Sunday September 14th.
After checking in to the hotel, which looks like a hunting lodge with lots of stuffed animals scattered
around, I get a photocopied map from the
receptionist, confirm the direction of the town centre and head towards it. It
is the first depressing place I have stopped at on my trip.
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| Hotel Metzis, built in 1912 |
On the plus side,
there is a pleasant park opposite the hotel with a new sports centre; that's
where the good news ends.
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| Pleasant Park |
Most of the population appear to live in 4 -6 storey
apartment blocks and many of the small individual houses are boarded up. There
are a few basic shops and two supermarkets near the town centre. Lilly's cafe
and the Conquistador bar look permanently closed. There is a church with a long
and battered history. What I assume was once the town centre is deserted, with
most of the potentially quaint wooden buildings dilapidated and boarded up. I
walk past the, now obsolete, border post to the Latvian side to find a mainly
residential area of more 4-6 storey apartment blocks and a Soviet style town
hall.
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| This old wooden house is still lived but many aren't |
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| Very Empty |
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| Even more empty |
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| The Lutheran Church in the "City" Centre |
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| Deserted and boarded up "City" Centre |
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| Deserted and boarded up |
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| Border Post. The other side says "Eesti Varbariik" |
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| Leaving Valka. Entering Valga |
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| Redundant Border Post |
There are groups of teenagers hanging around with nothing to do.
Definitely no where to get a meal. Not even a Burger King or McDonalds. I
wonder if the Latvians on one side and the Estonians on the other socialise
with each other? Do they have any common language? 30 years ago it would have
been Russian. 100 years ago did they live in completely separate groups?
Since there is nowhere to eat in
town, I go to the Voorimehe Pubi, which I am later amazed to find has its own
website:
The woman in charge can tell me
that there is salad, soup, fish and meat, so I choose the fish which turns out
to be quite good, breaded fish fillets with potatoes and a green sauce. It's about the standard of English Pub Grub twenty years ago but it's filling and won't break the bank. The
beer on draft is "A Le Coq" which sounds French but is actually an
Estonian beer. According to Wikipedia, "The company was founded by Albert
Le Coq in London in 1807, using a brewery in Tartu that was founded in
1826.". The complicated history of the company mirrors that of Estonia as a
whole.
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| A. Le Coq Beer at the Voorimehe Pubi |
Valga changes all my perceptions
about Eastern Europe. Tallinn and other big cities have seen their
fortunes rise over the past 25 years but Valga seems to have suffered decline
after decline over the past 100. If you read the town guide at the "Visit
Estonia" web page you will see a beautifully rose tinted picture
describing Valga as a " a pearl waiting to be discovered."
It's obviously presumptuous of me
to make any comments after less than 24 hours in the place but I am going to do
it anyway.
In medieval times it was quite
significant. Walk, the German spelling, was first mentioned in 1286 and from
1419 was the seat of the Landtag of the Livonian Confederation. It was granted the rights of a city in 1584.
By the 19th century it was part
of the Russian empire, run by a German
speaking nobility with a population of
mainly Latvians and Estonians. Apparently the first Estonian mayor was
elected in the late 19th century and secondary education, which had previously
been in German only, was also conducted in Estonian. It had Lutheran, Roman
Catholic and Orthodox churches. It had a railway station. I am sure it wasn't paradise but maybe not
such an awful place to live. In 1914, the First World War changed everything. As
the Russian Empire collapsed Estonia
and Latvia fought wars of Independence with
Bolshevik Russia and won. It was here in Valga that the decision to proclaim
the independent Republic
of Latvia was made. The
red and white flag of Latvia
was raised here for the first time in 1917. Estonia
and Latvia
came into existence as nation states for the first time. But independence came
with a terrible price.
Valga was on the border and Latvia and Estonia both claimed it. For some
reason, an Englishman arbitrated that most of the town should go to Estonia and some to Latvia. Latvians on the Estonian side were "encouraged"
to move to the Latvian side. Then came the second world war when the area was
invaded first by the Soviet Union, under Stalin's non aggression pact with
Hitler, then by the Germans, when they launched their offensive against Russia, and finally by the Soviet
Union again as it
overwhelmed the German forces. Many of the local population were
deported to the Soviet Far East. On the plus side, a new station was built in
1949. Within the Soviet Union there was at
least free movement across the border that divided the town and lots of
Estonians moved over to the Latvian side.
In 1991 both Estonia and Latvia won their independence and
what did they do? Just a few years after the Berlin wall came down, they established
border controls between the two parts of the town, dividing it along an
arbitrary line that split streets and even houses. People needed special passes
to visit their friends and relatives, even to bury their dead. Finally the
Schengen arrangement has opened the border and the EU is pumping in some money
for new pavements and infrastructure but
whether that can save Valga remains to be seen. On one side all the signs are
in Estonian and maybe English, on the other in Latvian. The claim is "One
town Two states" but it has a long
way to go.
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| One City, Two States? |
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| The Estonian Viewpoint |
The words ' ripe for development' spring to mind.
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