Godoy in Tartu

Dear Fran,

my friend also spent three days in Tartu. From there he tells me the following

<<16/09/19 Monday

As I have turned sixty, I only pay 60% of the ticket.

While I wait for the bus for Tartu I see, on a wall, some drawings and some signs:

PÄRNU – EESTI VABARIIGI SÜNNILINN

that in English would be Pärnu – Birthplace of Estonia.

We stop at Kilingi Nõmme. Lovely little town with colourful painted wooden houses. On the outskirts there is a motorcycle circuit. There is an abundant forest mass that provides work for some small sawmills.

The Kopu jõgi runs a few meters parallel to the road, then, like the Duero, traza una curva de ballesta and moves away from us.

We arrived in Viljandi. When I started preparing the travel, this was one of the first places I wanted to visit; then I opted for Pärnu, proposed by Milhazes.

We just crossed the Emajõgi. We are near Tartu.

Puhja.

Elva jõgi forms large lagoons.

Final stop at Tartu Bussijaam.

In Tartu I stay at Tampere Maja, which I don't know if it is a hotel with an art gallery or an art gallery that hosts guests. In any case there is a creative atmosphere and my room is generous; I even have a small kitchen in case I need it. The young people in charge are lovely.

Hi!

After lunch I go to the train station. I take some photos and ask information about the trains to Valga (in fact I would have to write Valga-Valka, because it is a city right on the border between Estonia and Latvia). Back to the guesthouse I approach the Emajõgi.

 

Railway Station

17/09/19 Tuesday

Wandering around the halls of the station I read that the line that goes to Valga was built in 1887. I also discover remains of the decoration that it had in its good years. Station of delicate decline. The cafeteria transports you in the middle of the last century.

 

Vestiges of the past

Down there, because of the weather, we have the doors of the shops always open; here, because of the weather I guess, they are closed. When I arrived in Tallinn, I thought business was closed; I had the impression that they were just abandoned. The woman in charge of showing the church of St John, in Haapsalu, told me that one only had to turn the handle. Thanks to her I understood that the entrance to the buildings is easily obtained from the street. The weather orders.

I make sure the train schedule for Tallinn: 12:15, 13:21, 15:28...

My first train on this travel!

Stops in Aardla, Ropka, Nõo, Tõravere, Peedu, Elva… I like this line because the train goes very slowly. Another flock of cranes crossing the sky... Palupera, Puka, Mägiste... Villages very close to each other... Keeni, Sangaste and Valga.

Valga station welcomes you in six languages

Valga

1949

1linn, 2 riiki

We have travelled about 85 kilometres. We left at 10:11 and we arrived at 11:22. A simple mathematical calculation.

The current station was built after the previous one was destroyed in World War II.

I was very interested in coming here because this population physically represents something that I have always wanted: brotherhood among peoples. And I don't go into depths.

The Valga Museum is modest; however it offers the visitor a very interesting historical tour of the past of the area. When I approach him, in addition to the permanent exhibition, there is a temporary of three artists: Enn Põldroos, Mirjam Hinn and Eero Ljavoinen.

Mirjam's painting is colourful, cheerful, vitalist, like someone's life is still ahead; where the colours stand out for a successful balance.

On the contrary, Põldroos is already backing with many things. His work summarizes what life can be for many people. This artist's painting overwhelms and asks you questions about the human condition. Mary, there are two paintings that impressed me strongly; the first is a self-portrait where two eyes appear between the fingers. They are staring at you and you feel guilty and you don't know what of. The other one is a small figure in the centre of the canvas. Simple and successful way to represent alienation, the loneliness of man in this world. And the piece in which the artist appears on all fours? Something more humiliating?

Eero Ljavoinen uses all kinds of material to create works that speak for themselves. Mary, it wouldn't occur to me to build a figure with pieces of wood, iron or another component and that the resulting work gained dignity per se.

 

Can there be more humiliation?

On the second floor, the tour of the permanent collection begins and the first thing I encounter is with a woman's skeleton — I know this because next to it there is a representation of what this person would be like — with the ornaments she had in life, bracelets, rings, earrings... and keys! I wonder what those five keys mean.

Signs indicating the distance to Irkutsk (6300 km), Omsk (3800 km), Magadan (12400 km), Novosibirsk (4400km)...

 

House in Valga

I realize that I have been in the Museum for more than an hour and that if I continue longer I will not walk through the streets or talk to people that is what I like. I also have to visit a new country and I have it a few hundred meters from where I am.

The church of St John is closed and I cannot admire its interior which, according to some people, is worth it. From the outside the building seems to hug those who were inside.

I cross the invisible line that delimits these two countries and I am in Latvia. I know I am in Valka because a white pole with black stripes and a booth grass on me. And because I previously went through the tourist office! Otherwise I found no other difference.

It is also closed - it must be time - the Lugazi Evangelical Lutheran Church. ‘… in a basilica style, with a simple appearance — thus, it was the peasants´ church in earlier times. Different historical styles can be seen in the exterior in the church, it is due to the church had to be rebuilt and repaired after frequent wars.’

 

Lugazi Evangelical Lutheran church.Valka

Before leaving Latvia, lunch at the Bistro Junnis. As I do not know what they call the food on the counter, I ask the same as a couple that precedes me. I have the invaluable help of her that translates into... Latvian? what I say in English. A gift. Combined potatoes, breaded steak and cabbage with a thick white soup. To drink, kefir.

Pedele-Pedeli

Then I enter the Valga Muusikakool, where some students are practicing with piano scales. There I ask about Maruta, the director of the conservatory and they answer me that there is no one with that name in the Center. Something later I realize that Maruta would not be the director in Valga, but in Valka. As I do not want to venture to miss the last train for Tartu, I turn to the railway station. On the way I stop for a few minutes in the Cathedral of the Apostolic Orthodox Isidor Church.

Apostolic Orthodox Isidor church. Valga

At the station I check that next to the ordinary waiting room there is another 'extraordinary' room that remains closed and that I suppose will open on certain occasions. It is painted in burnt cinnabar green and has leather sofas with wooden arms.

In 'my' waiting room, in the corners, as well as on the second floor, there are balconies (1/4 of a circle) that communicates with two rooms that I don't know what they will do.

Mary, something amazing happened to me. At the gates of the station I saw a bus to Tartu, to make sure I asked the driver Tartu? He says yes, I take out the card to pay, he looks at it for a few seconds and says 'free', 'free'. With his hand he tells me that I can pass. Can you understand what happened?

 

Raekoja plats

‘Over the ages, Tartu has been the spiritual capital of Estonia.’

‘The city of good thoughts.’

‘Tartu was known as the Athens of The Emajõgi River.’

I finish the day in front of the statue of Jaan Tõnisson, who ‘was a legendary statesman and journalist, carried by principles politics based on national values.’

18/09/19 Wednesday

The Tourist Office of Tartu provides me with plans and a catalogue about the city. Until now I had used the map they gave me at Tampere Maja.

As I am running out of socks, I buy three pairs at the HM in Turu-Riia. € 5.90.

The Open Market of Soola 10 is a market that has been taking place since 1938; it is next to the river and offers the customer a wide range of products. I entertain myself and nose about latikas, skumbia marinadis, kilu, koha, filee… Tinned fish.

I cross the Turu Sild towards Pikk Street because I want to have another angle of view of a white-painted building that reminds me of the minaret of the Samarra Mosque at its top.

 

Tigutorn

I return by the same bridge and head towards Toonemägi. Following Riia Street and turning in Vanemuisee, I climb the monument to Eduard Tubin 'composer and conductor. Expressionism, neoclassicism and Nordic epics.’ It has the formation of an orchestra, with some gongs at the bottom of it, where composition of E. Tubin can be listened twice a day.

Based on the two circuits (red and green) provided by the Tartu Visitor Center, I make a free, personal interpretation of the two proposals. This is how I get to the Observatory

λ= 26º 43’ 17’’ 7

φ= 58º 22’ 47’’ 2

which corresponds to the Struve Geodetic Arc, 'which stretches from Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean was measured from 1816 - 1855 and has been used to determine the size and shape of the Earth and to draw accurate topographical maps.'

Watching the skies

Dollon Transit Instrument. J. Dollon, London 1807… when the observed celestial body is located in the meridian (to the south or to the north).

Room dedicated almost exclusively to F.G.W. Struve.

What does a violin do between telescopes?

The musician W. Herscheld discovered the planet Uranus with his homemade telescope while working in England.

Mary, I have to clarify - they explained it to me at the reception - that these people, these astronomers were true Renaissance men, since they were not engaged in one thing. W. Herscheld was a true musician who played several instruments and became an orchestra conductor, only when an astronomy book fell into his hands he became interested in this science.

Do we know their names?

I have in front of me a photograph of E. Öpik (he specialized in the study of distant celestial bodies, such as asteroids, comets, and meteoroids) and his calculation bureau. There are twelve people and ten of them are women, but their names do not appear! Historical invisibility of women.

Estonia´s ‘star scars’, its meteorite craters. In Simuna, Kärdla, Kaali and on the contour of Lake Peipus.

I leave the Observatory and continue down the hill.

At my feet I have the monument to Kristjan Jaak Peterson. ‘On March 14, the birthday of K.J. Peterson, the day of the mother tongue is celebrated in Estonia.’

A little below that of the embryologist K.E. v Baer, in a tired expression.

Ruins of the Cathedral

In the Leaning House there is an exhibition entitled Pallas 100. I had never seen before how to place the works as in this first room. There are, among others, Salome Trei, Ella Mätik, Endel Koks, Kristian Teder, Lydia Laas and Ado Vabbe. The first four interested in southern types. Vabbe's painting done with thick and very thick brushstrokes. You would have loved it, Mary.

For the time it is, only the Botanical can be open.

The Larch tree. ‘The biggest and oldest plant in the Botanic Garden of the University of Tartu. 1705s.’ How well the irregularities of the land have been exploited. A wonderful little ecological niche that gathers ferns, mosses, algae and lichens on the back of a hill. A place of honor deserves the person who struggles to create and maintain gardens like this one because, Mary, in a few years if we want to see some types of plants we will have to come to such spaces, at least down there in my land. Upon reaching the pond a group of small fish approach where I am and opening and closing their mouths implore them to throw something to eat, but I obey the advice on the tablets and leave the care of the animals to the caretakers of the botanical. Finally, I walk the rose garden and contemplate the great variety of colors, shapes and smells of what is possibly the most 'tamed' flower in the world.

Delicious stroll.

University of Tartu. Botanical Garden

The last minutes in Tartu are for the Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady. Magasini Street.>>

     Y. a.

     Mary