SILLAMÄE
lien vimeo: https://vimeo.com/45278478
18 min.
2006
b&w
images :
Sillamäe city archives
and by
Eléonore de Montesquiou
original music :
by Tatjana Kozlova and Helena Tulve
During the Soviet period, from 1944 until Estonia’s independence in 1991, Sillamäe was a secret and closed town built to house Russians scientists and workers who would extract uranium and do nuclear research. Sillamäe was closed even to the Estonian people, it had only a code name and did not figure in film, photo and map archives in Estonia.
Since 1991, Sillamäe has become an open city with a capitalist organisation replacing the former centralised socialist system. These new circumstances meant the working conditions changed in no time, the factory was closed, and the very reason for this city's existence vanished.
The Russian people who had settled there became a minority, unable to speak the official language, in an independent Estonia. Some have Estonian citizenship, others have Russian passports, most of them have the grey non-citizen’s passport, and they are not, or but little, integrated in the socio-economic life of Estonia. They don’t speak Estonian, but their home is here, where they were born, here life is easier than in Russia, and Estonia is a door to Europe.