Fair in Tallinn

It is still dark, when Silja, the bone carver, leaves Hiiumaa Island. One hour is the road to the port and the waiting for the ferry, one and a half hours the crossing, and another one and a half to drive to Tallinn. She does not have a car, and she would not buy one by principle, even if she could afford it. Today, however, she needs one, otherwise she would not have been able to carry all her wares to the Assumption day medieval fair. One of the nearby neighbors, living three kilometers away, offered her a lift, he had some extra work in the capital that day. They see the sunrise aboard the ship. And I from the window of the airbnb on the edge of Tallinn’s Old Town, in the Stalin Baroque style former cadre quarter.


The sunlight already warmly colors the walls of the medieval houses when they enter the Old Town through the Sea Gate next to St. Olaf Church, and I through the former Karja Gate, marked in the paving. It’s Sunday morning, only a few people are on the street yet. The tables are now being placed in front of the Peppersack, Hanse, Dragon cafés. The main square is also almost empty, only the stage set up in front of the medieval town hall indicates that something is in preparation. I climb the one hundred and fifty foot-high stairs to the town hall tower, taking a series of photos around the Old Town.

By the time I get down, the merchants are already starting to arrive. They unfold their counters, unload their merchandise. Hand-woven textiles, beautiful folk-inspired dresses, carved wooden and wrought iron tools, jewelry, ceramics, graphics printed on handmade paper, forest berries processed for tea and spirits.

And felt animals. Lots of felt animals, which are never enough, because the Estonians incessantly accumulate them in their homes, shops and cafés.

A 14th-c. Last Judgment fresco on the town hall wall warns the merchands that one day they will be held accountable for everything. For the two piglets roasted on the skewers of the eating-house set up right under the fresco, this moment is already the present; for the chef, who is not ashamed to ask fifteen euros for a portion, only the future threatens. The best part of it is the typical Estonian pickles, the cabbage and cucumber pickled with pears, cloves and wild mushrooms.

Meanwhile, Estonian folk groups, medieval and world music ensembles take turns on the stage. The quality of the music is quite professional. The musicians have come from all over Estonia. Some of them, especially those coming from the islands, feel like they grew up in a live folk music tradition.

 

Medieval dances from Rondo Danzante, Saaremaa Island

From the Sea Gate, through Pikk, that is, Long Street, Silja is also coming with her neighbor who helps her to set up the counter, snatches the boxes from the car parked next corner, and watches her unloading the carved bones. He has great respect for Silja’s work, for the knowledge and creative shaping of the symbols of ancient peoples. He often brings her moose antlers that have fallen in the neighboring forests, her most important material. Sometimes also bones of fallen moose, which, although mostly cracked by wolves, are still good enough for smaller objects.



“And where do the wolf bones come from?”, I ask her. From taxidermists. You don’t have to put back all the bones into the stuffed wolf. The ones left over are kept for her by the friends.






The beaver skull is from hunters. Beavers proliferate so much along the rivers of Estonia that they must be controlled. The usable bones are also set aside for her.


“And mammoth bones?” “From Siberia.” As the taiga melts, mammoth skeletons emerge. Digging them out and selling them on the black market means a huge income for the locals. To Estonia they arrive in slit slabs a few millimeters thick, the width of your palm, at the price of gold. A small figure made of it for 15 to 20 euros is barely profitable.


The symbols partly come from the early medieval Estonian and Swedish heritage. The snowflake motif is an old Viking apotrophaic design, called “the helm of terror” in the sagas, where the hero Sigurd loots it from the defeated dragon Fafnir. A book on mythology was also written with this title by Viktor Pelevin.


Another part of the ancient motifs come from the shaman drums of Siberia. “Shamanism is a big fashion now in Estonia. Every third youngster is a shaman”, she winks, but she also has shaman motifs on her arm and in her neck.




When we say goodbye, she presents me a bear’s finger bone. “The bone structure of the bear’s paw is quite similar to the human hand, only much bigger”, she says, waving her fingers as if a person were playing a flute, or a bear dancing flamenco, and I can almost see where the finger bone fits. I do not dare to ask how the bear came to miss it.


We agree that we would meet again at the Martin’s Day fair in Tallinn, on the November 13-15 weekend. This is the largest folk art fair in the Baltics, with plenty of traditional food and drink, and huge concerts in the evening. I will also try to organize a group for it.