On the 1st of january, 2016, I woke up in an estonian dormitory. I know it sounds like the opening scene of a Hangover movie, but the less exciting truth is, that it was the exact same dormitory room, where I fell asleep last night. I celebrated the New Year's eve in Tartu as part of my baltic journey. Just to be sure, I didn't plan anything for the first day of the year, but those who know me, won't be suprised, that I just couldn't "do nothing". As early as 10am I felt ready to start the year with an adventure!
Luckily so did my host, so we decided to hitchhike to the lake Peipus. Beside the beautiful landscape, the "old believers" also make this place appear at any "What to see in Estonia" google search. The estonian touristical website describes this minority as hard-working, traditional, warm-hearted and talented fishermens, who gladly offer their homemade food for the visitors.
Well, this sounds like a good place to spend the first day of the year. So we started our little expedition in the search for the old believers, but it was more difficult, than we expected. I'm not exaggerating, when I write, that it was the coldest weather, I've ever experienced before. (But in the upcoming days this record got updated several times.) Unfortunately most of the cars took us for short distances, so we never had enough time to really warm up.
My estonian travel mate and host.
We were very excited to finally meet an old believer or at least somebody, who knows one. Once my estonian friend happened to reply on the "where are you going?" question by saying to the old believers. An other time, when this topic came up, the driver became serious and warned us, that if we wish to talk about religion, he better drops us out first. Well, Estonia is one of the most atheistic country of the world...
Finally we arrived to the lake Peipus, but instead of the warm-hearted old believers, the frozen lake and the icy wind welcomed us. After a few minutes, we ran into the closest shop to let us melt up. Here we also ate our sandwiches and asked everybody around, where can we find old believers.
The frozen lake Peipus.
We had good fun by harrassing the local people with funny questions like "Hi, are you an old believer?". Time flew so fast, we didn't even realize, when it got so dark. Unfortunately it got also colder, so we decided not to go out to hitchhike anymore. But what do we do then? How will we get back to Tartu? Taking a bus would be so embarrassing!
This is the church of the old believers.
Our brilliant idea was to add an other question to the funny ones, and ask if they could take us to Tartu. Luckily we found someone who could. Even though we didn't meet any old believers, we really enjoyed the first adventure of the year, and we had a lot of fun.
They say, what you do in the first day of the year, is what you will do in the entire year after. Well, in this case it seemed to work: my norwegian year could be very well described by the words "cold" and "hitchhiking".
