On 23 August 1989, two million people linked hands across the Baltic States, a line 676 kilometres long. Stretching from Tallinn to Vilnius, this human chain sang of democracy’s return to their lands and an end to illegal Soviet occupation, possibly the world’s longest ever choir.
Exactly 34 years later my brother and I stood in the national museum in Tartu, Estonia, scanning photos of the day for Greg’s younger self, and his hosts of his first visit to our homeland, Kalevi and Tiiu Kull. Crowded footpaths in Tallinn and beyond, women and men, families with children, the old, shining faces, all singing. No Greg in the pictures of brave Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, but a single voice for better futures, independent futures. An Estonian I met on a ferry in the islands recalls queuing two hours for pork bones and lemonade, all that a shop had in 1988. Greg’s friend Tiiu speaks of her grandparents and an uncle’s family wrested from their homes and flung into Siberia where close to all starved and died, a common Estonian story, and our own family embodies this story. Never to forget.
I was born in Wellington, New Zealand, as John Bernard Napp, the oldest son and grandson of Second World War refugees from Estonia. Exiled across the world, a South Pacific paradise as they saw it, Bernard and Erika escaped the fate of 30,000 or more Estonians executed without trial or sent to the gulag. Sittu ruttu, karu tuleb is an old saying dad was fond of – “shit quickly, the bear is coming”. He and grandma spoke Estonian to each other as we grew up, but not to us. New Zealand was home now for our family, Estonia, a memory, an idea.
In August 2023 Greg and I cycled across Estonia, where family and friends took us in and gave a helping hand, all people I met for the first time. Their hospitality was overwhelming, and I cannot say enough thanks. For some, Greg and I were fading colour photos of sunny kids jumbled among Estonian family sepia; to others, a welcome reunion with Greg, a botanist and nature conservationist. And, perhaps, curiosity at two older blokes pedalling the country’s roads, lanes and tracks, camping in the forests, swimming in the Baltic, picking blueberries for breakfast and chanterelles for dinner, and visiting sacred stones, trees and waterfalls.
I wanted to discover the country dad and grandma came from, tap the family history, and understand how this tiny northern European country of 1.3 million people still exists after eight centuries of invasions, the Soviets, the latest trial of Estonia’s strength, and a source of present anxiety. After 1000 or more kilometres of cycling, 16 nights of tenting and 17 with family and friends, I now record this testimony, starting with our most vivid experience of Estonia, the sauna, without which it is scarcely possible to be Estonian, and, who knows, may even have ensured Estonians’ survival.
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