![]() ![]() There was talk about a large broken train that had been directed off the main rails in the wastelands near Moscow which was home for many. Some bits and parts cut off from buses or vans could also be detected. The buildings were made of various timber scrap, sheet metal or asbestos cement tiles, unambiguous in shape or entirely shapeless piles. Most had construed shelters or booths for themselves. This is why there was no definite structure or material used in these areas: earth, sand, gravel, concrete details, metal, wood, glass (sheets, containers), roofing tiles (asbestos cement), asphalted building cardboard and what not, also old aggregates left lying around on the socialist land. The owner of each garden used the area according to specific traditions which did not necessarily coincide with the neighbour’s solutions. Otherwise, the risk of getting plundered for fruits and vegetables was all too real since stealing unattended things was a common practice of that time. The actual gardening area was separated from the wasteland with specific and various types of wire mesh or other kinds of guard rails entwined from different metal scraps and were most likely subjected to some kind of inner order: some of the inhabitants would guard and protect the area from strange intrusions during day and night. The Russo-soviet little gardens were as if reflections of the immigrants’ longing for their motherland, given that even the current documentaries present a similar kind of daily life and environs in Russia. By now, most of those have been re-built into odd-looking private houses and the small lots have been separated with dense vegetation. Designing these ‘crofting lofts’ was usually a repetitive project and a good way to earn additional income for the otherwise poorly compensated architects, which is why quite a few of my colleagues became rich and able to afford to build a house. It was wildly different from the gardening co-ops organised by Estonians, where decent-looking garden cabins (I have been the proud owner of one of those in my time) were built on small, tidied lots according to certain standards. It is likely this opportunity came knocking in a more official format after the war when there was shortage of food and goods sold on the market were times more expensive than what you could get at the store, where supply was low anyway, and this type of pot farming could flourish. When writing about wastelands, it is impossible to ignore the ‘garden areas’ that had fused and blended into them, where for the most part the invasive ‘fellow man’ had established unauthorised small garden patches and where pure Russo-soviet life thrived during summer months. That is why artists and architects-the Tallinn School-felt less compromised than writers when roaming these areas. Over time, our wandering took us outside of the built city, into wastelands that alternated with fenced military troops which made photographing there a risky endeavour since any gunman had the right to capture a long-haired specimen with a photo camera and take him in for questioning. ![]() ![]() Together with Andres Tolts, Ando Keskküla and Ott Arder we, as poor students, would buy elegant garments from the era of the first Republic which we would upgrade with poppish accessories and reintroduce to our generation. The idea was to familiarise ourselves with architecture from the era of the first Republic of Estonia: back then, original interior decor and design had survived and in addition, under the guidance of Juhan Viiding, we would visit antique shops in different parts of town. The tree-framed square of lawn dating from the twenties is still the heart of the garden as a whole, but the fountain has disappeared, and so has the view of the Alps, which is blocked by a sweep of large maple trees.Wastelands became intriguing for intellectuals of my generation towards the end of the 1960s, since before that our roaming (we would call it ‘flanking’) would be concentrated around the downtown of Tallinn. Once the front door and finally even the large doors leading from the beautiful salon to the sunny garden terrace had been opened to you, you could look between two trees over the flanking box parterre with roses and on to the central part of the garden: a generous, square carpet of lawn, framed at the sides by two chestnut avenues, a fountain on the central axis, and stretching behind it the picturesque Alpine panorama on the horizon. If you had visited the industrial magnate Carl Martin Leonhard Bodmer and his wife Anna Vogel at their Rüschlikon country seat in the middle of the last century, you would have turned off from the main road into an avenue and let the limes trees guide you down the slope into the shady courtyard, surrounded by luxuriant conifers, in front of the portal of the upper-class, Neo-baroque villa. ![]()
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