Day 9: Early church, transcripts, rain

We really did it and woke up before 6:00 on a Sunday in order to go to church - that's not exactly the most common thing to do for any of us. This gave us a chance to witness another beautiful sunrise though. A bit after 6:30 we're near the Kasepää church, the ladies in proper dresscode. We take some photos, and a few minutes later Father Andrej arrives on his bicycle to get ready for the morning service.

We can't say it was easy for us: The early morning, a lack of coffee, and then more than two hours of church service... in all honesty, we had some difficulties to stay awake in there. The meditative way of reading the holy texts, the minimal melodies, the olibanum, the relative darkness inside the church, and all this standing. We tried our best to sit through (or rather, to stand through) the whole service, but nevertheless all of us had to leave once or twice for a few minutes to take some steps and some fresh air outside. That said, it was of course a very interesting experience, very intense, very different, and very spiritual.

After the service, we have a brief chat with Father Andrej, who is visibly exhausted as well and told us he'd go back home to have a nap, because in the afternoon he already has to go to Varnja for a christening. We went back to the houses to discuss what else we'd do that day, Katerina continues the tough work of transcribing the recorded videos, as the others are doing some other work. As we are almost ready to go on and use the beautiful late afternoon and evening light for some more filming, the weather turns worse quickly, and we have to decide to stay inside: Grey sky, rain and wind make filming impossible.

Instead, we go to buy some more food in Kallaste, and decide to have dinner at the "Kala- ja Sibularestoran" (the "Fish and Onion Restaurant") in Kolkja, a place the Old Believers opened up to serve their traditional food to an interested public. Dumplings with fish, fish with onions, and generally fish in all kinds of ways, usually accompanied by onions in all sorts of ways - the amount of key ingredients is limited, but the kitchen is nevertheless very varied and tasty.

A friend of Rene who happens to be nearby invites us for some sauna and fish in the afternoon, but we just can't manage to get everybody together at the same time. Later in the evening, she brings us some fish and other goodies - and we're not even home, so we get them later on from the landlord lady.

As the weather in the evening is still rather bad, and it's too cold for the traditional lakeside barbecue, we stay inside and... watch a film. For the first time during this trip.

Day 8: No mosquitos, boat ride, island

For the second night in a row, we weren't haunted by armies of mosquitos. Apparently the stronger wind from the lake that we had just... well, probably it blows them away. Someone somewhere inland must be suffering from these little fellows now, because here at the shore, they're gone.

In the morning, we visit Father Andrej from the Kasepää Church, at his home. He is a very charismatic and interesting man who knows very much about history and cultures, and has clear and often very strong opinions on plenty of things. He didn't allow us to film him, arguing that being filmed is not his purpose - just as a singer's purpose is to sing, and a carpenter's purpose is to make nice things from wood, his purpose is to spread the word of God, but not to be filmed. We did an interview anyway, since he is a very nice source of information and is a good storyteller, with a beautiful sense of humour. Particularly impressive is how he tells the history of the Old Believers, from the time when the Orthodox church split off and the Old Believers were prosecuted in 17th century Russia (which is why some of them arrived in Estonia respectively Swedish Livonia, of which this region was a part back then - a place where they could live in peace and practise their faith freely).

How Father Andrej breaks down historical processes and events to individual human weaknesses and desires, how he explains the reformation of church rules in this period as essentially the struggle of individual people to achieve more power, was not only very impressive and human, but also very entertaining. Father Andrej went on to show us some of his treasures, of which we were also allowed to take photographs (although still no video). Amazingly beautiful old books with the Old Believer's songs and the religious rules, a cross, and other items he holds dear.

He invited us to join the church service tomorrow Sunday morning, and although we won't be allowed to film there, too, we will anyway go. Maybe Father Andrej will change his mind, and even if not, it will be good to attend a full service at least once. Even if this means to wake up really, really early in order to be at church before 7:00 in the morning.

In the middle of the day, we're supposed to meet the fisherman in Varnja who will bring us over to Piirisaare, the border island which is located at a narrow part of the lake, only about one kilometre from both the Estonian and the Russian mainland. Pjotr, the fisherman, brings his friend along who is actually from Ukraine and currently on a little trip around this region. The four of us, Pjotr and his friend squeeze into a small motorboat and head off to the island: A beautiful boat ride of maybe 40 minutes.

As we arrive on the island, Pjotr arranges that a lady called Maria will pick us up from the harbour. She's a key person on the island, a very opinionated and strong lady, who immediately starts telling us about some problems they have with the Estonian Nature Protection organization. She is indeed a very active personality who tries to do a lot for the community, and is naturally very happy that a while ago, a regular ferry service to the mainland has started working again, and that the European Union financed the construction of a new harbour building, which will be opened in a few weeks.

Maria takes the time to drive us around the island, showing us different places. At one corner, we meet a woman who just smoked some fish and walks with it toward her home - and with the help of Maria, we manage to buy our lunch from this woman. Freshly smoked fish, even with a self-made sauce, which we eat in the harbour building.

Also on the island, we meet a very nice elderly woman who tells us about their life in the Second World War, when the German and the Soviet armies were at different times ruling the place, many houses were destroyed in bombings by the German army, and other buildings were taken away from the people living there and turned into bunkers.

Unfortunately, the weather turns bad short after we arrive on the island: Heavy rain and a thunderstorm make it impossible to predict whether we'd make it back to the mainland at all this day, or we'd have to find a place to sleep on the island. We stay relaxed and keep filming around the island, and talking to people, but agree with Pjotr that the moment he says the weather is good enough, we'll have to run and leave in order to make it back to the mainland before the weather would turn bad again. Short before 20:00, this is the case: It's still cloudy, but the wind has calmed down, and the fisherman considers it "relatively safe" to go back. So we go, and get all wet, since the rain starts again short after we leave the island. Nevertheless the boat ride back is a lot of fun - it's bumpy, wet, the waves are rather big, and Pjotr drives the boat pretty fast in order to avoid any possible worse weather that might start. A small adventure and a fun ride, indeed - after all, other people pay money in amusement parks for a similar feeling, which we get in real life on the surface of a beautiful lake, wind and water in our faces.

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.

Day 6: First interview, departure, walks

Today, Mairi leaves us for a few days because she has a couple of things to do in Tallinn; she'll be back on Monday.

We're doing the first interview later in the day: With Maria, the neighbor of Ambulartoorium. She answers our questions regarding her life and way of living, her family, her guests, and of course about fish, onion, and Old-Believers. As we already suspected, most of the young people we meet and see on the streets right now don't actually live here - they only spend their summer holidays at the lake, visit their families, and will leave again later in the month before on September 1st the new school year will start. Therefore, the visual impression we get right now doesn't really reflect the reality of these villages: In fact, it's mostly older people living here, some younger ones, but most of the younger ones actually live in the cities and come back only during summer and sometimes weekends.

Maria herself spent most of her life in this village. Not a very frequent church-goer, she is nevertheless familiar with the rituals and rules of her religion, and shares a few insights. We film her and chat with her in her garden, facing a wooden cottage full of onions. Impressive for us, yet Maria tells us that what looks like a huge amount of onions to us is in fact just a fraction of what they used to grow during Soviet times, when there was no border to Russia, and they could sell their produce on the market in Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg).

Liza, the young girl whom we meet almost daily on the street, has a puppy with her today which she happily shows us. And we end another sunny day at the lakeside at our beautiful picknick place: Marc grills the best hot dogs any of us has ever had, from some lamb sausages we bought earlier on. Warm wind, cold beer, great food, and all this right at the shore of the lake. The lake which, by the way, just doesn't feel like a lake: It sounds like the sea, with its loud waves that form a hypnotizing background sound, and you simply can't see the other shore. We feel like sitting at the seaside.

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 4: Final preparations, first takes, lakeside dinner

We get acquainted with the local stork population: These fellows aren't shy at all, they easily let you get a few metres close to them before they even consider flying away. Of course it's very good fishing grounds for them here in the quiet area where we live, so we meet them all the time.

Bettina is searching and finding additional tools, and screws together a dolly. Again we walk through the villages a little bit, film a bit of nature, get ourselves seen, chat with a few people.


We spend most of the day like this: Filming atmospheric material of the lake, the houses, some animals, the landscape around, and simply stopping here and there for a little talk. The more often people have seen us, the easier it will be to later film them, too, to ask them questions and have their support.

And in the evening, at our place near the shore, we reward ourselves with a nice outdoor candle-light dinner... as said earlier: In the very mornings and in the evenings, working here has quite a holiday-like mood.

Day 3: Solutions, people, picknicks

It's the morning after the storm, and as we drive to a nearby hotel that's run by Hans, a Dutch guy who lives here and is very great and helpful, it turns out most Internet connections are still down: Apparently some falling trees (of which there were quite many) must have hit some lines.

Nevertheless, the third day, or the "day after the storm", turns out to be the day of solutions: A short chat with the owner of the houses here, Mikk, and most of yesterday's difficulties disappear. We have enough electricity now. We simply moved the WiFi devices into our house. A fridge will be organized in the nearest days. And the weather is good again, so staying in the tent is not a problem. We're optimistic again, and happy that we can now concentrate fully on the work we're supposed to do here.

And not only are we very happy with the houses we rent, we're actually also very happy with the owner family who lives in a slightly bigger house next to ours. They are very friendly and helpful people, with two cute kids,  a great cat, and two dogs (of which one looks like a wolf, and the other smells pretty intense).

We spend much of the day with preparations: Equipment tests, loading batteries, scheduling meetings with people, thinking about what to do in what order, and the like. Our lakeside working place is amazing: A big table in front of one of the houses, maybe 30 or 40 metres from the lake shore. A long cable supplies us with electricity, the WiFi router is behind the big window front, there's always a gentle breeze going - it's a truly perfect place to work.

In the evening, we do a little picknick at the Ambulartoorium in Kasepää, to which we invite some people from the neighborhood, too. It turns out rather funny: Our main goal was to establish a better contact with Maria, a neighbor of the Ambulartoorium and a lady who knows absolutely everybody. Unfortunately, she has guests the same evening, so she only comes over briefly. Instead, we have a chat with a lady called Polina who quite likes the beer we brought, and surprises us with some rather strict views on religion (we're later told by Maria that she has rather strict views on pretty much everything). And of course the kids are joining again, Liza and her brother, who are very open and enjoy spending some time with us - they even bring us a big plastic bag full of cucumbers, onions, and greens. Pleasant picknick!