About 2 months have passed since our return to Estonia. Through all this time we have been staying in the village I grew up - a place called Laeva that means a ship in English.

Just yesterday after having fun piecing together a puzzle with the sights of Tartu, my son expressed a hope that there would be a similar one for our village. On the second thought he declared that there aren't many sights in Laeva to produce a good puzzle: just some apartment buildings, a bus stop, school, library, child care, gym, o yeah, and also couple corner  stores.

Though currently majority of Estonians live in cities a village life is very typical for Estonia. An age-old village was typically made up of couple dozens of scattered farms centering around closely situated manor, church, dairy and pub. And it stayed this way until the middle of 1940s when the Soviets occupied our country.

The Soviet occupation greatly changed Estonia, and foremost our villages. The Communist Party who knew that people have to be tightly kept under watchful eye started to move the country population from the older settlements to the newer ones around 1960s - away from the farm households to closely built apartment complexes, where people were lured with plumbing and later also central heating, not commonplace in traditional farmhouses. 

As Estonia is so small, any place here has some history and signs of settlement. Laeva that by someone's theory got its name from the fact that the deep forests here yielded nice ship masts has some history dating past the Soviet occupation.  It was first mentioned in 1295. Laeva parish was a seat for the manor (the owners though were the Baltic Germans). Prior to the Christmas 1765 the first kids were taught elementary knowledge and skills here. The school has been working in different buildings, but 4 years prior to the WWII the new dedicated building was raised with charity funds. Of community activities, I would mention the foundation of local Music and Song Society in 1865 that opened its own library in 1871. In 1914, the Society was able to raise their own building. First local government building was completed in 1868.

Perhaps as the signs of spirit and goodwill these embody, all the structures I mentioned still stand strong - though the functions thereof have changed.

Yet the newcomers (as my kids from America used to suburban views) first notice the testament of Soviet occupation – unsightly apartment buildings and the ghostly office complex raised 30 years ago. To be honest after my years in America, I noticed these first, too. Overseas I got used to that people cherish their dwellings, put a lot of love and care into them.

Yet if you'd took a second look in the centor of Laeva village, you would also notice that people still care about the place where they live. The women tend nice flower beds, men prune the trees and manicure the lawns, the old buildings have roofs changed and soon, pretty soon the apartment complexes will get a new coat of paint. But even more important there are more and more people making home in the farms nearby Laeva, some of them even raising new houses.

I can't say that my kids are very keen staying in Laeva. Yet there's a charm in a little village where it takes only couple minutes to go to school, library, government offices, bus stop etc. No hassles of commuting, no traffic jams. And it takes only couple minutes to get away from the people - all these vast fields, beautiful woods nearby, the river running at its slow pace. Well, it almost sounds like a resort!