Uit het moeras

by Carolijn Visser

Aan de hand van ontmoetingen met een Estlands echtpaar schetst de schrijfster een beeld van het leven van gewone mensen in het Baltische gebied die proberen zich te handhaven in een totaal veranderde wereld.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Carolijn Visser (Leiden, 5 september 1956) is een Nederlandse schrijfster van reisverhalen. Ze bracht een groot deel van haar jeugd door in Middelburg, waar ze de hbs bezocht. Ze reist al jarenlang over de wereld; haar belangstelling gaat vooral uit naar communistische en postcommunistische samenlevingen als Vietnam, Nicaragua, Estland, China en Tibet. Ze schrijft over mensen die zich onder moeilijke omstandigheden staande weten te houden. In 2019 werd haar een eredoctoraat van de Open Universiteit toegekend.

Reviews

[Bert van der Vaart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book and thought it did a superb job describing the transition of Estonia from being a forced Soviet republic to that of becoming independent and a member of the EU--a period of time roughly between 1990 and 2005. I realize that both Estonia and a very personal history of that nation making this transition will be of limited interest to many readers, and then written in Dutch on top of that, but for anyone interested in what that transition looked like in reality, Uit het Moeras (out of the swamp) is excellent.

I had the good fortune of living with my family in Poland from 1994 to 1997, and of managing with my colleagues in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, a Baltics focused SME fund from 1995 to 2006--thus overlapping this period, as well as overseeing SME funds in St Petersburg and Nizhni Novgorod in Russia from 1996 through 2006, to see the Russian side of things.

Visser gets to know an Estonian couple from the days before Gorbachev, riding the TransSiberian Express from effectively the Chinese border to Moscow. She visits them in what was still an agricultural collective--a Kolkhoz-- and one of the most successful ones during the Soviet Union. the time is very much one of "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work"--although the Estonians are good workers and have decent pride. But once Estonia breaks free from the Soviet Union, everything changes.

Uit het Moeras follows the changes--both good and bad--which the residents of the Kolkhoz witness, as well as relatives in Riga across the border. Dutch colleagues at first try to trade and work with Estonians during this change, but the differing cultures and large changes that occur--even with "mafia" players as well as larger corporations from the Scandinavian countries and Germany, for example, make the changes very rapid and difficult.

As one key example, Visser befriends Aavo--who had in the past been instrumental in making the impossible 5 year plans kind of work. His job it was to "find" key input factors needed for the Kolkhoz to operate, given that petty corruption and incompetence meant such input factors were in fact not foreseen in the plan. But from being a star who knew just what to give to those with power over these input factors, Aavo had to deal with a society which suddenly was dominated by Microsoft, Colgate-Palmolive and Bahlsen. Aavo tries to set up a garage but finds that working with his friends leads to free riding, drinking on the job and unaccountability at a time when customers demanded reliability. While disappointments abounded, the majority in the village find a way through the changes.

Privatization and new chances for Estonians who could speak languages other than Russian and Esti meant that many who were first now became last. Visser records these changes and what they meant to local people in particular in a well written and sympathetic way. As a deep snapshot of this time and place, I have read few books better.

[Lalagè · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carolijn Visser begint het boek echter met een korte levensbeschrijving van Aavo en daarna van Daina. Als lezer moet je dus even geduld hebben voor je het idee van het boek te pakken hebt.
In 1991 gaat ze op bezoek op de boerderij van Aavo’s familie. De naastgelegen kolchoz wordt geprivatiseerd nu Estland weer een onafhankelijk land is geworden.
Carolijn gaat met Daina mee naar Riga en met Aavo reist ze door Rusland, waar hij een paar jaar geleden nog vaak kwam om te handelen.
Dit boek geeft een uniek beeld van een nieuw land met oude wortels.

https://lalageleest.nl/2023/01/04/uit...

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

On one of her journeys to China, Carolijn meets a young couple from Estonia. They invite her to come to their country to see how they deal with the fact that Estonia became independent from Russia. A beautiful and moving book about a new country with brave people who try to get on their own feet.