Graveyards and waterfalls
I started my penultimate day in Estonia with a search for my grandfather’s grave. I knew it was not that near the homestead. Once I found the graveyard, it should have been easy to find the headstone. There's an Estonian Grave Finder search engine. Type in the name, and details come up. Select “map” and you're set.
You know where this is going, don't you. Key phrase was “once I found the graveyard.” I found the churchyard with no difficulty. It was extraordinarily beautiful. And full. As you'd expect for a place where people have been buried for hundreds of years, it was chock-a-block with graves.
My map was broken down into coordinates. I knew the perimeter, and where the grave was with respect to the perimeter. It should have been easy. After half an hour, I started looking up names that I saw on headstones, to see where they were in relation to the one that I was looking for.
Eventually, by walking out of the far side, I figured out that I was in the churchyard, not the graveyard.
The graveyard was about ten times the size of the churchyard. I thought I was finding the area, but wasn't sure, so I asked a graveyard worker. He was young, so I thought he spoke English. Nope.
I explored some more. Then asked a different, also Russian speaking, worker. He was determined to help. Twenty minutes later, he called his boss. At one point, all three graveyard workers were looking for my mother's father's grave. The boss eventually declared “here.” The writing on the gravestone was weathered off, so I wasn't about to contradict. Heck, if they hadn't been so insistently helping, I would have left half an hour earlier.
From there, I drove to Jagala falls, the tallest falls in the Baltics. This time, I made no wrong turns (that I was aware of).
The falls are modest. In summer, they span less than half of the escarpment, and the water on top is shallow and gentle enough for people to wade across the river. Then the riverbed just falls. It's an eight meter drop, and the creek on the bottom is narrower and fairly fast flowing.
It was a pleasant site, and pleasant falls. At the airport, I saw a picture identical to the sight I had seen.
You know where this is going, don't you. Key phrase was “once I found the graveyard.” I found the churchyard with no difficulty. It was extraordinarily beautiful. And full. As you'd expect for a place where people have been buried for hundreds of years, it was chock-a-block with graves.
My map was broken down into coordinates. I knew the perimeter, and where the grave was with respect to the perimeter. It should have been easy. After half an hour, I started looking up names that I saw on headstones, to see where they were in relation to the one that I was looking for.
Eventually, by walking out of the far side, I figured out that I was in the churchyard, not the graveyard.
The graveyard was about ten times the size of the churchyard. I thought I was finding the area, but wasn't sure, so I asked a graveyard worker. He was young, so I thought he spoke English. Nope.
I explored some more. Then asked a different, also Russian speaking, worker. He was determined to help. Twenty minutes later, he called his boss. At one point, all three graveyard workers were looking for my mother's father's grave. The boss eventually declared “here.” The writing on the gravestone was weathered off, so I wasn't about to contradict. Heck, if they hadn't been so insistently helping, I would have left half an hour earlier.
Juri Church
Juri Cemetary
My grandfather's grave. He was a gardener,
so it's nice to see his gravestone surrounded by shrubs.
From there, I drove to Jagala falls, the tallest falls in the Baltics. This time, I made no wrong turns (that I was aware of).
The falls are modest. In summer, they span less than half of the escarpment, and the water on top is shallow and gentle enough for people to wade across the river. Then the riverbed just falls. It's an eight meter drop, and the creek on the bottom is narrower and fairly fast flowing.
It was a pleasant site, and pleasant falls. At the airport, I saw a picture identical to the sight I had seen.
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