Today
was a bit on the haphazard side for various reasons, although it all worked out
well in the end. To start with, I only realised that I could catch a bus to
from Räpina to Narva while I was eating breakfast. I hadn’t checked the ‘search
for connecting trips’ button on the bus routing website. This was good news as
I had originally thought it was only possible to catch a 4pm bus which would
have got me to Narva at 8pm. So, after packing up my things and checking out of
the hotel, I made it to the bus station with plenty of time to spare, so I had
a nice Skype call with mum. I was relieved to see that the bus, which had come
from Petseri, was not very full, meaning there was plenty of room for my
bicycle and luggage. The next bus which I connected to in Tartu was very nice,
with WiFi and power points for each seat. This meant I was able to spend most
of the trip writing. I was hoping to catch more glances of Lake Peipsi en route
but it wasn’t to be. Despite the road passing very close to the lake, thick
forest meant it wasn’t visible. Most people departed the bus at a place called
Sillamäe, west of Narva.
 |
| My bags are packed, I'm ready to go |
The
Narva bussijaam was a little way away from my Hostel Sparta, where I had booked
a bed in an 8-bed dormitory. The first difficulty I encountered that the address
of the hostel didn’t actually correlate with the actual location of the
property. This combined with the fact that the only sign that the building
concerned was a hostel was an A4 piece of paper with an arrow stuck to a wall made
this place extremely difficult to find. The second difficulty was that the
person on duty, who turned out to be the owner’s son, could hardly speak
English (or Estonian), which made communication… difficult.
Narva
is in Estonia’s northeast, situated on the bank of the River Narva, which is
the outflow of Lake Peipsi. On the opposite bank of the river lies Russia. Narva
is Estonia’s 3rd largest city, with a population of ~60,000.
According to Wikipedia, greater than 90% of the population here are Russian
speakers, with around 80% being ethnic Russian while only only ~3% are ethnic
Estonian. Further, only ~50% of the population are Estonian citizens. 35% are
Russian citizens while the remaining 15% are essentially stateless, holding so-called
‘alien’ passports. Resultantly, there are very few Estonian speakers in these
parts. If it weren’t for all the signage, which by law is required to be in
Estonian, one could be forgiven for thinking they had crossed the border into
Russia.
These
interesting demographics are a direct result of soviet occupation, which saw
mass deportations of the former Estonian population (which was at 64% prior to
occupation) and internal immigration of ethnic Russians from other parts of the
soviet union. Unlike most other parts of Estonia, those who survived the
deportations were prevented from returning to this area.
People
holding an alien passport are, as I understand it, afforded the same rights as
any other Estonian/European citizen, except they are not allowed to stand for
government or vote in national and European elections. Gradually, the number of
people holding alien passports is decreasing, but this does still pose a significant
issue for national unity. One barrier to these people acquiring Estonian citizenship
is the requirement to pass a B2 level Estonian language test. With the recent
developments in Ukraine and increasing Russian aggression, one can see why
Narva, which lies on the outer of Estonia, the EU and NATO often pops up in the
news. The Estonian government is now starting to make a concerted effort to
include these people in mainstream Estonian society, with a Russian language
television station to be launched and the recent opening of a University of
Tartu campus in town.
Right,
now that I’ve said all of that, back to the hostel! The lad there couldn’t
speak English and I realised that, despite it being shown online, there was
nowhere to safely store my luggage, I found myself in a minor pickle. After
some much-appreciated Skype calls to family, the owner of the hostel, a lovely
Esto-Russian lady, who could speak English, showed up and I moved into a single
room which I could lock.
With
all of that sorted, I went for a brief walk around the town. I was a little awestruck
when I first sighted the two castles which sit astride the river, staring grimly
at one another. It was very easy to imagine that these could still be proper
functioning fortresses, armed to the teeth with soldiers and primed for attack.
I thought it was pretty awesome. (Didn't do a particularly good job on the picture front, I'll post more in the next post)
 |
| Ivangorod Fortress, Russia |
 |
| View from Estonia to Russia, across the border crossing which connects the two |
I
then found a nice restaurant with an outside terrace, which had Leffe on tap,
to have a drink before a nice dinner at the same place.
 |
| Beer |
No comments:
Post a Comment