Craft Camp Day 3: National Museum
The Estonian National Museum is at the end of a runway from the Soviet era, near the city of Tartu. It's an incredible museum in an incredible building. The building vaguely resembles the end of the runway. The roof is slightly sloped up, and black.
Inside, it's spacious and modern, understandable since it opened in the last two years. The main corridor takes visitors from the Stone Age to current times, and side rooms embellish these highlights. One massive side room had compartments made of semi-sheer fabric, in cones that were 30 to 40 feet tall, showing how rooms had evolved for the common folk.
Each exhibit had an interpretive sign, and visitors could change the language with a swipe card. There were also horizontal video screens with close captions (again in the language of your choice of Estonian, English and Russian) with oral history, I.e., people telling their stories.
The focus of the museum is ordinary people, how they lived and how their society evolved. Perhaps this is because of the number of times other cultures have taken over the land. Estonia has had independence since 1992, and before then in the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. The Russians and Germans were actively fighting on the Eastern Front before the west joined in World War II. In previous centuries, administrations also fluctuated. For example, the University of Tartu was established by a Swedish academic in the 1600s.
There was one other permanent exhibit, on the migration and evolution of the Finno-Ugric peoples. It's amazing there are so many small pockets of people with the same root language. I knew about the three largest groups: Finns, Estonians and Hungarians. There are many more similar ethnic minorities in and around the Urals in Russia.
The display that I enjoyed the most was the special costume display. They had many from the counties, from different centuries, and for different seasons.
In the main display, there was a special area for the Estonian flag. During the Soviet era, Estonians were forbidden to show the flag directly or through related objects, such as motorcycle helmets. Overseas, there was no such restriction, so I grew up with flag imagery, and the blue-black-white stripes.
There's one more thing that captured my fancy at the museum: mannequins were rarely in static poses. In the permanent costume exhibit, people were jumping and dancing in their special clothes. It was amazing and dynamic.
We had a guide for our first hour, and she did an admirable job herding cats. She barely showed irritation. Anyway, she said that as it was becoming apparent that the Soviets were taking over (there was one blanket in that display area that featured a quote from Stalin about one people united), the local museum workers just started casually removing materials from the museum and hiding them. The large display flag spent 45 years in a chimney.
After the museum, I explored downtown Tartu for a short while. The buildings are old, and mostly well maintained. Some were bombed in WWII, and gave yet to be restored. The main cathedral, for example, has a roof on only half the building. The shell of the other half was fenced off, and we saw says set up for an open-air performance of classical music.
There's a botanical garden which I'll visit during my nine days of independent travel after Craft Camp ends.
I'm glad I went to Tartu. When I was a child, my mother spoke of it with great reverence, so it was nice to see it in person.
Inside, it's spacious and modern, understandable since it opened in the last two years. The main corridor takes visitors from the Stone Age to current times, and side rooms embellish these highlights. One massive side room had compartments made of semi-sheer fabric, in cones that were 30 to 40 feet tall, showing how rooms had evolved for the common folk.
Each exhibit had an interpretive sign, and visitors could change the language with a swipe card. There were also horizontal video screens with close captions (again in the language of your choice of Estonian, English and Russian) with oral history, I.e., people telling their stories.
The focus of the museum is ordinary people, how they lived and how their society evolved. Perhaps this is because of the number of times other cultures have taken over the land. Estonia has had independence since 1992, and before then in the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. The Russians and Germans were actively fighting on the Eastern Front before the west joined in World War II. In previous centuries, administrations also fluctuated. For example, the University of Tartu was established by a Swedish academic in the 1600s.
There was one other permanent exhibit, on the migration and evolution of the Finno-Ugric peoples. It's amazing there are so many small pockets of people with the same root language. I knew about the three largest groups: Finns, Estonians and Hungarians. There are many more similar ethnic minorities in and around the Urals in Russia.
The display that I enjoyed the most was the special costume display. They had many from the counties, from different centuries, and for different seasons.
In the main display, there was a special area for the Estonian flag. During the Soviet era, Estonians were forbidden to show the flag directly or through related objects, such as motorcycle helmets. Overseas, there was no such restriction, so I grew up with flag imagery, and the blue-black-white stripes.
There's one more thing that captured my fancy at the museum: mannequins were rarely in static poses. In the permanent costume exhibit, people were jumping and dancing in their special clothes. It was amazing and dynamic.
We had a guide for our first hour, and she did an admirable job herding cats. She barely showed irritation. Anyway, she said that as it was becoming apparent that the Soviets were taking over (there was one blanket in that display area that featured a quote from Stalin about one people united), the local museum workers just started casually removing materials from the museum and hiding them. The large display flag spent 45 years in a chimney.
After the museum, I explored downtown Tartu for a short while. The buildings are old, and mostly well maintained. Some were bombed in WWII, and gave yet to be restored. The main cathedral, for example, has a roof on only half the building. The shell of the other half was fenced off, and we saw says set up for an open-air performance of classical music.
There's a botanical garden which I'll visit during my nine days of independent travel after Craft Camp ends.
I'm glad I went to Tartu. When I was a child, my mother spoke of it with great reverence, so it was nice to see it in person.
I never figured out what this bike rack spells.
The Kissing Students fountain in the main square.
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