AFTER THAT, I ran from the stage, and soon enough found myself waiting at the tracks at the Ronkonkoma station on Long Island. But I wasn’t alone. I had arrived back to my home island with a whole entourage of Estonians. They were standing on the platform, suitcases piled up. A hard frost had settled in, the tracks glistened with ice, small drifts of snow collapsed on each other. Again the familiar clanging, the ringing of the bells, that strange New York voice calling, “Next train to Greenport. Next train!”
In my time away, the waiting areas of the station had been redone in a white adobe style. And in the corner of this white adobe waiting area, the Estonians were building a fire. Someone had found a few pieces of broken wood along the tracks. From these arose the crackle of a yellow orange fire, the hiss of white smoke. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I reprimanded them. “This is a train station. You can’t just go starting fires wherever you are.”
“But we are cold,” said one of the Estonians, pulling her jacket tighter. “Meil on külm.” Then another Estonian arrived with a sack of coal. “Wait,” I said. “Don’t do that!” He dumped the coal onto the growing fire, and each one began to sparkle like a firecracker. Heidi was there, shivering in her dress, looking like Little Orphan Annie. “But we’re cold,” she said. “Aren’t we welcome here too?” “Of course, you’re welcome,” I said. “You’re just not allowed to start fires in train stations on Long Island.” “Why not?” Heidi asked. “Minu arust see on väga normaalne.”
“I found some reeds,” said a middle-aged Estonian woman. “Let’s see how well these babies burn.” She tossed them on. Now half of the waiting station pueblo was engulfed in flames. Just then I noticed that the bookkeeper Signe was standing in the back. She was dressed in a black coat and eyeing me. Yellow hair cut in a fringe, eyes ice blue. Eyes that said, you are mine. Now it was my turn to shiver. “Stand closer to the fire,” said Heidi, tugging on my sleeve. “What are you even looking at? You’ll catch cold.” The fire roared and crackled and another train arrived. Somebody had started playing a karmoška.
I FIRST MET KAISA KUSLAPUU in my yard one summer. She was standing outside a neighbor’s apartment and wearing a red sweatshirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. I had no idea who she was, and for a while I didn’t even know she was a musician. She was just the “girl with the Mickey Mouse sweatshirt.” Later I learned that these women who were hanging out in the yard were 6hunesseq, and I was invited to a concert. This took place at the Jaani kirik, or Saint John’s Church. The four singers performed from the choir loft, so that we could never see them during the performance. Only when it was over did they emerge, peering down. The loft reminded me of the deck of a ship. I thought they resembled ship captains.
Kaisa was one of the captains.
During this time, my youngest daughter began living with her mother in Võru, a town in the southeast corner of Estonia. Upstairs lived a very energetic older woman — I later learned she was 90 — who spent her days tending to the house’s gardens in spring, shovelling snow in winter, or raking the grass spotless in the autumn. There was something odd about the way she spoke Estonian to me when we passed each other in the stairwell. She would say kuis muudu instead of mis moodi — “what way” — or mine õkva instead of mine otse, “go straight.”
I was sure my Estonian was terrible, but then I learned she was speaking the Võro language. To understand the Võro language, I had to open my ears more. I had to listen and be patient.
It wound up preparing me for Kaisa’s new album vaŕo because Kaisa is from Võru and she decided to make an album in the local language. You have to step back here and appreciate how rare this is. On one hand, we have a very versatile musician and composer, with an incredible singing voice, and on the other hand, she is combining with her finesse for writing jazz and classical influenced pop with a language that is spoken by about 75,000 people.
In this way, vaŕo is already a goldmine for linguists and musicologists.
But the achievements of this album are not just conceptual. When searching for a metaphor, I kept seeing a toy box. Each time you pull one of these songs out of this “toy box,” you discover something new about it. You hold it up, inspect it from different angles. Kaisa’s songs are like that. They are dynamic, they are multidimensional, they are creative. Each one is its own world. You can get lost in these songs, move around in them a bit, and allow your mind to explore. The styles are diverse. Some are more like ballads, others have runosong cadences. Some really swing, some (like “Viktor Viktooria”) have an almost punk-like edginess to them.
Most are on the soft side. Kaisa evem calls her style, “võrosoft.” She told me in an interview that for this project, she wanted to do something for herself, and something in the Võru language, a language she heard all around her as a child. To assemble the songs, she wrote her own lyrics or set the words of writers like Raimond Kolk and Kauksi Ülle to her own music. She also discovered a kind of intimacy in singing in Võru, one that felt different from Estonian.
“The Võro language is in my DNA,” she told me. “My ancestors spoke it.”
For me, as a listener, it was interesting to hear familiar words and phrases in songs. These were the same words the old granny in the stairwell might shout at me — Kuis muudu? Mine õkva! — but now rendered in a lyrical way, against a gently unfolding musical musicscape. The songs drift through you, weaving meditatively, dredging up memories and country melancholy.
The album is collaborative. Eleven different musicians were involved. You can hear Katariina Tirmaste’s flute or Naomi McCarroll-Butler’s clarinet and whistle. There were some Canadians involved in the recording of vaŕo, too, most notably multi-instrumentalist Sam Gleason and bassist Alan Mackie. Some of the tracks were recorded in Tartu; others in Toronto. The guitar leans indie — is that Johnny Marr I hear in there? — the bass is deep, supple, and supportive.
Each has surprises, like the sprawling “Huug,” which runs for 7 minutes and 24 seconds, and takes the listeners through different experiences to the backing sound of an organ, as if they were wandering through a village at night. My personal favorite became “Inglikuur” (“Angel’s Choir”), set to lyrics by Raimond Kolk, and this was the first song Kaisa played during her concert at Heino Elleri Muusikakool in Tartu on 5 November. It was a very black and cool Saturday night, and the evening seemed to sparkle with the promise of something. There she was, accompanied by Gleason on guitar and Mackie on bass, and Marti Tärn on percussion. Seated next to me, was a representative from the Võro Instituut, who was wearing a green pin. “Võru is not a dialect,” she told me. “It is its own language.” I told her about the old Võru woman shouting õkva and how I first came to meet “the girl in the Mickey Mouse sweatshirt.”
I had wondered, sitting in the front row there, before Kaisa went on, if she could pull off these songs live. The recordings were so rich, that I didn’t know if a four-piece band could do justice to them. But they did, and they made it look easy. Afterward, Kaisa emerged wearing her cloak and beads, and people hugged her, brought her flowers, and had her autograph new LPs. I thought, “This is how new music reaches people: just like this, with a concert and a hug after.”
Kaisa Kuslapuu on stage with guitarist Sam Gleason, bassist Alan Mackie, and drummer Marti Tärn in Võru in early November. Photo by Aap-Eerik Lai.
A TROPICAL BUNGALOW. Somewhere with rocky coves, sun-bleached white churches, palm trees, chattering lizards. Klaudia stands opposite me in a spare room. Dark wooden floors, a high ceiling with a fan spinning round lazily as if the electricity was just turned off. Another power outage. Light splashes through the windows, catching on her tufts of gold hair, like strands of water reeds. She is illuminated, her blue eyes are smarting as if she has been told the secret of the universe, too vast to even comprehend. “It’s just,” she whispers. “It’s just …”
We kiss. “I have something for you,” I tell her. From my pocket, I pull out a banana. She falls to her knees immediately, slowly peeling back its yellow skin, pulling its pink fruit into her mouth. “I love bananas,” she says. “And this one is so sweet and ripe.” “I picked it fresh this morning,” I tell her. “Just for you.” “Delicious,” she says, devouring it. A pearl of a tear rolls down her cheek.
For whatever reason, she is wearing a tan business jacket. A pink short skirt. Later, I escort her to a seat on the balcony. I push her gently into a seat. I say, “You really need to relax, Miss De la Gardie.” With that, I remove the skirt. “Wait,” she says, pressing a finger to my lips. “I also have something for you.” From a nearby cooler, she pulls out some strawberry ice cream. She holds it between her legs, and I begin to taste it. It’s the best I have ever had, even better than the flødeis I had in Skagen, watching the North Sea flow into the Kattegat, the faint smell of smoked fish everywhere, even in the ice cream, just like the one melting now on my tongue.
*
Later, we relaxed by watching television at her home. My daughter was there and so was her mother. Was this Eurolaul? Klaudia was curled up on a couch like a fat and content cat. At that moment, there was a knock at the door. In walked the Estonian police in their blue uniforms. Her ex-boyfriend was led in. “It’s time for your daily assessment,” one of the policemen said. They handcuffed him to two hooks on the wall and began to draw blood. They scanned him with instruments I had never seen before. He was silent as they carried out these procedures.
“Toshiro Makimura,” the police said. “You are under court order to remain still while we collect evidence in your ongoing case.”
Her ex blinked at the police and muttered a few curses under his breath. A yakuza. Why had she fallen for a Japanese yakuza? Klaudia had a good head on her shoulders and a good heart in her breast, but she was continuously drawn to these sinister, underworld characters. “He reminded me of my stepdad,” she once told me. “Well,” I announced, “I think I need to get some fresh air.” I stepped outside the house; the sun was setting in Estonia. There was a lovely orange and purple streak across the horizon. It fell among the EU-mandated recycling bins and new, EU-funded streets. A faded poster of Kaja Kallas was peeling from a cement garage.
At that moment, a silver car roared up. It was a 1970s Lincoln Continental, or some model that looked just like one. The car nearly mowed me down but stopped a few centimeters from my legs. My back was pressed up against the Kallas garage. A Japanese man with his hair dyed orange stuck his head out the window. He said, “Don’t fuck with Japanese,” and then roared into the falling sun. This was my new lot, the dangerous life of sex with a yakuza woman. Inside, Klaudia sat carefree on the sofa, watching Eurolaul. Her yakuza ex was still being probed and bled by the Estonian police. My daughter sat at a table, assembling puzzle pieces. Klaudia stretched and yawned a big cat yawn.
‘I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU,’ my father said, ‘but I could really go for some burgers and fries.’ Together, we rounded up the troops: me, my three daughters, and a small toy poodle named Frodo, and began our walk into town. It was a cool, shadowy evening in America; the sidewalks were paved all the way down to the major intersection that doubled as the town center.
In reality, there was an old Presbyterian church, the Apple Bank, the new and improved firehouse and some commercial buildings. Starbucks, the true epicenter, was a way off in another shopping center. That was where others gathered to mingle and report on whose kid got into what Ivy League and thus was assured a swift pathway to financial success and class prestige.
When we reached the Long Island Burger Kiosk, we could see a pre-election pep rally was taking place. How had we not heard about this? How had we wandered in here? It was a vast hall; all its seats were full. On stage, there sat a line of recently fired generals. Admonishing them was the Secretary of War Pete Kegbreath, his silver pompadour glistening in the lights, his face sparkling with sweat.
He was saying, “To all of you, I would ask, ‘Cui bono?’ Who is benefitting from woke transgenderism? I’ll tell you who, the plastic surgeons who cut off men’s dicks and call it ‘gender affirmation surgery.’ The hormone makers, who sell you estrogen!”
With that, he unsheathed his own syringe. “And that’s why we have decided to come up with our own war serum, to counter the effects of transgender wokery. It’s laden with testosterone and other minerals and compounds that every warfighter needs to fight wars.”
He approached one of the generals and injected him with the serum. The old general began to shiver in his seat but otherwise was indifferent to what was happening. In his soul, he had already given up.
When the president came onto the stage, there were cheers and boos. Rory Lapp, the bestselling Estonian writer and poet, was in the middle of the melee. I saw him stand atop a chair, with his pink dinner party sweater tied around his waist, and thrust his middle finger into the air.
Then Rory began to shout, with an Estonian accent, “Fuck you!” Others began to join him. “Fuck you!” From the middle of the crowd, a dreadlocked Rastafarian baker from the small Estonian town of Viljandi stood. He shouted out, “Hail Satan!” The crowds began to shout after him, “Hail Satan! Hail Satan! Hail Satan!” Secretary of War Kegbreath nodded. He injected another general, who began to convulse under the blinding lights on the flag-draped stage.
In the corner, the president was quietly dancing.
The funny thing is, we just watched this go on the whole time, transfixed by the spectacle. Even the little toy poodle watched curiously. Soon our orders of burgers and fries were ready. Crisp East End potato fries, seasoned with sea salt. Is there anything better in this world?
THERE’S SOMETHINGTO BE SAID for public pools, especially ones like these that are way out in the open, drawing in the rays of the sun. Even the faint smell of chlorinated water is pleasant, as are the bath-warm waters that spread around you. How had we arrived here, and who were these people? There were several tour buses that picked us up at the road stop. I stood in one of them, clinging to a greasy metal pole. The others were newer vehicles; this one was a vintage double-decker, the kind Michael Caine rode in Alfie. What’s it all about, Alfie?
It was standing room only. I held on tight. And then here we were, at this retreat in the countryside. I was lying on my back in a pool. From the surface of the water, I could see a house at the top of a green hill. Just a plain country house. Was this Shrublands from Thunderball? She arrived next, dressed in her brown jacket. “There you are!” she said. She unzipped it and came into the pool in a polka-dot one-piece swimsuit. She was grinning at me the whole time, as if she had at last discovered El Dorado. I was terrified. Remember that night? Remember how you had to think of other women to get through that night? And here she was.
She was coming.
She began to swim my way; on impulse I went to the other side of the pool. I hoisted myself out. She kept swimming my way, with that half-maniacal, half-happy look on her face. “It’s you!” Swimming, swimming. Why wouldn’t she just let me swim in peace, alone? Remember that night? Headache, nausea. Somewhere, The Who were playing “I’m Free.” I’m waiting for you to follow me. No! The rough sound of Pete Townshend’s guitar. Where was it cutting in from? A poolside stereo? The silver eagle moon? And freedom tastes of reality. Run, run, run!
I SAW MARCOS at a party in the Old Town. I was standing at the top of the steps, and he was coming up. We saw each other just for a moment, but I recognized him right away. He looked just as he did in college. He looked just as he did in his obituary. “Marcos,” I said. “Is that you?”
Before I saw Marcos, I had been kissing a TalTech postdoc from Nigeria named Omolola, or “Lola” for short. She was a woman who knew her pipettes. She spent most of her days in laboratories. There was a clean, cool, clinical edge to Lola. She wore her braids up in a colorful headscarf. She had been showing me some photos on her phone when we began to kiss, just like that. Why it happened, I don’t know. She was my friend Stig’s latest girlfriend, but there was a high level of attrition in his romantic life. Was she a rebound, or was he rebounding from a rebound? She was just one in a series of basketballs being dribbled across some stuffy court.
Lola was an excellent kisser. I wondered how often these spur-of-the-moment make-out sessions happened. Maybe they were going on all the time. The second you left the bank, that young financial advisor was kissing that grizzled old man. Bolt drivers turned to suck face with their latest fare. Flight attendants from Finnair reached over to deliver a cup of blueberry juice and then … There is something about surrendering up to someone, freely, on a whim. One minute, you are at a party, the next you are locking lips with your friend’s girlfriend. Until you see your dead college friend walk by, as if you were in some turn-of-the-century cafeteria.
“Marcos? Marcos? Is that really you?” Marcos and I had been in the same left-wing student group in college. We were card-carrying Young Socialists. He was the son of a Latin American economic policy advisor. After college, he had become more deeply left-wing. Some said he was stockpiling weapons. For an eventual battle royale with the federal government. But when he was about 40, he died. Nobody knew why. Nobody said. We only saw the obituary online, with that smile of his. He looked just like he did now, at a party in the Old Town. “Marcos!” I called to him. “Where are you going? Why are you here?” The Marcos-looking man shook his head, as if he didn’t know who I was. Maybe it wasn’t Marcos at all. No, it probably wasn’t him.
THE NARVA BORDER POINT, the frontier between Estonia and the Russian Federation, the west and the east, the war and the non-war. But it’s a fine October day, with good sunshine, a mostly cloudless sky, a sweet-tasting fresh wind that whips over the invisible line of demarcation, and the dark river waters below that carve one vast landmass from the other.
I stand at the foot of the white Hermann Fortress, but when I look up, I see Montauk Lighthouse. The air does smell strangely of salt. There are seagulls crying along the old stone walls. I enter the lighthouse and proceed through a series of glass doors. The Estonian border guards are at their desks, clad in their navy uniforms, emblazoned with the three gold lions.
Off to the left, I can see a room which, upon closer inspection, appears to be a small Orthodox chapel. Inside, the priest is administering Communion. The candles are burning, and the incense fogs the air, so that even the glass looks foggy. The church is full of old Russian grandmothers and border guards. They are praying quietly. Some are singing. Just then, a border agent comes down the metal steps of the lighthouse, dressed in the light blue shirt of the Russian border guard. She has glasses, dyed red hair. She brushes by me, indifferent to my presence. From the corner of my eye, I can see her name stitched on her breast. Ivanova.
On the other side of the lighthouse castle border station, there is another door that opens into a green yard. The grass is still very green, even though it is October. There isn’t a tree anywhere, a seat anywhere. There isn’t another living soul to be seen or heard. This is the intermediate zone, the no man’s land between the Republic of Estonia and the Russian Federation. I walk about at ease. Then I go back to Estonia, again through the lighthouse. The Russian grandmothers and border guards are still praying peacefully. “Let them pray,” I think.
AT THE CRACK OF DAWN, I descended the steps to make my daughter an omelette before she went to school. My feet slid across the smooth wood floor toward the kitchenette. I began to make preparations. I liked to get the frying pan sizzling hot, gurgling with butter before adding the eggs. When I turned on the light, I could see that she was back. She told me I could go.
“I cut short my trip,” she said. “You can go now.” “But I promised her an omelette,” I told her. “A mushroom omelette. She was looking forward to it.” “I have some workmen showing up soon,” she said, reaching out to stop my hand from cracking an egg. “Would you just go? Please?”
I took a step back. “No,” I told her. “I promised her an omelette, she’s having an omelette. I am making her an omelette today.” There were animals all around the house. Cats, dogs. Out on the terrace, I could see some musk oxen lazing in the morning sun. “Why do you have musk oxen?” I asked. “This is my house!” she said. Then, with a more urgent tone, “Could you leave?”
There came a knock at the door, some workmen came in in white overalls and white painter’s hats. They set up a ladder and began to prepare to paint the ceiling. But after them marched more men. Some younger types, who looked like boy band singers. Others gray, with beards, speaking of literature. They began to fill the house from top to bottom with their chatter. These were her men. One of them looked like Ben Affleck, the actor. “You didn’t tell me you were dating Ben Affleck,” I said. “That’s Tarmo,” she said. “He just looks like Ben Affleck.”
Soon the house was brimming with other men. I had just wanted to make an omelette. “You have to go,” she said. “You’re no longer needed here.” “But it’s my child. I have a right to make her breakfast.” “Would you please just leave?” she implored me. I did no such thing. Instead, I reached for a bottle of moonshine, drank it down in sad, heavy gulps. Soon I was stinking.
“You fool!” she said. “How are you supposed to drive when you’ve been drinking?” She sank into a chair, sat opposite me. She became her younger form now, blonde, with those crazy eyes. “You need to find another woman,” she told me. “It’s been long enough. That will make everything better.” For a moment, I followed the arc of her logic. Then I realized her logic had led me here, to this house. “What are you, some kind of oracle?” I said. “You know, I gave you everything,” she said, with a slight disgust. “Without me, you’d be back where I found you.”
“Fine then,” I said. Omelette unmade, I crumpled through the door into the morning light. I felt like garbage. Pure, limping garbage. And I had no idea where this place was. For a moment, I was reminded of the rainy streets of Beijing, and how I had been lost just like this, and a friendly Chinese had waved to me through a misty cafe window. I felt free that day in Beijing.
IT WAS A TOWER. The Ikea Tower. Why it was called that was a mystery. No element of it was made by Ikea. Maybe some of the furniture in the conference room on the 80th floor. The tower was designed to move with the wind. To stand in its conference area was to feel as if one was flying. We were so high up in the air that I couldn’t see the ground down beneath the cloud cover. The movement of the clouds between the legs of the tower made it seem as if we were a ship upon white seas. When I rode the elevator to the conference, I always made sure to look at the buttons. You know how terrified I am of heights. I watched those red buttons.
Later, back at my hotel, I slept in. It had been a long week, and I woke up around noon. I knew I was going to be late for the press conference. Where even was this place? My mind said it was Helsinki, but it looked like Amsterdam, with some elements of Copenhagen stitched in. Of course, I wound up talking to the redhead at the front desk, with her silver earrings and silver brooch. She sparkled like a Celtic warrioress. That went on for far too long, and so I was doubly late. I ran to catch a departing gondola and rode it through the city. Its doors opened and I got out, but I was on a terrace. The furniture was certainly made by Ikea. Simple, white.
Young Scandinavian Arabs were seated around, playing chess.
I got back on the next gondola and was carried to the canal, where I got onto a crowded ferry. I could see the red-brick buildings of the town hall and the national treasury. I tried to take a photo of the town hall, with its golden steeple, which looked just like Pauluse kirik in Tartu, but also like the Københavns Rådhus. What even was this city? Certainly, it was still Helsinki. Or was it? Before I could get a good shot, the ferry arrived to port and we disembarked at last.
Everyone filed into the metro. I could watch their heads disappear as they rode the escalator down. I saw their shadows vanish. Somehow I found a tram that delivered me to the foot of that enormous tower. Up the tube-like elevator again, staring at the buttons. They needed the article immediately following the press conference. I could feel the tower move with the strong winds. There was a woman in the elevator who I knew from Estonia. She was dressed in business attire. She had one of those names that no one outside of Estonia could pronounce, like Õie, Ülle, or Krõõt. “How do you do it?” Õie asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
ALMOST EVERY DAY NOW, I take my bicycle out to Varesemäed. This is a small nature preserve on the edge of Viljandi Town. Its name translates as “The Crow Hills.” To get to Varesemäed or the Crow Hills, you cycle up Tallinn Street and bear right towards Põltsamaa. Soon the road dips before the turn to Karula and the last suburban houses fall away. To the right and left, vast fields open up, some of them full of golden rapeseed in the summers, others with dark, rich soil. Power lines are draped across this landscape. At Kikka, there is a small settlement of new homes, though I wonder who lives in them, or why they all moved there. Maybe it’s some sort of religious cult? Or are they exiled political dissidents? Just before you get to Kikka, you can see a massive boulder on the left. This is the boulder I call “Easter Island.”
I first started going out to Varesemäed years ago. I was introduced to the preserve by an old friend who liked to frequent such natural places. She called forests “lower pressure zones,” and she would come out to the woods to breathe, admire sunsets and the changing colors in fall. There are several nature preserves dotted around Viljandi, like the one in Loodi, or the one in Sinialliku. But these other places never really got under my skin. All of Estonian nature feels unfamiliar, all of these pines and birches. There is a melancholy contained in the land, though it’s not necessarily ominous or unfriendly, more like a broken-hearted woman boiling tea.
Surely, there must be some things to be happy about.
Varesemäed is the most interesting. There are adventures to be had there and it’s become a special place to me. After you pass the religious dissidents at Kikka, there are some other homes. In one, they are doing renovation and they have a robot lawnmower that is busy cutting grass. They have some speakers set up and like to play dance music. I love how the views open to Vana-Võidu at this point, which can be seen across the valley and the Mädajärv.
Then, just before you reach the turn off to Varesemäed, there are more homes. Once I was cycling out there and I saw a sole figure standing by a gate. An old man. Considering we were the only two people anywhere, I waved to him. He said nothing and gave me a puzzled look.
Yesterday when I went out to Varesemäed, the same thing that usually happens happened. I arrived on my bicycle, only to find out that I wasn’t the only person in the park. There was a man seated in his car, parked at the far end of the parking area. He was wearing sunglasses, though it was later in the day and the sun wasn’t so bright. He might have been talking to someone in his car. It was hard to tell because the car windows were very dark. It was a fine new vehicle. Who was the man? Why did he need to come all the way out to Varesemäed to have a conversation? It must have been important because as soon as he saw me, he left.
This scene repeats itself day in and day out. What I find interesting is that it’s usually solitary cars. It’s rarely two cars. People don’t come out here to have conversations between each other, or to meet. They come out here alone, or if they aren’t alone, then they ride in one car together. As soon as the mystery man left the parking area, a large gray van showed up with tinted windows. This van drove to the farthest end of the parking area and stayed there. I felt I was intruding and decided that I should probably leave rather than to start spying on the van.
Naturally, I think these other visitors are up to no good. Drugs? Sex ring? Serial killers? It could be anything. Maybe they are just friends who want to have a conversation away from prying eyes? Or maybe they had just been driving all day and needed a break, to sit in some place alone. “Hey, I know where we should go. Varesemäed! No one will look for us there.” Yes, a “lower pressure area,” as my friend put it. The sign in the parking lot has been peeling away for years. If you train your eye, you can read that there has been a preserve at Varesemäed since 1964. Before the Second World War, there was an Estonian Defense League shooting range.
Finding out more about the history of the place led me to search the archives of old newspapers. The first reference to Varesemäed I could find dated to 1932, when it was mentioned as an example of a ridge-like formation in the Sakala Upland. I found no references to shooting at Varesemäed, but in a 1937 Postimees article, “Suuremad laskewõistlused Wiljandis,” I learned that these shooting competitions were all the rage in the 1930s. General Johannes Orasmaa himself attended a competition between different malevs in Valuoja Valley.
Other newspaper articles from the Soviet era talk about great hikes involving different groups of Pioneers. Sometimes Lithuanian Pioneers would visit and they would all go out to Varesemäed. There was grilling and singing. A lot of happy childhood memories were made.
The best article appeared in 1976 in Tee Kommunismile, where it was reported that the land around Varesemäed had once belonged to the Karula Manor and was sold in 1912 to the Koppel family, which established the Kõre-Varese Farm near the site. It is from this farm that Varesemäed derives its name. Perhaps the broken building ruins that separate the Kehklase järv from the Vägita oja date from this time? I like to spend time around those ruins. If I strain my ears, I can almost hear the conversations of the people who used to live and work in them.
I’ve also been lost on the trails. I’ve been so lost that I came out of the woods on the Küüdeküla Road, thinking I was on the Põltsamaa Road. I’ve never seen strangers in the woods at Varesemäed, only in the parking lot. I must admit I have had my own personal adventures at Varesemäed, such as the time I went swimming naked with an Estonian woman in the lake. I’ve never really understood the rules around nakedness in Estonia. Sometimes, like when you are about to plunge into a lake, or are going into a sauna, being naked is totally fine. If you were to suddenly feel the desire to take off your clothes in Rimi or Selver, that would be ebadekvaatne.
There I was, swimming naked at Varesemäed, when one of those mysterious white vans pulled up. It parked there for some time, and I wondered if someone was taking photos of our nude dip. Surely, this would make an excellent cover shot for some tabloid. Then the mystery van roared off down that dusty road, back to the highway. Ever since then, I have wondered who was in the van. Was it someone I knew? When people gave me a strange look in town after that, or if their eyes lingered on me for too long, I would think, maybe they were in the van?
People do drive too fast on the road to Põltsamaa. The way back is fraught with danger, risk. Trucks go speeding by at astounding speeds. Just the displacement of the air can knock you over. You would think it was the autobahn and not a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere. When I cycle back, I wonder where they are driving to in such a hurry. What’s the best thing that could be waiting for anyone in this land, other than a dish of meekook and some coffee?
I am not the only cyclist out there. Just some weeks ago, I was overtaken by a blonde woman on a bicycle, with a trailer attached, a small child sitting inside. We were by Easter Island when it happened. It was a lovely crisp day, portending of autumn to come. The landscape looked majestic. The woman smiled at me as she cycled by and I thought, “I do love the countryside.”
An Estonian version of this piece was first published 29 September 2026 in the newspaper Sakala. The English version contains different Estonian words, including järv (lake), oja (stream), malev (brigade, team), meekook (honey cake), and ebaadevkvaatne (inadequate, not up to snuff). Before the Second World War, Estonians often used German orthography in writing. “Suuremad laskewõistlused Wiljandis” would be “Suuremad laskevõistlused Viljandis” today, ie. “Great shooting competitions in Viljandi.”
