The fervor for the festivals has dwindled somewhat from the time of the Soviet occupation, when they truly were a vehicle that expressed national cohesiveness. No doubt Gorbachev got the message then. For the finale of this concert, when all the choirs united under the large bandshell, there were 25,890 singers. Well, only 25,889, since I decided to take photos from the audience side of the grand finale. I was told that this was the largest combined choir of the world. What a magnificent feeling to sing in such setting to an appreciative audience, estimated at well over 100,000 people. Sitting in the front row were the presidents of Estonia, Finland and Latvia, and many other dignitaries including administrators of the European Union. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the audience was said to be double of this summer’s.
In this mass of singers, I found my uncle’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Moonika Lepp! She was not hard to find, as singer in an elite young ladies choir (“Ellerhein”) clad in a distinctive costume.
The festival was a great experience! In the cool evening I walked back to the city, just to cool down my emotions. Was this the last time to sing? The Toronto Estonian Men’s Choir, which I joined just so that I could be a participant and not just an on-looker, is showing its age, most of us are gray-haired, and very little new blood is coming in. With these thoughts ended this phase of my Estonian adventure.
Singing through Estonia
The Song Festival was followed by five days of concerts with TEM. Many of the concerts were performed in historic churches, which were acoustically well suited for such performances. TEM had reserved bussing for when needed, so my only expense was for meals and accommodations for the nights away from Tallinn. On Monday we gathered in the midtown area in our choir uniforms. After a rehearsal we gave a concert in a church built at the end of the 13th century, the Holy Spirit Church, filled to capacity. To my surprise, in attendance were numerous friends, relatives and grade-school chums. I felt very much at home. After the concert, we sang some more in a small square to passers-by. Here we sang songs less suited for a church setting.
Not all fleeing the Russians made it
On Tuesday we gathered in midtown and were bussed to the Naval Harbor. There we boarded the “Admiral Pitka”, the flagship of the Estonian Coast Guard and Border Patrol, which is also the largest Estonian naval ship. The boarding was marked by the presence of an honor guard, made up of smartly uniformed young sailors. Exactly at 8 a.m. the ship left the pier with 150 guests on board: the 35 men of our choir, the Estonian border patrol band, Estonia’s ex-president Lennart Meri, several government dignitaries, Admiral Tarmo Kõuts (the head of Estonia’s Defense Forces), chaplain Tõnis Nõmmik (my schoolmate in grade school), and an assortment of invited guests from Sweden, Canada and USA (including my good friend Iri Luts).
The purpose of the event: to commemorate the thousands who perished in the stormy Baltic Sea as they fled Estonia 60 years ago. Most of the perished tried to make it to Sweden in small fishing vessels. My stepbrother Ülo was one of the boaters who made it. At the same time, in September of 1944, my parents and I got on a ship for Germany. Another ship bound for Germany, the “Moero”, that left at the same time was torpedoed by a Soviet plane, and sunk with 6000 people on board.
When we got 12 miles into the Gulf of Finland, speeches were made, and wreaths lowered into the sea. Then we sang “Requiem”. For me it was time to reflect how luck had been with my family.
Caught between superpowers
On return to the harbor we bussed on to the east. We had lunch in an historic inn decorated with farm implements. Then on to the Sinimäed, close to Narva, a hilly strip of land strip between the Lake Peipsi and the Bay of Finland, close to the Russian border. This is where bitter battles occurred in 1944 between the Soviet Army and the defenders of Estonia. The Soviets had broken out of the brutal Nazi encirclement of Leningrad. When they crossed the River Narva they countered a mix of Estonian, Danish, Norwegian and German units. The Estonians were fighting here for no other reason than for the hope that Estonia might regain its independence, as it had after the WWI. Fierce resistance was offered here, despite the fact that the German high command had already decided to abandon Estonia as indefensible, since the country already was nearly cut off by rapidly advancing Soviet army further south.
They deserve recognition
A memorial wall was built in the 1990’s where the fiercest fighting had occurred. It was constructed on the initiative of Arvo Puu, a local man, who had served as a young recruit in the waning days of combat on Estonian soil, who chose not to escape, who subsequently was sent twice to Siberia for his “crime” of having being drafted by the Germans, and who, when Estonia regained independence in 1991 observed that while there were many memorials for the Red Army, there was nothing commemorated those who fought the Soviets. (Reagan finally defeated the Soviets after a protracted cold war. So the Estonians were on the right side after all – or at least we were not on THAT wrong side.) The wall is about three feet high, and on the wall are plaques with the names of the men who fell. In back of the wall is an old cemetery, under which bunkers housed the soldiers in 1944. In front of the wall is a field on which the tank battles were fought. To the left is a hill, (Grenadieri mägi) which had great strategic value, and thus changed hands between the attackers and defenders seven times. Estonian soldiers defended this segment.
An eyewitness
One of our choir members had been an orderly to the units, and showed where the trench lay where he had slept. Nearby was a cross, made of steel, to discourage vandalism by the non Estonian population in the area. The cross had spears emanating out of it - as if calling out in pain. We lay a wreath at the foot of a stone that TEM had had erected with the inscription: “We have not forgotten you”, sang several songs, boarded the busses and drove on. I reflected quietly, that because the front held here for a long time, many Estonians had time to accept the fact that there was no hope for Estonia, and that it was time to escape, as did my parents.
(To be continued)