silence, cranberries

We decide to go back to the island, to Piirisaare, where we were in August with the small boat of Pjotr. The weather is still grey and it's often rainy, so we don't even call Pjotr to ask for another ride in his motorboat - it wouldn't be a ride just as pleasant and fun as in summer. Instead, we take the ferry that we've seen in summer, which goes from the mainland to the brand-new harbour of Piirisaare.

In this season, the ferry goes only once per week, there and back on the same day. What a feeling it must be to live in a place where only once per week, you get any real contact to the outside world... and supplies, probably, and a chance to go to the city perhaps, or to get back from it.

Piirisaare feels deserted. It's like a journey back in time, to a place where wooden houses stand, but you don't quite know where the people all are. It's this seasonal change all over again, just like on the mainland. But on Piirisaare, we think it weighs much heavier. The place is so isolated that the mood shift of the seasons must have even more extreme consequences. Though perhaps autumn is the worst season on the island, since in winter, it might be possible to just walk off the island and over to the mainland. We don't actually think people would do this often, as we've seen in summer, the population of the island is rather old in average.

We walk around the island, Maria whom we had met back in August is not around, but that's even a good thing we believe, since on our last visit we were mostly talking with her and, being lead around and driven around by her, didn't have much of a chance to talk with other people who'd maybe have a different view on particularly the nature reserve topic that was so dear and emotional to her.

As we walk around the islands, we permanently feel like the villages have become pastel coloured ghost towns. The silence is nearly absolute, and it's rare to spot any sign of life. Finally, we meet two ladies, who are both from Tartu but like to come to Piirisaare for the silence. The men we meet aren't that talkative. The population seems to be decreasing all the time, and indeed, we are told that again some inhabitants have died and others have moved away: The harsh living conditions and the lack of medical care take their toll. Either you move to a better equipped place closer to civilization before your health is too frail, or you decide to stay and probably die from something that could easily be cured were you living in a town on the mainland. It must be a difficult decision for those who leave. We've experienced people here to be very rooted, also and particularly on the island.

Then we figure out that the local store is, naturally, the meeting point: The lady who runs it just came back from the mainland with the same ferry (and her Citroen Berlingo), and brings new goods to her shop. Short after she arrives from the mainland, it seems the entire village gathers in her shop to buy the new groceries. We stop for a chat, but there's a lot of action in the shop, so we think we'll maybe get back in winter. We wonder how the shop survives with its limited number of clients, and what brings the shopkeeper to working here. Probably she is from the region, what else would lead her to such a remote place, but we'll have to ask her in winter, this time, the shop was too busy, and our ferry back to the mainland leaving (and since these go only once per week, we really didn't want to miss it...).

On our way back, we drive through a part of the national park territory south of Varnja, and meet a bunch of guys who just come out of the forest with baskets full of cranberries. We buy some berries from them, and start to chat a little bit, and we can't help phantasizing how it would be to reshoot Marc's favourite movie with these guys in the lead roles.

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 18: Fish soup, Varvara, night views of Russia

Matjuska Varvara, whom we had met earlier in August, invites us to film at the church service on Thursday. A nice surprise, since so far, we could only film inside a church in Raja, where Osip allowed us to do so. Filming inside churches, especially during the church services, is understandably a sensitive issue. Even more happy are we that Varvara now allows us. Coming here multiple times, taking the time to get to know people, socializing and meeting them again and again for interesting conversations, simply being here and being nice and human and genuinely interested, all that really seems to work.
We couldn't imagine any other way to do a project like this. It takes more time this way than just walking in with a camera and filming for a few days - but it's worth it, because you really enter a connection with people and place, and doors open that would never open if you just came briefly.

As we're filming in Kasepaa, we're invited for fish/potato soup by Vassily, who's currently building himself a summer house at the lake, and who's also a relative of Mrs. Filipova. Tasty soup and, of course, a bit of vodka. How could we say no to that, after all, we're not unpolite people, and the conversation is interesting as they always are. There's that Russian-Estonian-German-EU friendship, cheers to that. And in addition, we even get a free show of Vassily's dog performing tricks.

Late that night, after another sauna, we stand outside our home and look over the lake. It's interesting, magic and beautiful that during the day, it's usually not possible to see the other side of the lake, to see Russia. But at night, you can see the soft yellow light hovering over the ground, where the villages on the Russian side are. So you look into the dark, and in the far distance, there are a number of brighter spots. It's a pity that there is no way to film this soft light.

Day 17: Fishing, history, and dinner in the castle

We meet Mrs. Filipova for another interview. We already visited her house in August, but we have more questions, and we also want to ask whether her sons could take us fishing someday. As we arrive at her impressive home, it turns out she's very happy to see us again, and is very ready to talk about this and that. We talk about her family business, the fish factory, which her husband and other people bought right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and which by now is their family business, and an important employer in the region. She talks about the fishing quotas, and that the amount of fish they are allowed to take out of the lake is being reduced year by year. Apparently there's the ironic (but not entirely unexpected) side story that the Russian Federation and Estonia respectively the European Union agree on fishing quotas for the lake, and then these quotas are observed only on the Estonian side, while Russian fisherman are continuing to do whatever they please. We can't know, but certainly this is what Mrs. Filipova tells us: That they can observe the Russians fishing in the times of the year when no fishing is allowed, and that they suspect that they exceed their quotas significantly, be it because there's a lack of control, or by simply bribing the officials. On the Estonian side, the quotas are apparently respected indeed, even though the local fishing industry as well as the individual fisherman are certainly not happy about them. It seems the quotas are barely enough for them to survive, many have become unemployed, some have moved abroad, and also Mrs. Filipova's family business seems to face uncertain times.

But we didn't only talk about fishing. The family history was a very interesting subject, her stories of the war times, how German forces had this region under control and were waiting for a Russian attack from the lake, but then the Red Army came from the swamplands. However, as Mrs. Filipova tells us, there was little to no fighting, and people were treated relatively well by the German forces. After the war, Mrs. Filipova's father was deported, since he was suspected to be a member of Omakaitse. He served his sentence, and only years later was allowed back home, only to be killed in what looks like it was an assassination. It's often difficult to imagine what these times were like in places like here, that were located (or caught) between conflicting empires in a devastating war. It's always a remarkable experience to have the opportunity to speak with people who were here, who remember, who have first-hand stories to tell.

After a long and very nice conversation, Mrs. Filipova gives us some fish (of course!), and invites us to visit her at the factory soon, and also to go fishing with her sons if the weather gets better in the nearest days. Offers we're certainly more than eager to take.

In the evening, we decide to try a new place for dinner - one we hadn't actually realized it existed. In the Alatskivi castle, there's a restaurant, and since we're a little late as always, it also seems to be about the only place that is still open. The fact that many places close at 18:00 is quite tricky for us, because we need to film until around this time, as the daylight is just perfect in these late afternoon hours. Well, the Alatskivi Castle restaurant is still open. We're the only guests, there's one waiter who, as we suspect, also cooks himself (at least this would explain the long time it takes), and the atmosphere is somewhere quite close to a Dracula movie. We're sitting in a room with a very high decorated ceiling, there's a giant tile stove right next to us, some 8 tables of which ours is the only one occupied, dimmed light, candles on the table, and when the waiter comes, we can hear his footsteps long before we actually see him. Obscure, but nice.

Later this evening, with Bettina and Katya going to sleep after enjoying a sauna, Marc and Rene are still sitting in the lobby room and meet a bunch of youngsters from the region who decided to film a commercial about Aarde Villa. They're a very nice and enthusiastic bunch of people, who are apparently beautifully rooted in this region, come back regularly, and spend their time renovating houses and apparently doing various art and similar projects. We use the opportunity for a very nice conversation about this and that, and the history of Aarde Villa; and also to start talking about installing a webcam somewhere here which would allow a live view over the lake for our future project website.

Day 16: Fog, frozen pizza, and German exercises

We get up early, and we think we've arrived. Yesterday's autumn impressions by daylight were colorful and nice, despite the low temperatures and the somewhat empty feeling many places leave now. Yet the colors and the magic of early morning ground fog are even better. We go around following the fog, collecting visuals, and admiring the scenery. Still the autumn weather, the temperatures that are only slightly above zero, and the gloomy mood leave us wondering: What will it be like in winter? It will be even colder, and at times probably so cold that filming could be difficult, not only for us, but also for the equipment. And we might not be able to spend so much time outdoors looking out for interesting people and places. So far, we're coping with autumn. Let's see how we'll get by in winter...

After some more shooting of autumn impressions, by the time we're ready for dinner, all the restaurants are closed. Yes, tourism and summer season is over: The opening hours are reduced during the cold period of the year, and most places now close already at 18:00. We can't get any food in any of the restaurants anymore, so we head for the gas station shop in Alatskivi, which is open longer. The food we can get there isn't exactly a culinary experience - we're talking about frozen pizza that's warmed up in the gas station's microwave oven - but it serves its purpose. As we talk, it turns out the cashier at the gas station speaks German, and we get yet another of these "Small World" experiences: She was working as an AuPair in Germany some 13 years ago, in a little known city called Neumünster. A city which just happens to be the place where Marc's parents were born, and where they live.

Day 15: Autumn impressions, heading north

As we're settling in, loading batteries, preparing equipment, discussing what we have filmed and photographed and found so far, we decide to start off with getting a glimpse at how autumn feels here, and to drive north, a direction we have so far not explored much. We're curious how the lake looks like when you leave the main Old Believer's area.

And we want to first of all collect some film and photo impressions of the autumn season. These will also help us to feel the season. After all, it's quite a change: In summer, the villages are quite lively, lots of families use the opportunity to visit their (often elderly) relatives, holidaymakers come from the cities, people make weekend trips. If you walk around the villages and small towns in summer, there are children and there's action, people sit at the beach, there are queues in the shops, and everything feels very active.

We're pretty sure the mood in autumn will not be as optimistic and nice. With all the weekend visitors and families gone back to their homes, we even expect some places to feel quite empty. Add the autumn light to the emptiness, plus maybe some fog and gentle rain, and you're likely to get a certain melancholy. We drive north to slowly get accustomed to the new mood. We explore some forests, endless beautiful beaches that are now deserted, we're observing the one or other harvest, and of course we also find quite a number of dead fish on the sandy beaches, probably victims of the exceptionally long and hot summer.

Day 12: Fishing business, planning trips, review

Woke up early to meet the Filipov family, who agreed to give us a tour through their fish factory and their house. The Filipovs most probably are the richest family in these villages - the factory is impressive, and the house is beautiful and decorated pompously, including of course some impressive icons in the dining room.

Mrs Filipova explains us how they started and developed their business, from nothing to what it is today, all self-made and with a lot of entrepreneurial spirit. It's a family business, in a way, with Mrs Filipova's three sons all working for the factory. So we were told the story of the family business and shown the beautiful house, learned also that Mrs Filipova is the sister of Matjushka Varvara whom we met earlier.

We wanted to go fishing, but they explain us that it's not possible right now: Fishing in Lake Peipus is only allowed at certain times, and currently we're in the "dry season". There's only some smoked fish left in the storage, no new catches are coming in. From about mid September until November, fishing will be allowed again, so we agree that they will take us out for a fishing trip when we come back in autumn.

After meeting the Filipov family, we face more rain and stormy weather, so we go back and cook some pasta using the tomatoes that Osip from Raja sold us the other day. We go to the cute little Kivi Korts, the cafe/bar/restaurant where we stop once in a while, to have a cup of coffee and to review all the material we filmed so far, since tomorrow during the day we're already leaving, and it's time to understand what we've achieved and what's still missing, what topics we think we covered and where we want to dig deeper, so we can prepare for our next trip here in autumn. From the first look and review, we're quite happy with the results of these first 12 days. Half a day more to go tomorrow, then we're off until autumn.