Wello Rattur's Passport
This page is a photo album of some of the places that I visited in the search for a context in which to place my father: a background for his boyhood home in Tallinn, his primary school in Kalamaja and so on. As well as, an album of some of the original documents that I found in the Estonian National Archives, that verify the authenticity of the book.
I hope the reader finds these photo as interesting as I did. Soon these places and documents will be over 100 years old. Imagine having a site with a detailed provenance. In how many countries can you find memories of ordinary people set in their original context? Photographs of their homes, their schools, their institutions and personal documents, that made up their life as it was at the of the turn of the 20th century. The photos also show that a a strong sense of the national identity was present at the time.
The introductory images are of my father's passport; a primary source of research currently held by the Estonian National Archive.
The passport was issued by the Republic of Estonia in the year, 1930 . If you have a passport of your own parents or grandparents, please compare it with my father's passport. The date of issue, the photograph and the age of the person at the time of issue and their signature are essential keys in identifying a person or their records.
My father was 22 years of age at the time of issue of the passport. Please note the signature on his passport. Since then I have sighted many, many documents that he signed ; his signature never varied over the course of his entire life.
Please note his handwriting, the use of open flowing script and of the German version of the letter W for his Christian name in his signature. Many Estonians changed the spelling of their names to Vello during the Estonian-isation period in the late 1930s. The letter W does not exist in the Estonian language.
The passport shows that he was born on the 26th of January, 1908, in Leisi. Estonia was a province of the Russian Empire and the island of Saaremaa was a county, part of the adjoining province of Livonia.
His passport was issued later in life, in 1930 by the Republic of Estonia (Eesti Vabariik) , when it was a matter of supreme importance for an Estonian to have his/her own passport; a precious symbol of national identity. To say he valued his identity, that is - to be an Estonian, is to understate the way he felt about his nation.
Wello Rattur's Boyhood Home
Before the trip to Estonia in May 2006,
the editor and I discussions about the location of of my father's
boyhood home in Prii Street. The mystery of the location of the pre-war
street was a puzzle. It did not exist on contemporary maps and, even on
Soviet era street maps of Tallinn.
Shortly prior to the trip, my friend, Herta Karjus,
advised me that a lot of streets had their names changed during the long
Soviet occupation (1944-1991) . However the Tallinn City government had
a directory of names with their pre-war names matched to Soviet era
names and their present-day equivalents.
Consulting these records I learnt that in the suburb of Kalamaja, Kungla Street had subsumed Prii Street. My search, for my father's boyhood home, was made with this knowledge. When we set off on our journey on that cold morning, I did not know if the 100 year old house still stood. Although I
had a very precise and detailed description of the house; of its
exterior and the interior. I half expected to find some changes. One
hundred years is a very long time in that part of the city: being close
to the centre of government located in the Old Town (Vana Linn) part of
Tallinn.
As
we drove to the house that was my father's home so long ago, the taxi
driver who I had hired for the day explained to me that the streets in
Kalamaja, had been designated as one-way streets due to traffic
congestion, being so close to the commercial hub of a modern capital
city.
He explained,
that the proximity of the suburb to the center of Tallinn, had
resulted in it becoming transformed from a working class suburb to an
upper middle-class suburb into which there had been a drift of
professional people with higher incomes. There had been many changes;
renovation of old homes in the area had resulted in homes having a 19th
century exterior and a 21st century interior with the latest European
fittings and decor.
The
challenge of finding a house that my father had spent much of his
boyhood was exciting for me. As we set out on our adventure on that cold, clear, sunny spring morning, my companions commented on my state of excitement.
It was a wonderful surprise to me to see that (the house at 13 Kungla Street - 13 Kungla tanav) it still existed. The exterior showed signs of restoration.
Landmarks that my father had described in his manuscript and mentioned in the book, still existed; Kalamaja Kalmistu (Cemetry) had been converted to Kalamaja Park. The Soviet occupiers had bulldozed the cemetry flat. The taxi-driver told us that present -day Estonians treat the park as hallowed ground.
Lausamanni
Heinaste (Meadow) had been overbuilt by residential construction. Our
next stop was my father's school. Primary schools in Estonia are called
Pohikool s, where Estonian children are educated from the age of 7 to
16; after which students go to trade or commercial colleges, or onto
further academic oriented schools termed 'gymnasiuums'.
Eyewitness: Estonia 1909-1949 PHOTOS
Articles About Estonian Issues, Culture and Institutions
