USSR JOURNAL John Held, Jr. It took seven months before Ilmar Kruusamae found the "right hole" into which he could drop his request to bring me to Tartu, Estonia, for a two week artist workshop in September 1990. We began talking about the possibility of my coming in September 1989, but it wasn't until a chance meeting with a childhood friend of his currently in the city government that Ilmar found the correct proceedure that would bring my wife Paula and I to Estonia with an official visa. Traveling to the USSR through the auspices of Intourist, the official Soviet travel agency, is both restrictive and expensive. With official permission obtained through the Mayor of Tartu, Paula and I were able to make our own decisions about where we slept and ate, by what means to travel, and most importantly, there was no need for daily reports of our whereabouts to the local authorities. Let there be no mistake, even in these times of dramatic change, travel arrangements are still highly restricted and regulated in the USSR. But thanks to the good graces of Ilmar Kruusamae, we had fallen through "a hole' and into a unique situation. Ilmar and I had been correspondents for several years. He first learned of mail art in 1984, when he received a catalog to the exhibition, "Experimental Art", organized by the Young Artists Club of Budapest, Hungary. An accomplished painter, Ilmar was a participant in the exhibition, which also included mail artists from around the world. Addresses of the exhibition participants were included in the catalog, and soon Ilmar was writing to several people, myself included. Tartu, Estonia, were Ilmar resides, is the home of the second oldest University in the Soviet Union. Having heard about the performances I'd done, he thought that the students in Tartu would be interested in them. Thus began our discussions about my coming to visit. At first we had hoped that our trip would coincide with the arrival of Net Run, a mail art networking project involving Shozo Shimamoto, Ryosuke Cohen and Mayumi Handa. And so I conceived the idea of an International Mail Art Symposium in the USSR, which was based on the meeting two years ago when both the Japanese mail artists and myself (as well as other Japanese, French, Italian and American artists) were participants in a similar Mail Art Symposium in Hiroshima, Japan. Unfortunatly Shozo and Company had preceeded us to the Soviet Union by some two weeks. While regretable, it was just one more indication that the Soviet Union was becoming a fully intergrated partner in the international mail art network. Day One in the Soviet Union was a real thriller. I knew there was going to be some trouble from the first. I had written to Ilmar and told him that I would be sailing from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia, on Sunday, September 16, and just before Paula and I left we received an answer from him telling us that he would meet our ship. But between letters I was informed by the shipping company that our Sunday booking had been cancelled and that we would have to leave the following day. When Paula and I arrived in the Soviet Union on Monday, September 17th, there was nobody there to meet us. We took a taxi to the bus station where the driver bought us two tickets and took a 9 o'clock bus that arrived in Tartu just after midnight. It was very dark and very lonely at the Tartu bus station, and Paula and I had visions of sleeping out in the cold that first night. But a taxi driver took us under his wing and drove us to Ilmar's mailing address at Vaike Kaar. We spent several minutes trying to wake someone up to no avail, until all of a sudden there was a light, and a startled woman informed us that this was not Ilmar's home but simply a place he received his mail. But she had a note for us in case we did arrive, and it contained the welcome news that we were to check into the Taru Hotel and await further instructions. It was late, and we were tired, but we had a comfortable place to rest two very weary heads. The next morning we were awakened by Indrek Park, a friend of Ilmar's, who was to be our interpreter for the next two weeks. A nineteen year old anthropology student, Indrek was to be our most valuable resource of the trip. He had been to the United States on an exchange program several months before and had been offered a full scholarship to Princeton University, which he rejected in order to fininsh his preliminary training in Estonia. He was a never ending source of facts ranging from Estonian history and culture to the height of various national monuments. He also spoke excellent English, Russian, German and several languages of Siberian nationalities who he studied and had lived with. And it was a good thing, because our host, Ilmar Kruusamae, did not speak English. I remember how surprised I was when meeting Seiei Nishimura in Iida, Japan, and finding that he knew no English even after we had exchanged numerous letters in English. Ilmar, like Seiei, spent considerable time translating my letters and having someone write back to me. I grew to love Ilmar, who has a heart of gold and would have done anything for Paula and I. He certainly went out of his way to make sure we were comfortable and amused at all times. I regret that we weren't able to have long lingering conversations about the many common experiences we shared and the dissimilarities of our lives. But thanks to Indrek we were able to share many thoughts. That first day in Tartu was a busy one. We gathered supplies to hang the exhibition at the University Library, went to eat at our first Soviet resturant, walked around the center of town, and made posters for the exhibit at Ilmar's painting studio. At the end of the day, we met Ilmar's family - his wife Cyria, daughter Mar�, and son Karley. The following day we went to the University Library for the exhibition opening. In addition to the sixty or so postage stamp sheets I had sent Ilmar, there was a nice display of some of my books, mail art envelopes and articles on mail art in glass cases. I was interviewed about mail art and about my involvement in it for Estonian National Radio, which was broadcast later in the day. Whenever possible, I always stressed that mail art was a process of interaction between artists of different cultures and a vehicle to better understanding. I talked briefly about mail art at the opening and then sat down at a table and rubber stamped perforated gummed sheets that I had brought with me. There was plenty of interest in this, due to the fact that visual rubber stamps are still a novelty in the Soviet Union, and I suppose that I, being a foreign artist, was also a bit of an anomaly. But whatever the reason, I was very gratified that I was hard at work for more than an hour making art for some very appreciative people. Paula and I were given a tour of the Library and had coffee with the administrative staff. And after hinting broadly about my love of rubber stamps, I was presented with some from the Library. No mean feat, when one considers that rubber stamps used in education, business and government ministries are literally locked up at the end of the day to insure their safety. That night we spent a quiet evening at home with Ilmar and his family. Cyria prepared a very nice dinner of turkey, potatoes and cole slaw. It was a relaxed affair where we all got to know each other just a little bit better. And when I think back on the trip, it is the quiet times like these that mean so much. The children were thrilled to have Americans in their house. And Paula and I were equally thrilled to be so warmly accepted far away from home. On Thursday, September 20th, Ilmar picked Paula and I up in his car, and after first being joined by Indrek's sister, Vilia, and brother-in-law, Toonu, who is an accomplished photographer having won many international medals, we wove our way through the southwestern Estonian countryside just beginning to cloth itself in it's new autumn plummage. We went first to a sports camp in Kaariku, where we made arrangements to spend the evening, and then we proceeded to our final destination some twenty miles away, a painting camp, which accommodated French and German artists, as well Soviet artists from Moscow, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Turkistan. We paid a visit to their studios, and when the sun went down, we all gathered around a fireplace to drink beer and talk. What a thrilling experience to share information with such a diverse range of artists. We returned to the sports camp to sleep, but the next day we drove back to the painting camp and I was given the opportunity to perform for these artists who had already shared so much with me. We have bought both paint and chalk with us for the Shadow Performances, and I had originally intended to do the performance inside on a large paper surface. But the day was beautiful, dry and crystal clear, and because the audience was composed of artists I decided to give the performance a new shape by having them decorate my wetsuit by drawing on me in chalk. This proved very successful, and our group moved from studio to studio offering the artists an opportunity to add to the composition. Children of the artists and the camp support staff also joined in. And then I found a place on the ground to make shadows, and many took turns drawing my outline in chalk and then decorating the figures. I considered it to be one of the most successfull Shadow Performances yet. A new wrinkle had been added in a spontaneous fashion, and I've always been attracted to this sort of instantaneous happening rather then repeating tried and true ideas. Still in costume, I set out my rubber stamps and began to stamp out perforated sheets of paper as I had done at the exhibition opening. It was very gratifying to see that the artists found this as interesting as did the general public. Ilmar, Indrek, Paula and I then spent the rest of the day sightseeing in the southwest of Estonia, going so far as to slip over the borders of Latvia and Russia. The countryside was beautiful, marked by small farmhouses painted in a traditional ochre. The land was devoid of either trash (no styrofoam or plastics from fast food resturants) or billboards. And to end a perfect day, we went to the country house of Ilmar's parents-in-law in Voru, where Paula and I are taught the joys of an Estonian sauna, complete with beatings of birch twigs in order to aid the circulation. On Saturday, we drove back to Tartu. While looking for more chalk in the town, we did some souvenir shopping finding some great Soviet pins and banners in a childrens shop. Much out of favor with the Estonians, they are still very appealing to Paula and I. In fact, we learned very quickly that there is no love lost between the Estonians and their Russian landlords. Russian terrorists have destroyed Estonian monuments quite recently in retribution for the national pride that burns in every Estonian heart. Both Ilmar and Indrek are staunch Estonian patriots and are hopeful about freedom for their country. The days were passing by very quickly at this point in our journey. I visited a childrens' art school and gave a demonstration with the rubber stamps and gave the Shadow Performance. At the conclusion, our merry band (Ilmar, Indrek, Paula and Toonu) walked to the center of town - me wearing my wetsuit looking like some Japanese movie monster escaped from the screen, and Ilmar and Indrek in the Mexican wrestling masks I have provided them with. We stopped every now and then and had a passing pedestrian draw shadows around me as I lay on the street. And in the very center of town, a huge crowd gatherd as we did a longer performance. But no one seemed unduly shocked, not even the soldiers that passed us by. Ilmar said it will take several years for what they saw to sink in. And then, just to even out the madness, I gave a lecture at the University Library on mail art publications and the artist stamp sheets I exhibited. A nice crowd came out for the talk and many questions were asked. At the conclusion, a man stepped out from the crowd and gave me some Estonian rubber stamps from the 1930s. It was just one more indication of the kindness I received throughout the trip. We made preparations for our trip to Leningrad to meet mail artist Oleg Yudin. Ilmar sent him a telegram alerting him of our arrival several days before. Ilmar, Indrek, Tonnu, Paula and myself boarded the bus from Tartu to Leningrad at midnight on the 26th. The bus wasn't very crowded so we each had seats to ourselves and we stretched out as best we could for a long evening of fitfull sleeping. We arrived in Leningrad about 9 in the morning and - what was this?- was it the KGB? There was a man at the bus door with a long green overcoat and a hat pulled over his eyes. I was getting a little worried because Paula and my visa are not good for Leningrad - we were there quite illegally, but were assured by Ilmar and Indrek that it was no problem, and anyway they promised they would come to Siberia with us. But it was only Oleg, looking very much like a detective. After all, he and the American mail artist Fa Ga Ga Ga are co-organizing the Detective Mail Art Show, so I guess it's only fitting. We went to get a cup of coffee, but the coffee shop we visited didn't have any coffee, and it iwas apparent that there were shortages. As we took the trolley to Oleg's apartment on the outskirts of Leningrad, we could see the people lined up for various goods. As we walked around later, we could see that only about one in five shops were even open. But all these thoughts of shortages are forgotten when we arrived at Oleg's flat, which is on the thirteenth floor of a fifteen story apartment buiding. Oleg, his wife Olga and their two children, share a large part of the floor with three other families. They both live and work in these quarters. Oleg is a cartoonist, and Olga is a folk artist of very high caliber. We were to purchase several of her nesting dolls and consider them to be the high points of our acquisitions on the trip. Before setting off to see the Hermitage museum, Olga prepared a great lunch of duck. It's my favorite meal. And I think that even in a land of shortages there is still the possibility of great happiness. The Hermitage is of course one of the great museums of the world and it was possible to see only a fraction of the collection. But it was impressive. And afterwards, a friend of Oleg, Alexander, took Paula, Indrek and I on a tour of the central city in his car. It was a real treat. Oleg is in an artists' collective called The Raft group, and we were to meet some of the artists. The next day his friend Eugene arrived in the uniform of the Leningrad police. His first words were to reassure us, telling us not to be alarmed, and he gave me his police badge as a souvenir. As he is a photographer and had brought his camera, I get in the wetsuit, which I had brought to Leningrad with me, and we took some group photos. The kids loved it. Before leaving on Thursday, September 29th, we went to the public library where we were able to use the videoplayer to show our Leningrad friends the videotape Indrek had made of the Tartu Shadow Performance. Then we took a trolley to the center of the city, where fate lead us to a glamorous nightclub floorshow in one of the city's finer hotels (the Nevsky). We were only after an elusive cup of coffee, but were guided to the best seats in the nightclub. We had meat and fish appetizers, soup, a main dish and brandy. We saw folk dancers, jugglers, showgirls and singers. The bill for eight people was 260 rubles, or about $40 at the official exchange rate. But at the unofficial exchange rate (about 25 rubles as oppossed to the official 6) the entire affair cost us about $12 for eight people. This is the sad state of the Soviet economy. With hugs goodbye, Paula and I and our Estonian companians left our new Russian friends. We had only spent two days with Oleg Yudin, his wife, their children and their friends, but their lives made an impression on us. One wonders what the visits of Shozo Shimamoto, Ryosuke Cohen and Mayumi Handa earlier in the month, now our visit, and in one week's time the visit of Fa Ga Ga Ga and his wife, will mean to them. They have broadened our life, made us view our comforts with new eyes. And what have we brought them? Well, I hope it's to show them that there are faces behind the letters they receive. That we may live in different circumstances, but that we want to reach out and discover our common bonds. To confirm our common bonds. Another long bus trip back to Tartu. We arrived at 4 in the morning and went to Indrek's house for some sleep and a shower. And then another bus trip to Tallinn, where Paula and I are to take the ferry back to Helsinki where we will catch a plane back to Dallas. In Tallinn we visited the old part of the city. Dennis Banks was there three weeks earlier and left a message of peace as part of his Sacred Run project. How to say goodbye to Ilmar and Indrek, who have been our constant companions for these past two weeks? The saddest part for me is knowing that instead of sharing our thoughts and our adventures directly, that we must go back to the old ways of communication - three weeks for a letter to travel from the United States to Estonia - three more weeks for Ilmar's reply to reach me. What is so immediate can be no more. But for just a second more before we went through customs and onto our ship, there was time for one more knowing look. We have come together and grown these past two weeks. No matter what the geographical or cultural distance, Ilmar and I are linked. We had used mail art as a tool to conquer our differences. We were the brushes, and life was the canvas. TARTU SHADOWS: PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL MAIL ART SYMPOSIUM IN THE USSR by JOHN HELD JR. Front cover: Shadow Performance at the Tartu Laste-Kunstikool, Tartu, Estonia, USSR (photo: Paula Barber). Tartu Shadows: Proceedings of the International Mail Art Symposium in the USSR. By John Held Jr. October 1990. Dallas, Texas. Designed by Paula Barber and John Held Jr. Special thanks to Ilmar Kruusamae and Indrek Park. Tartu Shadow Performance at the Tartu Laste-Kunstikool, Tartu, Estonia, USSR (photo: John Held Jr.) Mail art exhibition poster for Net Run project in Leningrad (photo: John Held Jr.) Ilmar Kruusamae in his studio (photo John Held Jr.) Exhibition opening at the Tartu University Library (photo: Paula Barber) Shadow Performance at the Painters Camp: John Held Jr., Ilmar Kruusamae and Alexander Glanhacho (photo: Paula Barber) Rubber stamp workshop for Tartu schoolchildren (photo: Paula Barber) International Mail Art Symposium in the USSR: Ilmar Kruusamae, John Held Jr. and Oleg Yudin (photo: Paula Barber) Ilmar Kruusamae and John Held Jr. at Dennis Bank's Sacred Run monument in Tallinn, Estonia, USSR (photo: Paula Barber) |