Antarctica Day in Estonia

December 1st is celebrated as Antarctica Day around the world because that is the day when the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959, dedicating Antarctica to peace and science. It is also the day when the Estonian Polar Club was established in 1984 - these kinds of clubs were an extreme rarity at that time, but somehow managed to get permission to operate under the Estonian Maritime Museum. It is also the day when in 2017 Ross Sea Marine Protected Area entered into force (signed in 2016) - this is the last time CCAMLR was capable of passing a decision on an MPA. Three other proposed MPAs have not been able to gain a consensus vote despite very solid scientific grounds due to some Parties’ dedicated obstruction of protection measures.

Birgit Njåstad speaking to the audience in the beautiful hall of the Estonian Academy of Sciences.

To celebrate the core values of peace, science and environmental protection that the Antarctic Treaty upholds, look back at Estonia’s scientific engagement and discuss what this should look like in future, and analyse the complicated geopolitical situation of polar politics, we have organised a half-day symposium in the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Dreamed up during the Milan ATCM, the Symposium united all major stakeholders of Estonian polar affairs. It was organised in collaboration between the Polar Research Committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estonian Ministry of Climate, and Estonian Polar Club. It was a pleasure to welcome the former CEP-chair and a true expert on Antarctic environmental protection, Brigit Njåstad from the Norwegian Polar Institute, to Tallinn for a keynote speech. Equally valuable was the participation of all our international and local panelists. (Click on the picture above to access the recording of the day!)

For myself, this meant chairing a panel on Antarctic Environmental Protection, Climate Change and Europe, several media engagements (including appearance in the morning program of Kanal 2, see 59:30 ff) and supporting the social media campaign of the institutions with expert advice. While we obviously cannot solve the geopolitical deadlock of the Antarctic Treaty System, we could hopefully contribute to increased awareness of the Antarctic politics, particularly the Madrid Protocol, and the needs of Antarctic science in Estonia.

Environmental History Today on air again

During the season 2023-2025 I have the honour to serve as the Chair for the Council of Regional Representatives for the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH) and during this period, the CRR will be hosting the Environmental History Today seminar series. Each month, one region will be discussing what is going on in their environmental history - with book launches, presentations, round tables and whatever format the regions consider important. The seminar series is currently chaired by myself representing the Baltic States, Anna Olenenko from Ukraine and Nina Vieira from Portugal.

Today, the series has kicked off with the book launch by Viktor Pál, Tuomas Räsänen and Mikku Saikku. the next in line will be my very own Baltic region with a presentation by Karl Hein on Animal Rights in Interwar Estonia.

Environmental History Today seminar series on the ESEH web page

member of the polar research committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences!

Now it’s official!

As of May 25, 2021 I have ben officially appointed a member of the Polar Research Committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences!

The Polar Research Committee is a body that coordinates polar research in Estonia and acts as as a contact to European Polar Board. It is also the scientific research institution that coordinates Estonian Antarctic engagement, which is the reason why I joined their ranks.

Polar committee is affiliated to the Estonian Academy of Sciences, but not all the members need to be academicians. I am glad to see though that the all-the-too-male composition of the committee has improved with the new appointments this year.

In the bed of the receding glacier at Snow Hill island, ducking from the bird attack. Nordenskjöld’s overwintering station and our camp far in the background, Jonathan and Dag droning the receding glacier line in the middle ground.

Lahemaa Military Heritage Days videos are out

The video recordings from the Lahemaa military heritage days are finally online as a Youtube playlist for everybody to look and listen. Three days cover a variety of topics from the general outline of the defense systems during the Cold War, the infrastructures of the Hara-Suurpea complex, but also everyday life in the border restriction zone. Most of videos are in Estonian, with the exception of the talk by Aleksandr Zaitsev, the diver who worked at the bottom of Hara Bay, who speaks in Russian.

Our exhibition at the Estonian National Museum in focus again

Reconstruction of the plague doctor mask and a modern protective gear for infectious diseases. Perhaps it is good that the museum is closed right now - these protective suits are a very priced commodity right now.

During 2015-2016, I had a privilege to work together with my colleagues from KAJAK, the Estonian Centre for Environmental History, and Estonian National Museum on a part of their new permanent exhibition on humans and environment. The part that I was responsible for, was a display on health and environment in Estonia in a historical perspective. Then it was a nerd choice in many ways - today it is in focus again. From the beginning of the epidemics, the images of our plague mask replica started spreading on social media. Yesterday, Alar Karis, the director of the Museum published a blog post on our materials related to small-pox mortality and early vaccination in Estonia.

Small-pox part of the display was in many ways exciting. Materials on small-pox vaccination campaigns were in many ways abundant but to grasp and visualise the context in many ways rather difficult as they principally consisted of books filled with the names of the vaccinated. But then there was an original knife for vaccination, as well as books that instructed how to do it - vaccination was carried out by local pastors, making thus sure that the vaccines also reached the remotest parts of the country. To convey that feeling and the process, we even staged a short film (freely watchable on youtube). Arguments against people who did not want to vaccinate their children remain eerily relevant for today. For a long time, we were searching for a photo of somebody with small-pox scars, but even Stalin’s photos are all retouched. In the end, University of Tartu’s History Museum found a scary series in their collection where you can see the deterioration of a small-pox patient day by day.

A man with small-pox on the 4th and 8th day of being at Tartu University Hospital in 1920s(?). I’m not sure he had a 9th day… TÜ Muuseumi fotokogu, nr ÜAM F 445:107/5 F

Choosing diseases that would be displayed at the exhibition was not so easy either. 1812 plague was something that we definitely wanted to include, but finding original objects from a disease outbreak more than 200years ago that had killed close to 80% of the population in some parts of Estonia, is very challenging. Since everybody was busy with surviving, nobody had time to actually keep track of how many people died, and most objects were destroyed, our knowledge is very scarce. In the end, the plague outbreak was represented with a short film of the archaeological excavation of Tallinn’s Santa Barbara graveyard and a running list of people who died of plague in Tallinn that keeps running and running without an end in sight. And the mask, of course, even though we have no historical documents that prove that exactly this was the design used in Estonia at that time.

This is not all of what we managed to fit into the small space dedicated to environmental history of epidemics in Estonia. There is water contamination by disposed medicine, development of quinine, emergence of sterilisation and hospital hygiene, and folk medicine, among other things. In the course of preparing it, I got to see the amazing medical and pharmaceutical collections of the Tartu University History Museum and stocked up a whole pile of material on other diseases that never made it to the exhibition and keep waiting for me to write about them.

Variatsioonid variolatsiooni teemal ehk „ilusad tüdrukud saavad paremini mehele kui rõugearmilised"

ERMi direktor Alar Karis. Ajal, mil uus viirushaigus on alustanud inimkonna proovile panemist, on arusaadavalt huvi selle teema vastu kõrgendatud. Selles blogiloos ongi jutuks nakkushaigused, täpsemalt võitlus rõugete vastu. Karmim haigus, mis omal ajal eestlasi maha niitis leetrite, düsenteeria, koolera, tüüfuse, sarlakite, malaaria ja rõugete kõrval, oli kindlasti katk.

Cold War memories revisited in the Estonian island lockdown

BBC has prepared a video clip about the island of Saaremaa and I discuss on the Cold War Coasts blog why this brings back the memories of the Cold War.

Estonia's 'corona island' a flashback from the Cold War

BBC.com featured today a video piece on "Estonia's 'corona island'", as they put it, that is, island Saaremaa that finds itself completely cut off from the mainland under the harsh COVID-19 measures taken in Estonia. Whether or not it is nice to label an island a 'corona island' because there are many diagnosed cases, is...

Chasing the shadows of a nuclear power plant never built

Me and Achim are chasing a forgotten nuclear project.

Chasing after shadows - or - The nuclear power plant never built in Estonia

Sometimes interesting intellectual journeys can start with literally one small dot on a map. This happened to us when Achim was looking at a book that featured the map of nuclear power plants planned for the Soviet Union. Do you know anything about this dot on the territory of Estonia, he asked.