Dear Fran,

my friend says goodbye to Estonia, returning to Tallinn and travelling to Rakvere

     <<19/09/19 Thursday

     In view of the road to the bussijaam is flatter, shorter and also the train leaves at noon, I opt for the bus.

So far, the buses and the train I've travelled on have been very punctual. I have the seat number 53, which means that I am sitting in the last row of the bus. That place that the youngsters are fighting with desire to spree.

     We have just crossed — maybe the last one — the Emajögi. On both sides of the road you can see numerous plots dedicated to forestry that alternate, occasionally, with cereal crops.

     First lapwing (as I carry my cell phone by hand I look at the place, between Nurmsi and Sargvere). You will have noticed that I am recognizing many birds. We are close to Paide which makes for a few moments remember the music of Arvo Pärt.

     Already appeared more than sixty. Only in one place, when I was going to pay the ticket, they asked me about the age to give me a 40% discount. Let's see how this is digested! We circulate on the E263. The roads are good and I observe that they are making new carriageways perpendicular to the existing radial roads.

Kalju Street Corner

     Finished the check in, I look for a place to have lunch and enter the first Viru Keskus just in case. I am in the dining room of a bookshop. A bookshop? Double pleasure. While lunch I am surrounded by books. From my table I can see the best sellers in Tallinn (I don't know since when but The Little Prince appears in the number 1 in children's literature and the 5th for adults.)

Tallinna Kalju Baptistikoguduse Kirik

     In my opinion, this area of the capital seems more impregnated by the Soviet influence. Buildings around here (Narva mnt) enter more into the cliché we have of Russian constructions.

     Decided. After lunch I take the camera and head towards Kalju Street, looking for numbers 8 and 5. You can imagine why, Mary.

The rose bush of  the Blumthal family

     I walk slowly Põhja pst, Niine, Vana-Kalamaja, Soo ... Kalju to Tööstuse. Then I turn around and go through number 8 of Kalju again. The Blumthal family has got inside me and, along with the lives of Lydia Koidula and Arvo Pärt, have been the three centres of interest in which I have supported my trip.

(Mary, when I have arrived in Seville and I have seen the photos I have been surprised that Helene-Marie's house is still standing! I wonder if the rose bush that grows next to the door of number 8 was planted by Helene-Marie. It could be, perhaps, someone of the people who appear in the photo taken in the 20s that is published in the book in one of its pages? What it has lost has been a wooden fence that delimited what would be the family yard. Another difference, of course, is the high-end cars that now park on the street. I hope that José Milhazes confirms it to me when I send him the photo.)

Helene-Marie´s old house

     The afternoon is rainy and I have a hard time taking a picture; many of them appear with droplets in the image. The cameras are like that, but what you see with your eyes is directly recorded in your mind.

    While I am photographing the Tallinna Kalju Baptistikoguduse church, a neighbour, Ireen, asks me to send her some snapshots because she is interested in them. I have to let her know because she will be disappointed. The afternoon became non-negotiable with the rain.

Neighbourhood

     20/09/19 Friday

     I have gone upstairs to the top floor of the Train Terminal and I like what they have left of the old Tallinn train station.

     I get a ticket for Rakvere at 11:41. Tracks 4 and 5 are on one side and 6, 7, 8 and 9 on the other, but 2 and 3?

     Train number 20 from Tallinn to Narva; it has stopped two times and the third we were in Tapa. Tonight it must have given me some fever. I've been covering and uncovering myself all the time and going to the bathroom. When I woke up in the morning I had my pyjamas completely sweaty.

     Arriving at Rakvere, two girls offer to drive me to the castle and from there I could tour the city at my feet. The name of one of them is Evelyn, the name of the other one (I hope she forgives me) I failed to retain it in my memory. Two very friendly young people, because all I did was ask for the Kesklinn. That was enough for them to drive me in their car and explain some things to me as we were seeing them. At one point and a little amazed at their behaviour, I asked them if they were secular nuns and both of them, without thinking and in unison, replied ‘we are Christians.’ I expect that if they ever read this, they know that I am very grateful.

Rakvere Castle

     This has nothing to do with tourism in Tallinn. Here you can walk the streets and the people you meet are from this quiet city. They must be the streets through which the little Arvo must have run.

     Pikk tn 61. ‘This house was built in 1840. It was the location of Rakvere´s first Printery, which belonged to a German printer Ludwig Oppermann and an Estonian writer Jaak Nebokat. Five books were published here in 1872.’

I / O

     For lunch the Slaavi Kook. Russian music, modern, cheerful but with a spark of nostalgia. I order lamb casserole and a Russian wine. They serve me in a glass like the ones the Preysler holds in the ads when Christmas comes. Or like the ones she will have at home really. The woman who attends me, very kind, does not understand English ( 'my' English, of course) and I do not speak Russian / Estonian, nor does it need us. It has always been given a lot of importance to the thumb, but it is with the index on the menu that I indicate what I want. The wine has a golden blond color; a little frizzante and sweet. It sneaks well. I don't know how my body will react. Meanwhile, a song that reminds me of one by San Pedro's Bonet sounds: Raska yu, cuando mueras qué harás tú... a song about dead people very cheerful.

Rakvere Kolmainu Kirik

After lunch my research work begins on where the child musician lived. I ask two or three people; I enter a shop; they don't tell me any address. I go back to Pikk Street because that is where there is a music school, but when I arrive it is closed. I see a sign, Athena Kool, and I ask. The lady tells me that he (Arvo) went to school in Rakvere, but that he did not live there. I enter Stanford Music. The man is unpacking musical instruments and when he served a woman who was in the shop with her son, he asks me what I wanted. With a special accent, he tells me he doesn't know it either. As I pass by the Church of Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God I find a girl who is mowing the lawn of the churchyard and I ask her. She introduces me to two women in their sixties, but they don't know what to tell me, however they call a fourth person, young too, with whom I have a short but interesting conversation. She knows perfectly who I ask and tells me that she believes that in Rakvere there is no house of Mr. Pärt and at a time of our talk, when I am telling her that Mr Pärt was a member of the Orthodox Church, she, like a spring and with a lot of satisfaction, corrects me: he is. Before saying goodbye to them, one of the two women who are at the door of the house attached to the church offers me some apples. Juicy and sweet.

‘The Church of Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, in Rakvere, was a two storey house purchased by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I and the Most Holy Synod in 1839. Parishioners of the church were families of orthodox merchants, city officials, teachers of the local educational institutions and soldiers of border guards.

…

Between 1898 and 1900 a full reconstruction of the temple was completed, resulting in its modern appearance. Consecration of the temple was done by the Archbishop of Riga and Mitava Agaphangel (Preobrazhensky).

 In 2003 the sacred relics of Saint Martyr Sergius of Rakvere (Florinsky) were placed in the church. Sergius of Rakvere was a chaplain, who was shot by order of the Estonian Labour Commune in Rakvere on the 30^th of December 1918.’

Church of Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God. Rakvere

     The woman of the Athena Kool may be right: at 5 and 5:30 in the afternoon, the bussijaam is full of kids who, surely, live a few kilometres from Rakvere and use the bus or train to come to class. But at that time? Perhaps it would have been more accurate to have gone to Paide, where he was born.

Pikk Street. Rakvere

     Mary, what about the numbers? Luckily, the Arabs left us their invention. Now you can get into a train or a bus and, looking at the ticket, you don't understand anything of Estonian, but the seat you know what it is: 18.

     21/09/19 Saturday

     I get up early to go to the historic centre of Tallinn and buy gifts for the family. I was amused by the surprise of a store seller when I asked him to wrap me a pair of silver and amber earrings. He did not believe it! Suddenly I find myself stuck in a small traffic jam at the entrance of a pharmacy. So many sick people at once! Now I understand, this is the famous Town Hall Pharmacy opened since 1422! I give up entering and arrive at the Raekoja plats, where a music festival of the Estonian Union of National Minorities is being held. In Raekoja 4/6 is the 'known since 1337 as the Town Prison (domus tortoris), colloquially as the Hamlet Barn.' In Rataskaevu I enrol myself for a few minutes in the Free Tour of a storyteller. Tales of Reval. I continue on Pikk jag, the Picasso Center, Toom-Kooli, Lossi plats until I run into St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

St. Catherine´s Passage

     Great church. Mary, do you know if in the Orthodox Church they confess? I just saw that after saying goodbye to a parishioner, the priest has received a father with a little girl and has started talking to them. They are a little apart, but in sight. When I have already taken four or five photos I have seen a sign prohibiting it. I did not know it.

    

St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

     The Dome Church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and stands in the centre of Toompea hill. I only access the entrance and my desire to take a photo of this temple in black and white — and that there were many people — makes me quickly go outside and realise a circular tour around the church. Possibly it is the building which I have taken more photographs throughout the trip. From one of the panoramic viewpoints I look out over the rooftops of Tallinn and the Baltic. The roofs of the houses have a special effect for me; I find them very pictorial.  

Dome Church 

     I continue to Danish King´s Garden where there are some sculptures of monks that if you saw them surely you would be able to use them in any of your paintings. The truth is that I don't know what they do here. This will have its explanation but for now... Before I went through the house where lived ‘Konstantin Päts first President of Estonia who lived in this building from 1922 to 1940. The Finnish Embassy was located here, from 1923 to 1940, and has been again since 1996.’ The highs and the lows of a politician.

     I have descended to the church of St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors. Bombed by the Soviets in World War II, it seems that for their reconstruction they would have given complete freedom to the architects. Today, the temple combines colours such as yellow and purple with the orange of the tiles and the grey of the old part with the ivory white of its tower. Conditioned as an Art Museum and concert hall.

     I return to Rastakaevu, this time to number 22, here is the house of painter Michel Sittow, who was a chamber painter of the Reyes Católicos and was closely related to the church of St. Nicholas. A few meters, number 16, from this same street is the ‘window of the devil’. The will of the devil was imposed and I did not get any snap that was worth it. I say goodbye to Estonia from the Raekoja plats where I can still enjoy the folklore of this endearing country.

Music Festival

     My plane takes off at dawn and I don't know if I will be able to check in by my mobile.>>

     Y. a.

   Mary