Estonia: On Food (and Peace)

Global Voices Online
Monday, May 7, 2007


The buzz surrounding Tallinn's Bronze Soldier is gradually subsiding, but it is still too early to speak of peace: Estonia's police are preparing for possible unrest on May 9, pro-Kremlin youth groups are still marching in Moscow, and politicians as well as bloggers continue arguing about the situation.

While the previous Global Voices translation dealt with the violent events of April 26, below is a completely amicable entry, written on May 3 by Tallinn-based LJ user orang-m (RUS):

On food

I've been shooting at the Best Estonian Product exhibition today.

While they were all away at the conference hall, I wandered around expo tables laid with food.

We've got some very beautiful and delicious products: grilled sausages with wondrous sauces, and kholodets [jellied meat], and various meat creations, and puddings, and zephir [sweets], and cheese breads, [...], and juices, and marzipans.

When I was done shooting it all, I sat down in the corner on a window sill, chewing on a sausage.

A woman in her 60s, dressed in [Estonian] national dress, came up to me: a consultant on meat products.

We chatted about various tasty recipes.

Then she heard me speaking on the phone, in Russian.

She said: "Look, I'll feed you now. Because they'll all come running here during the break, and there'll be nothing left for you."

She spoke in Russian to me, even though we communicated in Estonian before that.

And - she filled me up with food.

It is really very tasty what we are producing here.

Why am I writing all this.

Any mess begins inside one's head.

When a person sees others as enemies - he is the one who's got problems.

And no doctor is going to help him.

Why is it that I only run into good people, huh?


And here is one of the comments to this post:

ulixes: I keep wanting to write something nice and encouraging to you these days. But it's you who ends up writing encouraging things. Thank you.

[Mir] (both peace and world [these two translations of the Russian word mir are written in English in the original]) is built on this very thing - human relations. One person's attitude toward the other and vice versa, that is :) And suddenly this [world/peace] is crashed with that huge thing called "state politics" - and one starts feeling like a helpless idiot. But then I read your posts and realize that all is okay, the [world/peace] is still there, and so are the relations between people. Take care of yourself, all of you over there.


***

LJ user kocmoc has posted photos from the Bronze Soldier's new location at Tallinn's military cemetery - here.

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