Baltic Notes (1)

Aug - Oct

some essential facts:

1. all lithuanian boys are stupendously good-looking
2. while latvian and lithuanian are mildly related, estonian is related to finnish. all languages are not slavic, so not related to russian in any shape or form
3. tinned bear is a thing
4. this region is classed as northern europe, anywhere east of germany is not necessarily 'eastern europe'
5. estonia was the first country to consider internet access as a human right
6. squirty cream is available in most petrol stations' coffee machines
7. 'water', 'bear', 'beer' are problematic words with a british accent
8. in europe there are 50 types of peat moss, 37 of which grow in estonia

Apples

I'm turning down what I now call the 'Apple District', an area where the air smells of apples and the ground is covered in their brown crushed mush. Plastic bags on fences, bowls on doorsteps, baskets on bikes, wooden crates on stools: all are full of apples. Women on bikes also stood here during the Tartu city marathon, handing out apples to runners in the lashing rain. I'm always grateful to take two or three, shoved down my bra or vest after a run or on my walk home after lectures. 

Boys on bikes are now whizzing past, crunching on the very same variety I've picked out from that crate by the red and grey door. The smell of apples mixes with woodsmoke and rain and I see the splintered edges of the houses and their flaked colourful paint, like the apples' skins I hold in my hand. Today I'm sampling four different varieties: sour, floury, citrusy, thick-skinned.

The day I got the message from my friend saying, 'My landlady keeps giving me apples, come and make apple pancakes at mine' marked the moment when Tartu felt like home: apples and cinnamon and girly chats.

Beaver

We'd been walking all night when he took me along the Vilnia river. We followed the path and stopped on a ledge that stretched out into the black water. It coiled and flashed under the streetlamps. We chatted some more while the running water tinkled and bats dived down to feed. It was nice to absorb him, to try and understand that we'd only met four hours earlier. He smelt of washing powder and cigarettes. He rolled a cigarette with a brown rizla. 'It's healthier', he'd said. I then looked out to the opposite bank. The water glittered. It rolled into endless formations over and under and into itself, catching the light, flash, roll, flash, roll. I saw it flow and then make a shape, then slip back to blackness. Now again a form, black, nothing. Now water, now light, now nothingness, black, water, light. Now once more a shape, but a shape of what? Water? It flowed and swirled, liquid light, both water and creature. Is it a rat?

'No, it's a beaver!'

Bog

'Bog' is not a synonym for 'swamp', nor 'marsh'. They are all wetlands, yes, but a bog has peat and moss, a marsh has grasses and a swamp has trees. It's annoying that we mix these up, wrongly informed since childhood. Some of my favourite childhood books, Room on the Broom, Ottoline and the Yellow Cat or Fungus the Bogeyman featured a bog. Neither depicted them particularly attractively: sticky, stagnant sponge-scapes.

There are over 9,000 bogs in Estonia. Perhaps this is the reason why it's among the top five countries in the world for the cleanest air. Moss, the 'bog builder' is a great absorber of both water and gases, namely carbon dioxide. I learnt this on the coach on the way to Chernobyl. Our guide had told us that the three best absorbents of radiation are moss, lichens and mushrooms. She warned us of buying mushrooms from the local markets because people sometimes gather them on the outer Exclusion Zone of Pripyat. Half of the bus turned around to look at me. I stared back. I'd been living on jars of pickled mushrooms bought from those very same markets in Kyiv. There were still a good two jars to eat up...

Valgesoo
We read about bog trolls, bog berries, bog rosemary, insect-eating butterworts and sundews. We walk along the boardwalk into sun-soaked wilderness. We climb an observation tower and see yellow trees and blue sky. We march back along the pine-lined road, brisk in the cold. The sun picks out glittery bits in the tarmac. Our minds match our pace, non-stop chatting in sunlight and glitter.

Ilmatsalu
Wild cranberries and elk droppings sit in the moss. I'm being attacked by hundreds of flat brown flies that try to bite me. The moss is like sponge and it's impossible to run quickly. I soon tire and my pace turns to a plod. But the slower I get, the more flies stick to me. They are a grotesque mix between a tick and a spider with pathetic wing power - louse flies. When I get home and take off my top, there they are, more of them, stuck to my sweaty skin, crawling and biting and infesting my hair. Each tickle I felt since sent me into slight hysteria.

Endla

We walk over islands of feltwork, matted with moss, stitched with grasses, knotted with cranberries. Pink, ochre, green. They're rubbed and rough against the peaty pools of flat, black water. We're aware of our fragility here on the boardwalk. It's just us and board between this bog body, a being ancient yet alive, a host of continual activity. We eat our lunch, smoked herring and thyme tea. Sounds are absorbed and in turn the silence absorbs us into the desolate wetland. It could be bleak, but it isn't.

Latvian Choir

We arrive, blunted and distracted by the day. 

We sing in Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian. We sing the Latvian birthday song featuring the goddess of happiness. Among the intercountry jokes about Latvians having six toes and Estonians being excrutiatingly slow we sing beautiful songs. National songs about the motherland and independence and even about stones and fences that bloom.* For concerts we wear the Latvian national belt and sometimes rehearse in Tallinn at the Latvian embassy. Our conductor is brilliant, with that same imperious intellectualism that all musicians seem to have. There are three woman who are nursery school teachers and one looks like a family friend; it's so nice to have the mum vibes, so nice to sing again in a community. I have a choir buddy who helps me with pronunciation. Someone hands out buns because it's his birthday.

We leave, razor-sharp and enlivened by the singing, the breathing, the energy. It's like communal meditation.

*recently, the Lithuanian PM referred to blooming fences as a reason to remain in Lithuania and run for presidency :))

New faces

Germany, Egypt, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Austria, Ireland, India, Belgium, Ukraine, Nigeria, Poland, Mongolia, Taiwan, Montenegro, America, Cuba, Georgia. Such is the cultural collision of uni life. I also live with two Mexicans and work with an Iranian. This vast selection of new faces to examine, new names to learn, new personalities to bounce off is good, no, a privilege.

Friends are like pots on a stove, bubbling away at different intensities. Some are on full rage, while others are simmering. Adding new pots is inevitable but ramping up their heat is a choice. Recently, two old friends + one boyfriend visited. And then it was goodbye. Goodbye for another year perhaps. It was a sort of exquisite agony letting them go again, to love so much yet leave so soon. One evening, as we sat in the hull of a pirate ship, squashed together in luxurious warmth, I felt the presence of my new friends behind me. I wondered when we'd breach that boundary, when we'd reach for each others' warmth and love. Those tentative touches are the beginning, unfolding this choice that actively make those pots boil.

Old home, new home

April, England.

It hurt when I realised I wasn't again going to see the geraniums and sweet pea shoots in loo rolls on the windowsill. Or stroke a soft lump of dachshund in a blanket. Or eat fresh eggs for breakfast. I wasn't going to look at neither the froths of fruit blossom, bees stuffing their faces in flowers, fat caterpillar curls of ferns, nor my dog's velvet skin folds and the pigeons' heart-breaking pride at their shittily stacked nests; guileless innocence. Wild garlic mayo. Dripping moss woods and strong tea at 7am and marmalade and friends and good wine in the smoky sitting room. Coffee: local milk, lovely cups. My mum, always listening, always unconditionally present. The Ox Drove. Whitesheet hill. Art. Books. Suppers. Walks. Rivers. Deep sleeps. 

September, Estonia.

It was hard to leave the temporary apartment and say goodbye to a chapter I wasn't ready to close. Already I had lost the innocence that defined my place in this new place. When I left my keys in the airbnb, I felt panic; to be keyless is to be homeless, if only for half an hour. Initially I thought the new flat was pretty nice. I always think so initially, even when I rented a room without a window in the 40-degree heat of Tbilisi summer. I've slept in many spare rooms and lodgings and there's a comfort in strangeness; the new is always familiar. I set out my orthodox icons and draped my endless necklaces on the mirror and sent yet another moving-in video to my mum. My flatmates' cat, Molly, lingered by the door, with her eyes like moons that stare and stare. Those first few days I didn't want to cause any disturbance, wanted to be quiet, clean, invisible. 

A month in, and my flat has gone from 'pretty nice' to a home. The kitchen is the centre, a place of red walls and my red teapot, caraway seeds and coriander steam. Armenian herb flatbreads, rolled out with friends with a wine bottle. Sauerkraut soup or languid breakfasts with visiting loved ones. 'Try this Mexican dish', 'did you try the curry I made?', 'you must taste this' says Alejandro. Safety, acceptance, utter escape.

I look at the cat, now on my bed like voluptuous roadkill. Yes, this does feel like home.

Food

Market

Outside the indoor market there's a statue of a pig. My Egyptian friend remarks he's never seen a pig before. Inside, it's clean, quiet and cold. Somewhere in a corner Beyonce plays among the permed heads. I smell chanterelles and dill. A woman with bright red hair is my favourite pickler of mushrooms, pumpkin, and pattypan squash.

Bakeries
"Seek and ye shall find" certainly rings true in Estonia. The bread and general bakery situation doesn't exactly shout itself at you, so you must set out to look yourself. Cardamom and butter. Apple and salted caramel. Kringel and kaneelirull, tuuletasku and moonikook. Such are the lovely names and smells that draw you to the wooden house with the pretzel-shaped sign. It only opens on a Saturday morning, 09.00-13.00. 

Dairy

Enter a supermarket and you'll be astounded by the sheer range of mayonnaise and dairy products. Behold the mushroom infused, dill perfumed, fat-percentaged goods. Kefir, curd, sour cream, rjaženka, kohuke, ayran, skyr, quark. I mean, would my life really be ruined if I chose 6%, 15%, or 20% fat sour cream? Sour cream, yoghurt, milk and kefir are all packaged in bags. A nightmare to store once opened. Lactose-free milk is surprisingly ubiquitous...

Alcohol

I'm learning shreds of Estonian at my job in a bar and its kitchen. 'Mint sprig', 'vodka', 'lemon wedge', 'bon appetit' are learnt from cocktail recipes and fries packets. People do tequila shots with grapefruit and cinnamon here! Sometimes my workmate brings in her homemade tomato salt. Then there's the apricot brandy, blackcurrant wine, pomegranate wine, rhubarb wine, quince wine, sea buckthorn liqueur, wild strawberry liqueur, cherry beer, grapefruit beer, cranberry vodka, plum vodka, hazelnut vodka with oat milk, and honey mead. The Baltic states have among the highest alcohol consumption per capita in Europe - I'm starting to understand why.