The Man Behind the Curtain

It's been unbelievably busy since my last post. Tallinn wasn't necessarily my FAVORITE place but overall it was a really nice, relatively relaxing trip.

The best part of the trip by far was getting to meet a gentleman named Mark Rybak. He is the cousin of one of Josh's friends from college and he actually grew up in Tallinn during the Nazi and Soviet occupations. He was very gracious in letting us ask him all kinds of questions about what life was like "behind the iron curtain." I am a huge history buff so it was fascinating to hear his views and often surprising. He said that, for the most part, life in Estonia was fairly normal for him. He knew that there were things he was missing out on but I didnt get the sense that he had bad memories of that time. That's not to say things overall were roses and candies, but it wasn't necessarily the life of a USSR citizen that I had envisioned. he now lives in Tel Aviv, Israel but is working in Tallinn to help them document the history of the small Jewish population of Estonia. Unfortunately, the majority of Mark's family, as well as the majority of the Jewish community in Estonia, were killed by the Nazi's and there is very little remaining of the Jewish cultural history there. Mark is working to help create a museum dedicated to those who were lost so they won't be forgotten. I say, good luck to him and I hope to go back to Estonia one day to see it.