How the Estonian national anthem was played once again in the Petrovka village in Kazakhstan

Gunda Tire writes an exclusive story about how she developed a greater interest in Estonian history while living in Kazakhstan thanks to discovering the village of Petrovka.

I am a Latvian woman from Latvia but Estonia has a great place in my heart. In the early 1990s, when I was a student at the University of Latvia, I received a scholarship and went to study at the University of Wisconsin in the United States for two years. I was incredibly lucky to get there because I had no idea I would meet Toomas from Tallinn, with whom I have been living for 30 years now. We became a Baltic family – our three children have grown up and speak both Estonian and Latvian, and it has been very useful at various points in time.

Toomas is an Estonian diplomat and life has taken us away from Estonia many times. I am writing about one of those times. We spent the last three years in Central Asia, in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. I discovered a new region for myself. We represented Estonia in five countries: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. They are all very different countries, and I have gotten to know their people, culture and food.

I would never have thought that Kazakhstan would be the place where I would discover my interest and passion for the history of Estonians. First, I was very moved by the history of Stalin’s Gulags. I imagined how our people, hailing from the shores of the Baltic Sea, had to survive in Northern Kazakhstan, with its harsh climate of steppe winds and cold winter. A camp called Alzhir for female prisoners was located near Astana, holding women who were deported only because their husbands, brothers or fathers were ‘traitors’ to the regime, and it has now been turned into a museum and memorial. On the museum wall, I could see Estonian and Latvian names of women who were taken to the camp. When I looked at the exhibition, a cold shiver ran down my spine and I thought that if I had lived in the era of Stalin, I could have ended up in a camp like this because my husband is a diplomat. 

However, I will talk more extensively about the Estonian village of Petrovka. After I arrived, I learned that close to Astana, about 100 kilometres from the capital, there is a village called Petrovka, founded by Estonians in 1893. According to legend, three Estonian officers who were discharged from the Tsar’s army, arrived at the Ishim River, because there were ‘virgin lands’ available for cultivation in Siberia. The men stopped on the banks of the Ishim River and fished. There was plenty of fish. The climbed the sopka (hill) next to the river that had a beautiful view, made a fire and said, ‘We want to live here.’ They went back to Estonia, brought their families, tools, kannels and Bibles, and came back. In the early 20th century, as many as 300 Estonians were living in Petrovka.  Some villagers were corresponding keenly with people in Estonia and their letters were printed in newspapers, such as Postimees and Ristirahva Pühapäevaleht. They can all be accessed in digital archives.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, thousands of people from Estonia and Latvia arrived in Siberia in search of land. According to various sources, up to 200 000 Estonians could have been in the wide expanses of Tsarist Russia. In Siberia (Northern Kazakhstan was a part of Siberia at the time), there were around 300 Estonian villages and ‘all of Siberia is full of Estonians,’ Postimees wrote in 1917.

We arrived more than a hundred years later, in 2021. In Petrovka, you can still see the clay brick houses built by Estonians and some inhabitants still spoke Estonian. Aliide Mägi was one of them. A small tough woman who was not scared of hard work. Back in the day, she spoke Russian to the calves of the sovkhoz and Estonian to her own calves. She was born in Petrovka and never got to go to Estonia. Sadly, Aliide died two months after we met and we had to go to her funeral in December, in minus 25-degree weather.

We also met Vilhelmine Kobar, who was born in an Estonian village in Siberia. Her husband Arnold was from Petrovka and in 1957, he went to Siberia in search of an Estonian wife. He chose Vilhelmine on the third day, brought her to Petrovka and here they had a proper ‘Estonian wedding.’ Vilhelmine was the villager we met most frequently but unfortunately she also died during our posting and we attended the funeral of the last Estonian to speak Estonian fluently. The third woman I met and spoke with at length, was Hermine Hakk, who also left this world a few months later.

I have very warm memories of these meetings. We looked at old albums and pictures together. Vilhelmine’s Bible in Gothic letters, probably taken along by the first Estonians, and the songbook of Aliide’s mother that included some of her life events, were sent to me. According to an agreement, these books will soon be given to the Estonian National Museum. Aliide’s prayer book without covers also came into my possession. Aliide spoke at length about how they burnt and hid their Estonian books when the Soviet rule was established.

The more I met the people of Petrovka, the greater my interest in their lives and history became. We found other descendants of Estonians, looking at old pictures and listening to their stories. Speaking to local Kazakhstani people, they praised the hard-working nature and the character of Estonians. Initially, Estonians had to establish themselves in that harsh steppe but eventually they learned to live together. For example, the Kazakhstani always had many horses, sheep and goats. If some of them fell ill, they were usually not treated. Estonians bought them for a small sum, nursed them back to health and this way, they took a rather inexpensive and quick path towards prosperity. Estonians also learned the local language, and built a school and a house of prayers in the village. The village had both a male and female choir. By working hard, they became quite prosperous, which is why many of them were later declared ‘kulaks.’ The enterprising spirit of Estonians is also confirmed by the story of some men going to Brazil from Petrovka in the early 20th century to try life on the other side of the ocean. However, they did not like life there and returned to Petrovka.

We really wanted the Estonian spirit to persevere in the village despite the fact that there were no Estonian speakers left there. With the village children, we watched Estonian films several times, held a concert for Estonian folk musicians and brought folk dancers from the Tuisulise group to the celebrations of the village’s 130th anniversary. With each meeting, our circle of friends grew and likewise, the warmth and friendliness that is difficult to describe. I can say that I now have two close friends, two good and strong women, Oksana and Liza, whose mothers were Estonian and whose childhood memories are connected to Estonian life in Petrovka. I know that Estonian genes continue to live in Petrovka.

We decided to hold our farewell reception in July 2024 in Petrovka. The village elder Yelena was initially in shock when we told her that we should invite the diplomatic corps, high-ranking Kazakhstani officials and the Estonians of Petrovka to a big joint party. The Kazakhstani people are very serious about hosting guests, which is why we coordinated our plans with the local and national authorities. It was a wonderful day! The weather was warm and sunny, there were guests from the capital Astana, as well as Estonians and their descendants from various parts of Kazakhstan. We had taught the girls of Petrovka how to dance the kaerajaan and as a result, we had an awesome party with a hike along the river and to the nearby sopka. Our good friend, the Ambassador of Japan, who is also an excellent trumpet player, played the national anthems of Estonia and Kazakhstan in our honour. It was marvellous! I do not know when was the last time that the Estonian national anthem was played in the village of Petrovka but I believe that all the Estonians who went there more than a hundred years ago and now rest at Petrovka’s cemetery would have approved.

I wrote My Petrovka about the history of the village and my encounters with the Estonian women who are sadly no longer with us. However, their descendants are alive and cherish Estonia in their hearts.

Gunda Tire
Director for International Relations, Education and Youth Board of Estonia