In the forested region along the southwest shores of Lake Peipus, straddling the border of Russia and Estonia, lies the land of the Seto people: Setomaa (literally, “Land of Wars” in Seto).
A separate ethnic group from the rest of Estonia – one which converted to Orthodoxy, the Seto have unique traditions of singing runic verse and worshipping pagan deities. They are one of the last remaining traditional folk cultures in Europe.
The area of Setomaa has been inhabited for over 8,000 years. From 862 to 1920, Setomaa was part of the Russian Empire. From 1920 to 1940, Estonia was an independent state, before being incorporated into the Soviet Union as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
After Estonia once again achieved its independence in 1991, some of Setomaa became part of Estonia, but not all. The Russo-Estonian border set in 1940 (versus that established in the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty) leaves a significant part of Setomaa in Russian territory. And the 1940 border is the one Estonia agreed to after negotiations with Russia between 1996-1999. Yet this border treaty has yet to be ratified. In September 2005, the Russian government unexpectedly withdrew its signature from the initialed treaty, throwing the status of the Seto and others along the border into uncertainty.
The most visually striking of the Seto (Setu or Setukesian in some sources) folk traditions are their multicolored, crocheted national costumes and their conical, silver breastplates, called Suur Solg, traditionally worn by married Seto women. Standing in the yard of her farm in the small village of Helbi, a few hundred meters from the Russian border, 80-year-old Kala Maria (see cover photo) is one of the few remaining examples of these traditions.
“I don’t know exactly how old my Suur Solg is,” Kala Maria says, “but you can see that some of the coins are from the time of the tsar.” She holds up some large coins hanging at the end of silver chains. “These ones are from 1844. [The Suur Solg] was originally from my great-great-great grandmother, and has been inherited from mother to mother. Some people have ones that weigh up to six kilos, but mine is not too heavy – it is three kilos. I don’t have to wear a Suur Solg now, because I am a grandmother; normally when you have a grandchild, you give your Suur Solg to your daughter.” Yet Kala Maria’s daughters have left Setomaa, and, like so many of her generation here, she lives alone.
Singing is the central thread of the Seto social and cultural fabric. “The songs are inherited from generation to generation,” Kala Maria explains. “I learned my songs from my mother. We want to keep this tradition alive, because it is a direct inheritance. Singing is therefore very important for our culture.” Indeed, song permeates all of Seto life: from work to their three-day weddings. “In the old days, life was difficult,” Kala Maria says. “All of the work was done by hand. If people got tired, they would sit down for a while and sing, before continuing working. Younger people came along and joined in and learned the songs. Now there are no young people and there is no work, so people don’t sing as much as they should.”
While some singing is spontaneous in the Seto tradition, singing for festivals and events is organized in the form of single-sex choirs comprised of a lead singer whose lines are repeated by the rest of the choir. Kala Maria and her choir, the Helbi Choir, are one of Setomaa’s best known and last remaining. “When we started singing, there were about ten of us,” she says. “Now there are only half of us left. These days it is not very easy to have the choir working, because you have to have the first singer who sings the lines, and you also have to have people who can sing in harmonies and descants. This is how Seto singing works. If these people are not present, the choir does not work. Once I am unable to go and sing, life will be very dull.”
With a rattle of her breastplate chains, Kala Maria places a block of her homemade cheese on the kitchen table of her farmhouse. She points proudly to the framed certificates for her winning cheeses, wine and breads. In one corner of the room, a home brewing apparatus bubbles and gurgles. Kala Maria talks about how history has affected her and her people. “The biggest threat during my lifetime was the beginning of the Soviet occupation in the 1940s,” she says. “We were really afraid and we had to hide all the silver and all of our national costumes. We didn’t dare to sing, because people were arrested and deported. We just did not know what would happen next. It was forbidden even to speak the Seto language, but there was no one to enforce it,” she adds with a wry smile and a chuckle.
While incorporation in the Soviet Union represented danger for the Seto, ironically, collectivization of their farms may have helped to preserve and strengthen their culture for a time. But, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Estonia’s embrace of market reforms, Seto farms have fallen apart. Their traditions and livelihood have come under fire. All around Setomaa are abandoned farms and machinery. Kala Maria looks out of her window and sighs. “Those of us that are left do not see each other as we did when we worked together on the farms. I have no fears anymore, because the villages are getting emptier and emptier and therefore there is no hope. Seto villages used to consist of 20 or 30 farms. It is not a village anymore when there are only five people, and half of them are very old. Young people leave for the cities and our local traditions are getting lost.”
Border culture
The Seto’s border problems have taken on greater significance because Estonia is now a member of the European Union. “We were very surprised that Russia withdrew their signature from the treaty,” said Franek Persidski, a press spokesman at the Estonian Embassy in Moscow. “Our position is that we have done everything we could in order to get the treaty signed.”
Part of Estonia’s compromise included relinquishing some of Setomaa to Russia, leading many Seto to feel that their land is under “occupation.” Although the Seto have been granted special visas to simplify border crossings, eight-hour waits on the Russian side of the border are common. And EU/Russia customs regulations impinge on Seto practices. “For the Setos who live across the border in Russia, when they come here for celebrations, they cannot bring their silver with them,” Kala Maria explains. “The silver is an essential and significant tradition of our culture and our personality. The silver, like the songs, have been inherited down through the generations, and connect us with our ancestors and our tradition.”
In the mid-1990s, the Seto Congress was established to preserve and promote the culture and traditions of Setomaa. The Congress has also been active in representing the group’s marginalized political interests. The re-introduction of Kuniigrii (the annual Seto Kingdom Day, where a king is chosen), the writing and singing of the Seto national anthem (whose lyrics speak of the hardships Setomaa has endured), and most recently the designing and flying of the Setomaa flag, have all helped to rekindle an interest in the Seto culture, both for the Seto themselves and for non-Seto Estonians and tourists. It is a measure of the Seto Congress’s success that Kuniigrii is attended by thousands of Estonian and Russian Setos, and that Setomaa is now promoted by the Estonian tourist board.
Evar Riitsaar is at the forefront of the movement to save Seto traditions. A tall and charismatic figure, he is the current and longest serving King of Setomaa (Sootska). An artist who originally came from the Seto village of Obinitsa, three km from the Russian border, Evar returned from Tallinn three years ago to help save his cultural heritage. “It is still a worry whether the culture will remain or not,” Riitsaar says. He has just hung a large Seto flag above the entrance to an exhibition of his work and of Estonia’s well-known photographer, Peeter Laurits, a non-Seto who has moved to Setomaa. “If we do not push the ideas of the Seto culture, then it will be lost by the next generation,” Riitsaar says, looking up at the flag. “I feel that this is our last chance to save the Seto culture. Much has already been forgotten and will be forgotten still. For example, there used to be special ways to speak with animals and plants. Things like this have now been lost.”
Yet, through Riitsaar’s art, much of the Seto cultural identity – derived from their pagan past (which includes Peko, the god of fertility) and from the work of important cultural figures such as the singer and songwriter Tarka – is being preserved and invigorated. Riitsaar teaches painting and sculpture in the local school and performs with his band, Loqoriq (“joyful laughter”), both locally and in Tallinn. The male members of Loqoriq were invited to perform old Seto songs in London as cultural representatives for Estonia when it was incorporated into the European Union. One of the band members also wrote Estonia’s entry (sung in Seto) to the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.
“As Sootska,” Riitsaar said, “I do what I know best; singing, dancing and painting. This is the only way for me to serve Peko’s will. The tradition of Sootska nearly died out; when the Russians were here, it was not allowed, but it was revived about 11 years ago. There are no formal duties [as Sootska], but a lot of spiritual ones. We have a strong shamanic background in Setomaa. Nature gives its signs. Sometimes you receive a sign during dreams, sometimes during singing. Last night, we went to Tarka’s grave at midnight and I received a vision.”
A communal party
The festival of Pasaabar is the most important of the Seto religious festivals and takes place annually in Obinitsa. Before Estonian independence, Obinitsa had more than a thousand inhabitants. Now there are just 245, but the village swells with Setos returning to their families from other parts of Estonia for Pasaabar. The day before the main festival, the cemetery in the forest at the edge of the village is a hive of activity as people tidy up their family members’ graves. In the homes, women prepare food for the festival. In the evening, there is a service in the small wooden Orthodox church, attended by about 20 elderly Seto and an equal number of Finns who arrived by bus.
After the service, a procession slowly makes its way through the village, before going down the empty gravel road to the tranquil lake beneath an indigo sky. Some villagers join in as the procession passes their homes. Orthodox hymns rise into the still air. At the lake, the head priest tentatively steps out onto a slightly lopsided pontoon, blesses the lake with a large gold cross that he dips in the water three times, before gleefully splashing the congregation behind him with water. After the evening meal, families go to the cemetery and place candles on their ancestors’ graves, turning this forested cemetery into a magical scene.
The next day, Pasaabar commences with another church service. Family groups laden with plates of food walk along the car-lined road leading to the church. Some of the cars have Russian plates. After the service, the congregation follows the priests and icon bearers as they slowly walk around the church. As the bell tolls, the head priest reads from a large bible carried before him, intermittently stopping, with a grin, to splash holy water on the congregation before entering the cemetery.
The Setos were pagans until the 14th Century, when the monastery at Petseri (Pechory in Russian, located 500 meters across the border in Russia) was built. Although they converted to Christianity, the Seto retained their pagan traditions and beliefs [earning them the appellation Poluvertsy – “half-believers,” in Russian]. The burying of their ancestors in the forest, the worshipping of the souls of their ancestors and the eating and leaving of food on their ancestors’ graves is perhaps the most obvious form of this cultural retention. For Pasaabar, every family grave has tables set upon them – some overloaded with food and crowded with people, while others have just two elderly Seto and one plate.
At the grave of his mother’s family, Riitsaar is in a reflective mood. He talks slowly and quietly in the dappled sunlight beneath the trees. “This place is where I get my strength from my ancestors,” he explains. “I remember standing here as a kid. I remember my grandmother and grandfather standing here, serving drinks and food. We come here to remember them with kind words and happy thoughts, and it is therefore a happy and reflective day.”
It is not just one’s family members that the Seto remember, but also friends. After an hour or so, people visit other graves, each time receiving food and a drink of the powerful Seto moonshine, Hanza, before talking of those who are no longer with them. Even strangers are welcomed in this way. The priests also visit the graves, blessing them before eating and drinking, and receiving some money from the family. The cemetery is literally alive and, as the day progresses and the Hanza consumption continues, things become more animated. By late afternoon, some start to leave, while others collect the flowers and leftovers and take them to ancient Seto burial mounds, deep in the forest.
For many of the younger generation, Pasaabar is simply a communal party – well worth coming back from Tallinn for. But for the older generation, it is vitally important to their way of life.
“For the old people,” Riitsaar’s mother explains, plate in hand, “this is the most important event of the year and they count the time of the year from Pasaabar – so they say ‘last year or 10 years ago, two months before or after Pasaabar time.’ It is the most important point from which they count time.”
In with the new
In recent years, it is not only festivals such as Pasaabar that have attracted people to the area. A younger generation of non-Setos have started to arrive, buying and restoring old farms, in search of a more natural way of life, away from the pressures of the modern free market economy of Estonia.
Ain and Segre Raal first came to Setomaa 10 years ago and bought their farm in the village of Küllätüvä three years ago. “We are country people and wanted to come to the country,” Ain says, sitting with his wife and young daughter by the farmhouse he has been restoring. “We are also very interested in folk culture and the music and dance of Setomaa,” Segre adds.
Ain and Segre have been accepted by the community and are involved in its daily life. Ain plays the Karmoska (a type of accordion) at parties and festivals and Segre runs the Seto Museum in Obinitsa.
“I want and hope to be a Seto,” Segre says. “Now, I see myself as a very close friend of the Setos. It’s not so easy to become a Seto after just two years.” With the Russian border less than two kilometers away, however, Segre fears for the future of her family, and both fear for the future of the Seto. Segre looks out across their land; “I hope that the Seto people will remain Seto, that they understand how rich they are, with their culture.”
“Yes,” Ain agrees. “So that they love their culture and they keep it alive and give it to their children.”
For the Seto, simply preserving their culture may not be enough. Preservation alone would turn them into museum pieces, something from the past. “What is important,” Riitsaar notes, “is to bring new things to our culture. It will depend on the younger generation: if they learn our traditions, our language, our old songs and write new songs. I hope that, in the future young designers and architects will bring Seto ideas and traditions to their work.”
Herein lies the problem for the Seto or any other small, traditional culture: all the young leave Setomaa to study or find work in the cities. As 17-year-old Maria puts it, “I want to study interior design in Finland. I won’t return to Setomaa. I don’t like this place. It is very small and very boring here. I don’t like Seto culture. Setos are very strange people.”
Estonia’s membership in the European Union may actually be a lifeline for the Seto. The growth in tourism has brought much-needed jobs and money to the region, as have EU grants. This, ironically, after Setomaa voted overwhelmingly against Estonia joining the EU, based largely on their past experience as part of another union: the Soviet Union.
Others, such as an Estonian diplomat based in Brussels (who requested anonymity), see Estonian inclusion in the EU as one source of the country’s border problems with Russia. “Russia’s refusal to sign the border treaty is so that they can influence Estonian and EU policies,” the diplomat said.
As for the Russian Seto, they have no tourism, no EU grants and live in one of Russia’s poorest regions.
Evar Riitsaar’s partner, Kauksi Ulle, Setomaa’s foremost writer, gazes at their baby, which she cradles in her arms and says with conviction, “I hope that the richness of our culture will not be diluted into Estonian culture, that our weddings, singing, family life and language will remain.”
As the late linguistics professor Kenneth Hale once said, speaking of just one aspect of Ulle’s concerns, “When you lose a language, you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art. It is like dropping a bomb on a museum.” RL
Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.
Russian Life 73 Main Street, Suite 402 Montpelier VT 05602
802-223-4955
[email protected]
