A couple of nights ago, we went to a concert in the main square of Tallinn. A Slovenian industrial band called Stroj Machine created their own earthquake through the old town. Eleven people hammered away at 44 gallon drums, keyed compressed air through a ring of flutes, blew tubes of metal welded into trumpets and wound air-raid sirens. I’d have bought an album if I had the space and was sure they’d be as interesting on a recording as they were live.
We met a few of Merle’s friends and went to a bar to talk and listen to a Spanish jazz band. There, we started talking about anthropology. One of the friends, a man from Colombia who’s studying anthropology, said that he’d seen little interaction between the Russians and Estonians since he arrived (50% of the population are Estonian and 40% are Russians) and when they did interact, it was generally with animosity. Merle, who’s spent years doing PR for the country, disputed this, saying that cultural communities within a mixed society were common everywhere and if they didn’t interact, there was no problem.