Saaremaa, ESTONIA
Our exploration of the Baltic States aboard M.S. ENDEAVOUR began with a visit to the large island of Saaremaa, Estonia. (“Saar” means “island” in Estonian.) The history of Estonia is one of repeated domination of a small group of people by larger and more powerful neighbors: the Teutonic Knights of Germany, then Denmark, Sweden, Tsarist Russia, Germany, and, in the post-WW II era, the Soviet Union. Through it all, the Estonians have clung tenaciously to their distinct language and culture. Today we visited a symbol of the former, Bishop’s Castle, built in the 14th Century, in the island’s main city of Kuresaare. After lunch we returned through a pastoral landscape and stopped at an open-air museum, where we were greeted by people in traditional costumes playing, singing, and dancing to folk music. Their folk traditions helped the Estonians to cling tenaciously to their culture through the long periods of domination, and now help to celebrate their national identity that was achieved in the tumultuous days of 1990 when their assertion of independence contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union.
Our exploration of the Baltic States aboard M.S. ENDEAVOUR began with a visit to the large island of Saaremaa, Estonia. (“Saar” means “island” in Estonian.) The history of Estonia is one of repeated domination of a small group of people by larger and more powerful neighbors: the Teutonic Knights of Germany, then Denmark, Sweden, Tsarist Russia, Germany, and, in the post-WW II era, the Soviet Union. Through it all, the Estonians have clung tenaciously to their distinct language and culture. Today we visited a symbol of the former, Bishop’s Castle, built in the 14th Century, in the island’s main city of Kuresaare. After lunch we returned through a pastoral landscape and stopped at an open-air museum, where we were greeted by people in traditional costumes playing, singing, and dancing to folk music. Their folk traditions helped the Estonians to cling tenaciously to their culture through the long periods of domination, and now help to celebrate their national identity that was achieved in the tumultuous days of 1990 when their assertion of independence contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union.
