I've run out of my own, unfortunately, but they wouldn't have been able to help me anyway - what with them not living in Estonia during the time I want to ask about.
I've been wanting to ask someone some practical questions about what it was like living in Estonia in the middle of the 20th Century - especially in the years after Stalinism took force.
What was movement between countries like? Especially non-SSR countries? How would you get to Tallinn from Helsinki? Or Helsinki to Tallinn? Was it different going in one direction than it was going the other?
If an Estonian tourist wanted to visit Paris, could he? If a French tourist wanted to visit Tartu, could she?
Were Soviets patrolling the waters, with all those many islands? Could someone sneak in or out by boat?
If/when an "outsider" was allowed in, were they allowed to move around by themselves or did they have an escort? Was everyone expected to have some sort of papers on them when moving about in the town or country? If they didn't have papers, or if they had the wrong papers, what would happen to them?
It would be lovely if I could find someone's vanavanemad and chat with them about this sort of thing, but sadly I live in a vanavanemad free zone. My own grandmother left the country before the period I'm interested in, so she was never able to tell me these stories. And, of course, now she's gone so I can't even pump her for information about the 1920s.
Such is life.
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