1904

A Piece of the Orient amidst the Crimean Steppes

In 1904 Vilde began to work at the Tartu newspaper News. Having got an idea to write the novel Prophet Maltsvet, he needed to go to the Crimea to gather reminiscences of the Estonians who had emigrated there in the 1860s. Vilde started his journey on 20 September 1904 from Tartu and travelled through Riga, Smolensk, Moscow, Kursk, Kharkov to Simpheropol. In his travelogue A Guest of Estonians in the Crimea and Caucasus that was immediately published in the Tartu News as a serialised story, Vilde described characters seen in the train and through them the enormously troubled and exhausted Russia. Russia was at war with Japan, had to bear terrible losses in manpower and people were destitute. At the stations more and more mobilised men got on the train, seen off by crying and screaming mothers, wives and children. Russian trains are slow and the stops were hours long, the train was overcrowded. The writer compared this journey to martyrdom. Vilde who had travelled in the West was able to compare the two different cultures and did it frequently.

Simpheropol reminded Vilde of Constantinople, the capital of Turkey that he had recently visited. This distant corner of the Crimea resembled the Orient, he thought, especially its market and manners of trading, the motley types and clashing colours, the dirty streets and the multitude of cheap coffee-houses. As soon as one wandered away from the main street, he encountered something quite different. “Coming from around the market I felt I had reached Europe from Asia. He endlessly wondered about the various types of people he met in the streets.

As autumn had brought bad weather and muddy roads that were quite unpassable at places, Vilde became bored and tired with the trip. He longed to return to Tartu, to his beloved Linda Jürman and start writing his novel. Vilde’s travelogue A Guest of Estonians in the Crimea and Caucasus as well as his mammoth novel Prophet Maltsvet (1905-1908) can be considered the most valuable historical and cultural heritage for the Crimean and Caucasian Estonians’ offspring, making Vilde the best chronicler this ethnic group has ever had.