Valga, Estonia: A conversation with Rainer (b. 1956)
I met with Rainer through a video link in March of 2021.
The two towns of Valga and Valka are contiguous. The Estonian-Latvian border runs directly through the center of the town itself, with Valga receiving the slightly larger share of the area. Valga and Valka share a mutual, tight-knit economic and cultural relationship — despite straddling either side of an international border.
I was born and raised in Tallinn. I have a sister, who is three years younger. We lived together in one room for eighteen years, until my sister left home to study at Tartu University. I studied in Tallinn, which means I did not need to leave the city where I was born. I was at home as a student — not in a dormitory or anything like that.
The school that I attended as a child was an English-biased school. They used a bit more English in training than in ordinary schools. My father was a teacher of chemistry — the natural sciences. I thought that perhaps I could make my future career as a teacher. Then I applied for Tallinn University. Today it is Tallinn University. Then it was a pedagogical institute that gave a university-level education.
After finishing my studies at the university, I was employed by a countryside school here in Valga County. Then, I could see the other teachers also and what they are doing. Their roots were from the countryside — so they knew all the words about doing things in the countryside. I didn’t. Then I thought that perhaps I should have learned something else, as well.
But things turned. English became very important when we regained our independence. Today, the level of being able to speak in English has improved a great deal among young people. I can see this in the vocational school also. It has changed a lot. Not for all of the students — but you can now hear English that was impossible in the early 1980s. Now our students know English rather well — not as a mother tongue, but they are able to do everything in English.
The drawback is that young people here do not know Russian anymore. For me, in the Soviet Union, you had to know Russian. The attitude toward the English language has changed a lot.
Historically speaking, yes, it’s a wonder that Estonian has survived. There was and continues to be a lot of German influence in this country. Germans came here to Estonia and Latvia in the beginning of the 1200s. They conquered the area, and so the rulers of this country were Germans. There were very big differences in the society — with higher classes speaking German, lower classes speaking Latvian or Estonian, or even Livonian. So, the differences in society were so great that the languages survived.
In other areas, the Germans had the idea of Drang nach Osten, or moving toward the East¹. There, the people changed the language and took up German instead. Here in Estonia and Latvia, during the Swedish period, local schools were started. For local people, of course they started in the Estonian language in the 1600s or so. Then, it was continued when Russians took over in the 1700s. Still, the school system continued in the countryside in the local language. This helped to maintain the local language.
Starting schools in the countryside had something to do with religion. The religion at the time was Lutheranism, after the Reformation. This put a start to schools, so people could read, and read the Bible, of course. But it helped to maintain the language, because the Bible was translated into the local language.
But to read the Bible, people had to know how to read. That’s how language and schools started. Otherwise, in the Catholic period, everything was held in Latin. So people had to go to the church, and listen to something they didn’t understand at all. There were 500-some years where people had to go to the church. Then, just to be on the safe side, they prayed to their own gods too! According to the original religions, there were very many gods.
Why did I come to Valga County from Tallinn? My university did not have military training. So after graduating from the university, I would have needed to take military service in the Soviet army for a year and a half. By the time I graduated, I didn’t feel like doing it. The military service would have been very far off, maybe in the Far East — Sakhalin, Kamchatka, the Okhotsk Sea, and other places in the Bering Strait close to Alaska.
Working in the countryside would provide a postponement of military service, up to a certain age. That’s why I chose this countryside school. Here I was just a teacher, and I didn’t have to take military service.
Later on in my life, I did the military service anyway! But not a year and a half — just two months. During that time the Soviet Union was in conflict with Afghanistan, people were needed, and so forth.
Living in a border town is special. We do not have any river here — just a very small rivulet, or whatever you call it.²
There are many divided towns in Europe. What is special here, in Valga and Valka? Here, we always use a third language. Right after the division of this town into two, it used to be German. We have German influence here, so the common language was German. In the Soviet times, it was Russian. And now, English is common. The problem is the same — young Latvians do not speak Russian anymore. But they are rather good with English.
When I communicate with people of my age, I usually use Russian with them. For younger people, it’s English. I do not speak very Latvian myself. I manage some of the things, like going to a shop and asking for something. But that’s all of my Latvian. They are the same way with Estonian. I have never had any problems.
Russian is still being learned, but English is the most common first foreign language. The next usually is Russian. But young people know the Cyrillic alphabet. Some words they also know, but they don’t speak it well. But Russian is still taught in Estonian schools.
We also have schools where Russian is the language of instruction. Of course, those students have their roots in Russia. But for Estonian students, their Russian has become worse.
There are periods when this border inside the town was a rigid one, and some where it is softer. When I moved to Valga, it was still the Soviet Union. It was an administrative border within the Soviet Union, so it was a soft border. After regaining independence, it was even more rigid — up to the point that we entered the European Union. The customs service left the border when we joined the Schengen Agreement. Then, there was no passport control anymore either.
There are four “freedoms” of the European Union: free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. Everything works well, but the administrative barriers have become more severe.
This is especially the case with services in the public sector. They tend not to move over the border at all — because the taxpayers’ money should be used for people living in the country. This is the problem — for instance, with medical care. The social taxes we pay are used for medicine, and it does not cross the border at all. Of course, if there are emergency cases, then you get help. The hospital in Valka is closed down. So officially, Latvian citizens must visit the hospital in Valmiera, 50 kilometers away.
Officially, due to the coronavirus, without permission or a license people cannot cross the border. The only exception is here in Valga-Valka. People here can move freely. The idea is to promote cross-border labor, because it is important for us. It has been open the entire time, since last March. It’s a sign of our cooperation.
The legislation of Estonia and Latvia are still rather similar. It’s according to European Union legislation. The words are the same but interpretation might be different. It also concerns bureaucracy.
Laws are very similar, but the implementation of these laws might be different. So, what is a thing that one shouldn’t be so fond of? I think it’s bureaucracy. Because the bureaucratic barriers are still rather big. You especially feel them here on the border. In earlier periods, there were still local people who made decisions. But decision-making has moved into capitals, both in Estonia and Latvia. So what we have here in town is something like client service providers. They get a paper, send it to one superior, get an answer, deliver an answer, but they do not decide anything. So decision-making is very centralized.
In order to solve a problem here on the border, people in Tallinn and Riga have to make decisions. Not local people. Local people are seen as nobodies. But people in Tallinn and Riga do not understand the problem. Because it’s not their problem. If a problem is between Tallinn and Helsinki, they might understand it. But not here in Valga/Valka.
We do not have a maternity department anymore, in our hospital. But we used to have one. Latvia liquidated theirs earlier. For women from Valka, it was normal for them to come to Valga hospital in order to give birth to their children close to their homes. This was no longer allowed by the Latvian authorities.
For maternity patients, healthcare is free of charge. So for a Latvian citizen giving birth to her child here in Valga, the Estonian government would give an invoice to the Latvian state. Because it’s the state who pays for childbirth. Latvians said that according to Latvian laws, taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be paid to other countries.
Then, they agreed that it would be the same payment according to the price list paid for giving birth in Latvia. Estonia agreed with that. So they demanded that ambulance cars shouldn’t cross the border. So Latvian women had to walk to the Estonian hospital, because the ambulances refused to cross the border.
Then it continued and continued until they said that free taxis should be given for Latvian women giving birth in Latvia, at another hospital that is 50 or so kilometers away. This option does not work anymore, due to bureaucratic barriers. Our maternity department was closed because the number of childbirths was too low — and so it ended.
Although it was within the European Union, with the free movement of people, goods, services, capital, and so on, the bureaucratic barriers still exist.
Bureaucracy seems to be growing. Decision-making is being centralized. Local people who are competent and interested in finding solutions that meet all demands and satisfaction are always ignored. Because someone living far away in Tallinn and someone living in Riga do not agree.
The yachting regatta was held in Tallinn during the 1980 Summer Olympics³. It was the year after I graduated from university. The regatta was a big event. It was prepared very carefully. I don’t know very much about how it was in Moscow, but students had to work at the regatta in Tallinn. There were buildings and other places that were constructed.
So, that Olympic event was held in an occupied territory. This is not allowed according to the Olympic charter, but we did not pay much attention to that fact. It was because we thought Estonia would win a lot of events, compared to the other countries. So Estonians actually contributed quite the effort to hosting the Olympics.
Do you happen to know that the national anthems of Estonia and Finland are actually the same tune? In one of those regatta events, there was a sporting event in one class that a Finn won. Of course, the anthem of Finland was played during the medal ceremony. So we heard our national song played!
During the Soviet times, it was prohibited. We were not allowed to play this song publicly. But for that event, while hoisting the Finnish flag, it seemed like they were playing our national anthem. There is a slight difference between the anthems, but the melody is the same.
Footnotes
¹ To be more accurate, the Medieval period of German migration toward the East is referred to Ostsiedlung. This period of history was repurposed into German nationalist ideology in the 20th century.
² This is a gentle poke at the Narva River, which separates the (very small) country of Estonia and the (very large) country of Russia. The river is fairly formidable and was previously used to harvest hydroelectric power for a nearby textile factory.
³ The 1980 Summer Olympics, held in Moscow, were boycotted by the United States.
This is part of a conversation series centered around the country of Estonia. Click here to read the introduction.
