Water calls out to us in any language
BEFORE you arrive in Estonia you are aware of the presence of the sea. Tallinn, the capital, is once again a busy port. Much of Estonia’s history, as well as her commercial life, is tied up with the sea.
Estonia is defined as one of the Baltic nations – they were an essential part of the Hanseatic League in the middle ages, and most of the time they were overrun when the sea froze over, and only really and truly subjugated when they were denied access to the sea.
History is written by the winners, as is often said, and this includes music. Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, the Battle on the Ice, celebrates a Russian victory over the Estonians. The prominence of the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Tallinn was a constant reminder of that defeat and the Russian domination of Estonia. Although I hesitate to put myself in such august company as classical composers and cathedrals, nonetheless, here are a few words for the other side.
At Muhu uisk (www.uisk.ee) the six of us on the CHIST (Cultural Heritage Interpretation and Sustainable Tourism) exchange visit had an opportunity to learn about the history of Estonia in boats. The uisk, which means snake, is a traditional clinker-built boat that was used by the local Vikings, as they called themselves.
In 1532 Muhu had the official role of carrying cargo and passengers between mainland Estonia and Muhu. Our guide delicately referred to other times when seagoing was not officially recognised. Only during Soviet times was seagoing prohibited, with Muhu and Saaremaa, the larger adjacent island, both being designated frontier zones, so movement back and forth was closely controlled.
Our visit included a view of the coast with some relics of that cold war – a bunker, a few brick walls of some now forgotten structure. I have one photo of that, but I prefer to take my note from the Estonians who seem more committed to a future that embraces their own history. In that spirit I was granted permission to climb inside the replica boat and others quickly followed suit.
My travelling companion, Ellie Swinbank, kindly photographed me in the middle of the sturdy ribs. History is always best experienced directly. The regular spacing of the ribs was almost musical in its rhythms and the smell of wood and tar was a tangible reminder of the ongoing work.
MUHU uisk has only been open since 2009, but it has already had many visitors. The six of us made a roughly hewn wooden nail and added it to the others inserted into upright ribs as a token of our passing there. I hope it ages as gracefully as the ghost boats I have seen.One of my favourite photos from my own coastline is a boat hauled up to a final rest as part of the Portskerra memorial. I thought of it as I saw this boat outside the relic walls of an ancient stronghold in Estonia or the many boats I saw resting on top of stone walls or near houses.
One of our guides explained that boats were thought to be members of the family and so were brought to some respectful place when their working days were over. I have never heard such a thing expressed openly over here but certainly anyone can understand the rightness of the ghost boat at Portskerra.
"Navigare necesse est," the granite stone reads at a disused boat building hangar on Saaremaa. "It is necessary to go to the sea," Maarika, our Estonian guide translates, but my schoolgirl Latin was sufficient to translate that and before I had a chance to think about it, the opening lines of John Masefield’s "Sea Fever" had popped into my head, "I must go down to the seas again".
For a child of the prairies it was a reminder of how far I had come from my own wanderings among cornfields, but the nearness of water calls out to us all in whatever language we know best.
The rest of the granite stone was in Estonian. Maarika did not translate it, but again I have seen many memorial stones to those who were lost at sea, the inevitable price of going to the sea, and so recognise the names and the dates and knew those names were not going to have the "quiet sleep and a sweet dream" that Masefield’s sailor hopes for in the closing lines of the poem. Navigare necesse est.
