“If paintings decorate the walls inside, then garden sculptures decorate gardens and parks” – so said sculptor Ellinor Piipuu, whose works are beautifully displayed by her grandson’s family in her former Nõmme home studio garden.

Kadrin, the wife of the artist’s grandson, remembers this sentence as we discuss why a wave of sculptures appeared in Estonian home gardens in the 1960s. Back then, small round or rectangular ponds were also popular in private gardens, with figures placed among the plants nearby. Sculptures from this period have also survived as mood-setters in city parks.

In the garden of one of the founders of Estonian garden ceramics, her creations remain just as the sculptures were originally placed in the pine-covered area or at the edge of the lawn in front of perennials. Peonies are currently blooming in the background.

“A penguin, a goat … birds added in the late 1980s. The front garden has always belonged to the sculptures, while the fruit and vegetable garden was next to it,” Kadrin says, showing black-and-white photos from the family album.

The pond, around which some of the works were clustered, is gone, and the house has also undergone a modern rebirth. Today, the focus of the outdoor area is more on being a decorative and relaxing garden.

“Ellinor came to live here in 1953, but they say there was a butcher shop on the plot during the first independence period,” Kadrin says of the family home located near Hiiu School. You can listen to Mark Soosaar’s conversation with the artist in the garden, accompanied by birdsong, from May 1979 in the radio archives: “An evening in the artist’s studio. Ellinor Piipuu” (arhiiv.err.ee).

“Ceramics fit into a garden much better than cement, cement figures, or cement vases. It is close to nature and its color tones also blend well with the colors of nature. Granite, of course, is also very suitable, but granite is so expensive that not everyone can afford it,” the artist says in the audio tour.

While walking in Nõmme and looking at gardens, the family occasionally finds Ellinor’s work. Once, however, Kadrin went to lead a craft workshop at a kindergarten in Õismäe and encountered Ellinor Piipuu’s lion sculpture there. It was said that when the kindergarten opened in the 1960s, two lions were gifted to guard it. Since one has not survived, the other was brought indoors. Another time, while sitting in a cafe in Lohusalu, the family saw a sculpture with a familiar style on the fireplace. They looked underneath, and it was indeed Ellinor Piipuu’s work. “They said someone had brought it there from an old summer cottage. Ellinor’s summer studio was also located in that area.”

A very exciting meeting will take place for the family in the USA while this magazine is going to print. The artist’s sister lived there, and Ellinor occasionally sent her works to her. Now the family is traveling to the small town of Kirksville in Missouri to bring back the creative heritage from one of the nieces. “We don’t know exactly what awaits us, but there are about twenty works in total, larger and smaller. We’ll bring back as much as we can ourselves, the rest will have to be shipped.” One life-sized female figure was made by Ellinor at her sister’s place. The model was the same niece where the works are now located.

Ellinor Piipuu and her grandson’s family garden in Nõmme, Tallinn, can be visited by appointment.

Kadrin’s contact details can be found on the craft and DIY workshops page at www.orreke.ee. It’s also worth keeping an eye on Nõmme’s open gates events, when the garden is sometimes opened for tours and as a home cafe.

Text: Malle Pajula

Photos: Priit Grepp

Originally appeared in: Kodukiri 7, 2024

The post Sculptures in Ellinor Piipuu’s home garden appeared first on Örreke.

Traditional sports games and grilling are nice, but activities that create real interaction, give a chance to make something with your own hands, and suit participants of different ages and paces are increasingly valued.

This is exactly where Örreke’s creative workshops come in.

The Örreke workshop studio has over 50 different workshops that we can bring to you all over Estonia. We conduct activities for both big and small, and if necessary, in up to four different languages.

If you are looking for something fresh and different for your summer day, here are some ideas.

1. “Shards bring luck” workshop

If you want to combine creativity and sustainability, then this workshop is the perfect choice. In this workshop, we give old porcelain a new life. From broken cups and plates are born:

• earrings
• necklaces
• brooches
• buttons
• keychains

A little sanding, a little crafting, and the result is unique items that each participant can take with them.

See more: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshop/shards-bring-luck/

2. Golden letters on leather – leatherwork workshop

One of Örreke’s most popular workshops through the years. In the leatherwork workshop, you can make, for example:

• keychains
• wristbands
• other accessories

In addition, you can add your name, a message, or the company name to the product in golden letters.

This workshop is perfect if you want a practical and unique result that will remind you of the summer day even in the cold of winter.

See more: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshop/leatherwork/

3. Activities for all ages for family days

Many companies combine summer days with a family day. Then it is important that there are activities for both children and adults. Children lead by example with their creativity and infect family members with the crafting bug as well.

Popular choices for crafting with children:

Honeyfabric workshop

An eco-friendly alternative to plastic wrap.

Soaps with herbs

Fragrant soaps are made using both flowers and salt crystals.

Making dreamcatchers

A creative and visually striking activity.

Upcycling workshops

Bird reflectors from CDs, mosaics, and crafts from leftover materials.

See all workshops suitable for events: https://www.orreke.ee/en/for-events/

Why choose a craft workshop for a summer day?

Crafting is calming, creates time around you, and results in something practical and handmade. Crafting together creates a pleasant sense of unity and togetherness, making it easier to face new professional challenges. Crafting is a way to truly bring people together.

Örreke’s workshops:

-suitable for participants of different ages
-require no special skills
-give everyone a sense of achievement
-create a pleasant social environment
-offer something to take home
-balance active sporting activities
-boost mental health

We come to you all over Estonia

Örreke’s masters will come to your location – whether the event is in the city, in nature, at the office, or at a tourism farm.

If you can’t find a suitable workshop from the selection, it’s still worth contacting us. Together we will find the right solution for your group.

Make this year’s summer days memorable!

The post Summer day ideas: creative activities that truly connect the team appeared first on Örreke.

Who among us doesn’t remember the marzipan figurines from our childhood that stood in a display case and were never eaten. Some, of course, had tooth marks on the back because it was quite hard not to nibble on something sweet. I had a colorful rooster, a hen, and a kitten standing on top of my cupboard. I still had that kitten from my childhood just a few years ago, and it was great to show children in workshops that marzipan never gets old, it just gets harder. My roughly 40-year-old kitten was hard as a rock, but still as beautiful as when I first received it as a gift. I was heartbroken when our dog, Matu, accidentally got hold of the kitten and it met its end under his teeth. A sweet bone was, after all, good for crunching…

You can mold wonderful things out of marzipan. My dear aunt Ede from Saaremaa has been molding marzipan cake decorations and all sorts of figures for several good decades. I also went to her to learn how to mold simpler figures, and that’s how the marzipan workshop found its way into Örreke’s selection.

As we know, marzipan consists of almond flour and powdered sugar. The more almond flour there is, the higher the quality of the marzipan. Unfortunately, it’s actually better to mold with marzipan that has equal parts almonds and sugar. It’s easier to mold with colored marzipan, because painting marzipan is an art in itself.

As Estonians, we like to think that we invented marzipan back in the Middle Ages, when an apprentice pharmacist named Mart mixed together a pleasant-tasting medicine called Martzipanise at Tallinn’s Town Hall Pharmacy. You can listen to what Mart’s marzipan contained and how the medicine affected the Tallinn alderman in the ERR radio play: Jaan Kross’s “Mardi leib” (Mart’s Bread).

In reality, marzipan is an oriental treat, and the history of its preparation dates back 2,000 years.

Molding marzipan

NB! Before you start molding the figures, wash your hands thoroughly and dry them well!

Knead the marzipan between your fingers to make it softer. When the marzipan starts to shine a little, it’s the right time to start molding.
Marzipan sticks to your fingers, but I still recommend that you don’t use rubber gloves. You feel the marzipan better without gloves. Molding is made easier by using cling film, through which it’s much easier to press the marzipan wider. You’ll also need cling film when molding a rose.

1. Molding a larger chick
Make two yellow balls, one larger (body) and the other smaller (head). From the larger ball, press out a tail with a sharp end for the chick’s body. Place the smaller ball as the head.
Make two small red balls. Mold a beak from one and a small crest from the other. Add blue edible pearls for eyes.

2. Molding a small chick
Make one yellow ball and two very small balls for wings. Press the small balls into triangles and attach them to the sides of the larger ball. Make a beak and a small tuft for the chick from red marzipan. You can make the eyes from either black marzipan or edible pearls.

Easter bunny making

To mold a bunny, you need one larger ball (body) and one smaller ball (head), and then four balls of the same size (paws, ears). For the pink ears and nose, mix together a little white and a very little red marzipan.

Place two small balls under the body for paws and press a few stripes onto the paws with a toothpick. To make an ear, make a long teardrop shape from a white ball and a slightly shorter teardrop from the mixed pink marzipan. Place the pink teardrop in the center of the white one and press it into an ear. Do the same for the second ear and attach both ears to the head. Add a pink nose and small black eyes.

You can get a carrot by mixing yellow and red and molding it into a sausage shape with a sharp end. Poke the sausage a bit with a toothpick and make green leaves for it too.

Grass and flowers

For the grass, take green marzipan and roll a ball. Place the ball on the base, cover it with cling film, and press and stroke it gently to make it larger. Marzipan loves to be stroked!

For the little flowers, mix different colors together and make one pea-sized ball for each flower. Press the ball slightly wider through the film and use a toothpick to push 4 notches into the flower (from the outside in). Place a heart made of yellow marzipan in the center and lift the flower petals up a bit.

Place the flowers, chicks, and bunny on the grass, and your grand Easter cake decoration is ready.

Hollowing the rose

To mold a rose, you need six balls of exactly the same size. Make small discs from each ball by pressing them with the help of cling film. If you make the edges of the discs thinner, the rose will look especially beautiful. Roll the first disc up. This creates a flower called a calla lily. This “calla” will be the heart of your rose, around which you will start placing the other discs. Press the discs together only at the bottom, leaving the top open. Place each subsequent disc with a slight overlap on the previous one. Once all six discs are placed around the heart, you can cut off the elongated back end. Place the rose on the grass and decorate with edible pearls.

Check out how to mold marzipan figures in Örreke’s tutorial video.

You can also buy a marzipan molding kit from Örreke’s e-shop.

The post Marzipan and Easter appeared first on Örreke.

In schools and kindergartens, this day is often celebrated with songs, poems, and small performances. These are sweet and important moments, but more and more the question arises – how to make this day even more meaningful and memorable?

More and more, people are looking for solutions that aren’t just a performance, but a shared experience – something to do together that will truly be remembered by both the child and the mother.

Home cosmetics workshop with mom

Homemade cosmetics are becoming increasingly popular, and such a gift will surely bring joy to a mother – especially when it can be made together with the child using pure raw materials. In the workshop, children and mothers can make together: herbal soaps, lip balm, body scrub, and whipped shea butter cream. In addition to the creative activity, it’s a nice opportunity for mothers to socialize with each other – sharing experiences, joys, and simply being in the moment.

See more here: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshops/filter/home-cosmetics-workshops

A gift for mom crafted by the child

If you want every child to have something personal to give to their mother, a creative workshop where the gift is made on-site is the ideal solution. Örreke comes to the school or kindergarten with a pop-up workshop and guides the children step-by-step.

The result is a gift that is: handmade practical meaningful. Additionally, every piece of work gets beautiful packaging – so the Mother’s Day surprise is completely ready.

Soap workshop: Children make their own fragrant and colorful soap, where they can add dried plants, scents, and colors. The result is a sweet and practical gift that a mother can actually use.

See more here: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshop/herbal-soaps/

Leather keychain: Leather is a timeless material, and a keychain made from it is a simple yet very personal gift. Children can choose the shape, add patterns or letters – creating something unique.

See more here: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshop/leather-work/

Silk stained glass workshop: Painting on silk is a peaceful and creative activity where colors flow and create beautiful patterns. The finished work can be a scarf, a decoration, or a small piece of art – something a mother can wear or keep.

See more here: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshop/silk-stained-glass/

Lucky stone workshop: Making a lucky stone is simple yet meaningful. Each child can create their own pattern and give the stone a personal meaning – it can be a small symbol of love and caring.

See more here: https://www.orreke.ee/en/workshop/lucky-stone/

The post How to celebrate Mother’s Day at school or in the workplace? appeared first on Örreke.

Valentine’s Day, and the Women’s Day that follows it, is a day of celebration. But sadly, this celebration does not reach the workers on the flower plantations in Africa and, sadly still, the pressure on their environment is particularly great on our feast days.

For example, around 70% of the flowers sold in European supermarkets come from Kenya. Kenya’s largest cut flower industry is located on the shores of Lake Naivasha, where some 30 flower plantations are located. Growing cut flowers requires large quantities of water. As a result, the water level in the lake has fallen to a critical limit. Fertilisers are used to grow the flowers and various plant protection products are used to protect the plants. Chemical residues are discharged into the water and have polluted the lake. This in turn has led to a decline in fish catches and has made the availability of clean drinking water in the lakeside villages almost non-existent. The flower industry employs more than 50,000 people, 60% of whom are women. Wages are extremely low and exposure to chemicals has damaged the health of many workers.

Giving flowers as gifts is a beautiful tradition! The most beautiful flowers are those that are grown without harming the environment and that pay their growers a fair wage. Fair trade flowers can also be bought today in various supermarkets in Estonia.

As well as flowers, you can give the gift of time for each other or an experience to share with a friend.

You can also find creative experiences for Valentine’s Day and Women’s Day in our workshops!

The post The most beautiful flowers appeared first on Örreke.

The world is unfortunately heading in a rather sad direction – plastic pollution, global warming, decreasing fresh water supplies. Looking at all this, you might sometimes feel like what can I change alone. True, one person won’t save the planet. But every small step counts.

A step towards a plastic-wrap-free home is helpful anyway.

One simple and pleasant way to start is to make your own honeyfabric and give up food film. Some call it wax cloth, but for some reason, that word reminds me of oilcloth – something artificial with a Soviet-era flavor. Honeyfabric is something else entirely: natural, fragrant, and personal.

How to make honeyfabric?

Making honeyfabric is actually quite simple.

You will need:

• cotton fabric (an old kitchen towel that has been thoroughly washed also works),

• beeswax,

• pine resin (can be found in eco-construction stores, for example),

• cooking oil.

The cooler the pattern on the fabric, the more awesome the final result!

Melt the beeswax, pine resin, and a bit of cooking oil together in a separate container. The mixture needs a little tweaking – the goal is to get a nicely sticky yet flexible honeyfabric that can be molded around a container just like food film.

• Beeswax provides water resistance (while the fabric remains breathable).

• Pine resin adds stickiness.

• Oil provides flexibility.

Pour the melted mixture into small molds and let it solidify. Then grate the solidified mass with a large grater and sprinkle the shavings evenly onto a piece of cotton fabric. Place the fabric in an oven at about 70 degrees until the wax has melted evenly. Take it out of the oven and wave the fabric until it solidifies.

And there it is – your very own honeyfabric!

How to use it?

Honeyfabric is reusable. After use, simply rinse it under cool running water and let it dry. The pleasant honey scent lasts a long time but won’t stick to the food.

If the fabric starts to crack over time, you can re-wax it. Or cut it into strips and use them as fire starters – that way nothing goes to waste.

There are many ways to use honeyfabric:

• for covering fruits and vegetables,

• for keeping bread fresh,

• to cover a bowl or plate,

• for taking along to the market or store.

Just think for a moment how many plastic bags are used at Nõmme market in a day, for example. I once asked the market vendors – one thought that on better days, they use about 400 small plastic bags. Another orders 2,600 plastic boxes and 1,000 plastic bags a month!

That’s a pretty scary number.

It certainly gives me a good feeling to know that because of me, the market ladies can subtract one from their count. I always have my own designed honeyfabric with me.

And maybe that’s exactly how these changes begin – one small step at a time.

Örrekeses saad mesikanga tegemist õppida meie in the honeyfabric workshop.

In the e-shop, you can find both the honeyfabric making kit and the repair kit

The post Eco-life workshop 6 – Making honeyfabric appeared first on Örreke.

Here are 5 heartfelt gift ideas you can easily make yourself or do together with a friend:

1. Give the gift of luck and protection – Lucky Stone Kit

A small talisman can be a great support. The lucky stone kit is a wonderful way to create a personalized gift. Soapstone is a very soft stone, making it easy to sand into lucky stones of various shapes.

Luck is needed now more than ever. The oldest soapstone objects are nearly 5,500 years old, and the lucky stone you sand yourself can last just as long. Sanding a stone is a calm, even therapeutic activity.

Tip: By adding a few drops of your favorite fragrance or essential oil to the stone, it turns into a lovely scent stone!

2. Environmental care and closeness to nature – Beeswax Wrap

If your friend values an eco-friendly lifestyle, a beeswax wrap is the perfect choice. It’s a beeswax-coated cloth that can replace plastic wrap. With the beeswax wrap kit, you can make 3 wax wraps. With an extra kit, you can buy just the beeswax hearts to cover cotton fabrics you already have at home.

3. Sweet flavors – Chocolate Candies

Chocolate is a Valentine’s Day classic, but the patterned chocolate candy kit takes it to a new level. You can melt the chocolate yourself and apply beautiful patterns. Homemade candies always taste better than store-bought ones because they contain a piece of your heart’s warmth.

4. Creativity and a taste of childhood – Marzipan Sculpting

Marzipan is a treat that takes us back to childhood. The marzipan sculpting kit is a fun and creative gift. You can sculpt your friend’s favorite animal, flowers, or why not a small marzipan heart. It’s an activity that offers pleasure for both the eyes and the taste buds.

5. Fragrant hearts – Craft soaps with hearts and herbs.

Örreke’s soap kit comes with all the necessary materials to make soaps for both yourself and a friend. You can add a small heart to each soap, which is perfect for a Valentine’s Day surprise.

You can find all these creative kits in Örreke’s online store. Choose your favorite, take a moment to craft, and surprise someone in a truly special way this year. Because the best gifts aren’t things, but the feelings and memories we create.

The post 5 creative Valentine’s Day gift ideas from the heart appeared first on Örreke.

Have fun reading with your children!

Elvy Kalepi tormiline elu

Culture and Life magazine 2/2005
WRITER: HEIKI RAUDLA

When Heiki Raudla read Anto Juske’s story about Estonia’s first female pilot Elviine Kalep in Sakala in January 2005, he remembered that there was something about her somewhere in the archives at home. While browsing through the material, he became interested in finding out more, and so the story of a woman who went by the name of Alviine or Elviine Kalep (Kaalep) in Estonia and Elvy Kalep abroad was put down on paper.

As the church records show, Alviine (Alwine)-Johanna Kalep (Kaalep) was born in Pärnumaa, Tori parish, Taali parish on 26 June 1899 (dd). Her father Aksel (Axel) Emil (b. 9.03.1875) was from Jäneda and was a locksmith, her mother Joanna (b. Liidemann) was born in Tori parish on 28 April 1979. Aksel and Joanna married on 6 September 1898.
Elvy was the only child of the family. Records of her long and complicated life, full of legends, were not easy to find and some are contradictory. Moreover, some of the facts come from the press, and in many cases the question arises as to where there is truth and where there is not.

Escape to the East

1971. In 2008, a long story about Elvy Kalep appeared in the Florida newspaper The Naples Daily News. It says that she was barely a year old when both her parents died. Kristin’s relatives, who lived on Tähe Street in Nõmme, Tallinn, adopted her into their family. She was a talented girl, but of a restless nature. Even as a small child, she ran away from home to the wide world. However, she was caught at the Baltic station. At the age of eight, she took up drawing and cartooning. After completing her primary education, Elvy went to Tallinn Girls’ Commercial Gymnasium. There, the teachers noticed her bohemian nature and talent, and thought that she would be the talk of the town one day.
In 1916, Elvy was sent away from the war, first to Narva, then to St Petersburg, but it was there that she was caught up in the revolution. Kalep later described his experience of the revolution as follows. On the other side of the river, on the bank of the river, we were watching a parade of people on the riverbank. To get a closer view, we both climbed the rampart that bordered the bridge and from there we saw the beginning of the revolution. At the end of the bridge there was a large, unruly crowd, a line of soldiers moving, armed cavalry policemen and Cossacks armed with spears and swords. It was the latter who rode back and forth energetically and proved to be the most active in the task of keeping order.
Somehow, one of the horses backed up against a lamppost and stumbled to the ground with its rider. The man crashed into the kerb and his rifle went off. Hardly had the accidental bang sounded when the crowd literally went mad, apparently thinking that the horseman had fired on the crowd. A half-naked man lying in the street was then attacked and the man was literally mauled to death.”
The following night, riots broke out on a wider scale and terror, brutality and hunger set in. As Elvy happened to be a witness to the events, he had to spend the night in a police detention centre.
It took nearly eight years before Elvy was able to get out of revolution-hit Russia.
Initially, though, all those who had expressed a desire to escape the revolution were ordered to spend the night in a railway station. More than 20,000 of them gathered there. But it took another month or so before they could move. The evacuation, however, did not take place westwards towards Estonia, but eastwards. One of the reasons for this was that Elvy and his step-aunt were supposed to have a brother somewhere near Vladivostok. They were in for trouble near Lake Baikal. A train was sent back from the district a total of eight times, and it was only on the ninth occasion that the fugitives escaped.

Elvy Kalep becomes secretary to Chinese Marshal

Having finally reached Vladivostok, it turned out that their relative had left for China. In Vladivostok, Elvy met a Russian general, Count Slashchov. The young couple fell in love, then married, and a son was born to them. In the Far East, Elvy managed to graduate from the local commercial gymnasium. After several attempts to reach Estonia across Siberia and returning from the borders of the Urals, they decided to flee to China, where the Russian general had connections with the Chinese ruler Chang Tso-Lin. In the outbreak of revolution and civil war, the family fled to China, leaving their fortune behind.
Their first refuge was found in Harbin. The child could not withstand the deprivation and died at one year old. In the ensuing confusion, the husband went missing a year later. However, her language skills saved Elvy, and she was employed as a translator. Thanks to her talent and good language skills (Russian, German, English, and Chinese), she initially found work as a translator for a British general in Mukden (Shenyang). The general had large arms depots in Mukden.
Civil war had also broken out in China, and the warring generals needed weapons. The ruler of North China, Marshal Chang Tso-Lin (1873-1928), saw that such a private secretary would be useful to him. His offers exceeded those of the Englishman, and Elvy became a private secretary to the powerful marshal, and later to the latter’s son Chang Hsüeh-liang or Zhang Xueling (1898 or 1901-2001).
However, for some reason, Elvy was drawn towards aviation. 1924. In 1924, the first flight in an English Bristol Fighter aircraft (one of the most prominent military aircraft in World War I) was supposed to take place in China. When the plane crashed a few hours before the scheduled flight during a test flight by a Chinese pilot, Elvy decided that if flying was still so dangerous, it was wise to wait. She later justified her interest in aviation and technology by saying that she was her parents’ only child and her father tried to raise her as a boy, while her mother tried to raise her as a girl. In fact, she was already interested in flying while studying at the commercial gymnasium in the Far East. Later, in 1950, she justified it as follows: “To fully partake in life and the time in which a person lives. For thousands of years, people have longed to fly and haven’t been able to. Now suddenly it is possible, and why not try to join in.”
Her credo seemed to be an African proverb: life must be taken with a large spoon.

Elvy gets pilot papers

1925. In 1925, Chang Hsüeh-liang sent his secretary to Europe for a holiday. But Elvy was fed up with life among the slant-eyed Chinese. She finally reached Tallinn in 1926 via a rather complicated route (through Sumatra, Italy, and France) with her aunt. She stayed with her foster parents for a while and then moved to Paris. In Paris, the beautiful and energetic woman began studying oil painting with the famous portraitist Alexander Yakovlev, practiced bobsleighing in Switzerland in the winters (where she even once won a championship title), and car racing.
When she visited her foster parents again two years later, she had already made a new career in the meantime. She had married Baron Rolf von Hoeningen-Bergendorff in Paris and obtained Austrian citizenship. Her husband was very wealthy and probably German or Austrian by nationality.
In the winter resort of St. Moritz, Switzerland, the famous Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker (1890-1939) saw Elvy’s virtuoso skiing and suggested she learn to fly. (According to other sources, Fokker’s eye had already caught the energetic and diligent female student during flight lessons, whose courage and perseverance he liked). Elvy’s studies were not even hindered by the fact that she had broken her right arm in a sledding accident in the winter of 1931. Fokker, for his part, gave the young woman encouragement to fly and treated her as his favorite student, resulting in Elvy passing the necessary exams on August 1, 1931, after only five flight hours (which was the required minimum at the time. – H.R.) and becoming the first Estonian woman to receive a professional pilot’s license (no. 369, she was the seventh licensed female pilot in Germany). At the same time, she also learned about aircraft engines and could soon freely act as a mechanic. “I flew a Klemm-Mercedes at the time (specifically a Klemm L2bIIc (D-1132)) and could take apart and put back together my plane’s engine in my sleep,” Kalep confirmed in an interview given in 1971.

Flyer with lipstick

While in Germany in 1931, she performed flights in the airspace of North Africa, Asia, and Europe. She mentioned in a later interview: “Suddenly the longing for my homeland proved so inviting that I couldn’t do otherwise and decided to visit Estonia.” In August of the same year, Elvy Kalep, with mechanic Valter Mayer, began a flight in a Klemm sports plane (the plane’s name came from the name of the designer-engineer Hans Klemm) on the route Berlin-Stettin (Szczecin)-Danzig (Gdansk)-Kaunas-Miitavi (Jelgava)-Riga-Tallinn. Already at the beginning of the flight near Stettin, the plane encountered a thunderstorm and rain zone and had to land there. Kalep experienced emergency landings later as well. Near Miitavi, she reportedly got lost in a thunderstorm and again had to make an emergency landing. This time, the plane’s propeller broke during landing. Curious Latvian peasants found Elvy sitting under the wing of the plane with a mirror and lipstick after the emergency landing. Elvy’s flight luggage was very sparse: a toothbrush and a few other essential trifles. It was probably for this reason that European journalists called her the pilot with lipstick. She flew from Riga to Tallinn in one hour and 50 minutes and arrived at Ülemiste airfield on August 18, 1931, at 6:50 PM. There, welcomers and journalists were waiting for her.
The newspaper Oma Maa wrote on August 20, 1931: “The aircraft was a two-seater Klemm type, manufactured at the Ford factory. Such planes can be steered from both sides. With this plane, she performed flight exercises under the guidance of well-known pilots in England. Upon landing, a young man, a German (Valter Mayer – H.R.), sat in the pilot’s seat. The famous female pilot was met at the airfield by aviation officials and a number of air force officers with their wives. There were few other private individuals at the reception. Red flowers were presented to the female pilot. Mrs. Kaalep herself immediately drove to Nõmme, where her relatives lived. From Estonia, Mrs. Kaalep wants to fly to Finland and from there to Brazil, to carry out a circular flight with some other pilots and, if possible, penetrate unexplored areas in the Brazilian jungles.” In Tallinn, Elvy visited her foster parents. She also managed to visit Mari Raamot, the chairwoman of the Estonian Women’s Voluntary Defense Organization, who gave her the organization’s badge, as well as the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Defense, and the commander of the Defense League. 19. On August 25, she began her return flight from Tallinn to be in Amsterdam on September 2 on a ship, from where she was to travel on to South America. Upon leaving, Kalep was melancholy because this time there was no crowd to see her off.”

Before the plane goes, the Võhma ham goes

On the return flight, Elvy was so captivated by the beauty of her homeland that she decided to land on the lands of Sagevere farm near Võhma (current territory of Kabala parish). The plane’s landing instantly set the whole neighborhood buzzing. Hundreds of curious people from Võhma borough and Ollepa, and even from more distant villages, came to see the rare steel bird and its pilot. Elvy was shown local sights, given smoked ham at the Võhma Export Slaughterhouse, and butter at the dairy association. In the evening, the chief of the Pilistvere squadron, the chairman of the Võhma volunteer fire brigade, representatives of the Women’s Voluntary Defense Organization, and other social organizations came to greet the brave female pilot. The female pilot was also very well received at Tõnu farm in the family of Doctor Hans Männik. For the night, the plane was placed in a hay barn guarded by members of the Defense League. Elvy continued her flight towards Riga from the lands of Tõnu farm the next morning. This time, a large crowd was seeing her off.
Arnold Sepp, a journalist for Sakala at the time, recalled this day in his book “Mu meelen” as follows: “The telephone on the wall rang and Männik, the doctor of the Võhma district, explained in an excited tone that the famous female pilot Elvy Kalep, who is currently performing a world flight, landed in the meadow behind his barn. Fly over here! But there was no boastful phrasing in the last sentence, because we there at the Viljandi airfield always had a Klemm-Hirth monoplane sports plane ready to fly, and my pilot friend Ulrich Brasche lived just halfway between Sakala and the airfield.
We immediately informed Brasche of the story, who of course was extremely fired up, and less than an hour after the call, we too landed next to Elvy Kalep’s plane behind Männik’s barn. More accurately, Elvy’s plane had already been pushed into the barn and the greeting took place at the barn gate. In the grain barn, Kalep’s plane with folded wings resembled a sleeping butterfly. Kalep surprised us with excellent Estonian. As if by an irony of fate, the Reds built an airfield on that farm’s land in 1940-1941.”
Arnold Sepp recalled Kalep many years later in the newspaper Vaba Eesti Sõna: “Exactly twenty-five years from the day those certain planes landed behind Männik’s barn in Võhma, a ‘familiar woman’ stepped into the Miami Estonian House for a reception, accompanied by a former Estonian airman, August Mihk, who had already been living in Miami for a long time. The latter began to introduce the lady, but we were already looking each other in the eye, thinking there was no need for introductions, we were already acquainted. A warm greeting ensued, and stories flowed abundantly about flights and the Võhma area. The flying lady had lost none of her youthful charm, nor her fluent Estonian.
What I particularly remember from this second meeting and conversation was Elvy Kalep’s spirited story of how the bigwigs of the Võhma Export Slaughterhouse had given her a large smoked ham upon her departure. Later somewhere in Europe, the flying Elvy became a bit short on funds and the plane had to be sold to get back to America by ship. ‘But that smoked ham, I wouldn’t have sold that for any price!’ the lady confirmed with sparkling eyes. ‘I didn’t even have the heart to eat it properly, even though I was quite hungry. It smelled so lovely of a familiar Estonian farmhouse that the plane could go before that Võhma ham. So I brought the ham to America with me, and only here, on the occasion of festive gatherings, did it begin its natural shrinking until it finally ran out somewhere around Chicago.’”

Fate brings Elvy Kalep to America

The move to the American continent was delayed. 1931. In 1932, the young female pilot sold her plane to the Shell oil company and traveled to the Netherlands. 1932. In 1932, she got to know a prototype of a helicopter, the so-called autogyro, in London. 10. On May 31, 1932, Elvy arrived in New York from France on the steamer “Paris”.
In America, Elvy became friends with the famous female pilot Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), who had already flown across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928 with Slim Gordon and Wilmar Stultz. She also became well acquainted with pilot Wiley Post (1899-1935), who died in a plane crash with his friend, humorist Will Rogers, in 1935 near Alaska. Will Rogers’ witty aphorism: “Better a horrible end than a horror without end” proved correct for himself this time. Post had made his first solo flight around the world in 1933 in 7 days and 18 hours.
On May 21, 1932, Estonian world travelers, pilot Elvy Kalep and ocean sailor Ahto Valter with his brother Jariilo, met at a tribute evening at the New York Estonian Educational Society house. They had once again crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps it was there that Elvy had the idea to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane. 1932. In 1932, she made serious preparations in New York for an attempt to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone. When her friend Earhart secretly completed her preparations three days earlier and was the first to fly across the Atlantic in May 1932 in 14 hours and 56 minutes, Elvy Kalep decided that there was no point in repeating the undertaking as the second woman. Nevertheless, she joined 99 women interested in aviation in America who had founded the female pilots’ organization “Ninety-Nines” in 1929 (named after the number of its founding members), of which Amelia Earhart was the first president. Today, it is an international organization with nearly 6,500 female pilots from 35 countries around the world.
Kalep planned to perform another major ocean flight. 15. On August 29, she was supposed to start from Los Angeles to Athens with pilot Roger Q. Williams (1895-1976) in honor of the Olympic Games. Initially, she planned to travel to Estonia but found no sponsors. All the major American newspapers wrote about the intended sensational trip, but then it turned out that the trip was canceled. Instead, the newspapers reported that Elvy Kalep had married stockbroker W. E. Hutton-Miller, who was categorically against the trip.
In Estonia, for some reason, it was thought that Kalep was a millionaire, and she began receiving letters from people asking for help. The letters were sent to the New York airport and arrived. Elvy found that “such assistance is harmful because it morally ruins a person. A person must manage their own life.” She remained true to this principle even when she later needed help herself.
At that time, flying was very dangerous despite everything. Thus, between 1919 and 1930, 28 people died in attempts to fly across the Atlantic. In 1931, Earhart tried to fly across America in a helicopter, but it was not successful. 1937. In 1937, Earhart, who had set dozens of records, tried to fly around the world along the equator but went missing over the Pacific Ocean in early July with navigator Fred Noonan. There are several legends about her disappearance, and the exact place of death is also unknown. Before her last takeoff, Amelia Earhart wrote the following prophetic lines to her husband, publisher George P. Putnam: “Please understand that I know perfectly well what I am risking. I am doing it simply because I want to. Women must also try to do something like men. And if they fail, the failed attempt will be a challenge to others.”
Elvy Kalep was probably motivated by the same thoughts.

Trouble is the best teacher

Instead of flying, Elvy Kalep began giving lectures about Estonia and aviation. 1970. In the early 1970s, she recalled: “I spoke to Americans about everything, and when they asked what the Estonian language sounds like, I always declaimed the first verse of ‘Kui Kungla rahvas kuldsel aal…’, which in my opinion best characterizes the beauty of the Estonian language. The Americans were delighted by it.” As an indirect fruit of the lectures, her first children’s book “Air Babies” (Õhubeebid or Lendurlapsed – H.R.) was born in 1936, where the main characters are sister and brother Speedy and Happy Wings, and which she illustrated herself. Regarding her book, Elvy Kalep later mentioned that she wrote it with the aim of eliminating prejudices and fear of flying in young people and especially in parents who hold young people back. For some reason, she was not satisfied with the drawings in her book and terminated the contract with the publisher after all 100,000 books had been sold. 1938. In 1938, the second edition of the book appeared, and in 2003, the third. The characters created by Kalep were so popular in America that wallpapers were even made after them. Even today, one can find offers and requests to acquire this book on the internet.
In the foreword, her friend Amelia Earhart wrote, among other things: “When I recently reviewed aviation literature for children, I found that unfortunately very little has been written for the young. Anyone who has worked in the industry knows that of the entire population, it is the youth groups that are very important when it comes to planes and air travel. I hope that ‘Air Babies’ and children become good friends.”

57 dollars

1939. The Second World War, which began in 1939, put an end to receiving certain support from Europe; also, the marriage to the stockbroker had ended, and since Kalep had only 57 dollars in her wallet on September 3, the day England declared war on Germany, she had to start looking for a more permanent income. The idea of offering children something related to the era of air conquest was appealing, and so Kalep brought Patsie Parachute (a doll-parachutist) to the American toy market – a doll with a small parachute that fell beautifully and gracefully when thrown into the air.
This was the start of Kalep’s new field of activity, which made her famous in New York. She commented on it quite modestly herself: “I think up nonsense and take patents for them and give them to industrialists or produce them myself. Has more money been spent on anything else in the world than on pleasant nonsense?”
However, the factory near New York, which employed 60 women, did not yield a large profit. Since men were not available for industry during the war, the energetic manufacturer had to carry heavy boxes herself. Due to the overwhelming work, Kalep fell ill, and the doctor forbade her from lifting heavy packages. Finally, she had to close the doll factory in 1946. The manufacturer herself had to set about recovering and healing her overstrained health. All the money earned was spent on health insurance. 1950. By 1950, she had recovered again and was thinking up new things, taking patents for them, and sending them to thousands of businesses. Among the latter was New York’s largest children’s toy store, F. A. O. Schwarz on Fifth Avenue, one of whose display windows was completely decorated with Elvy Kalep’s new dolls, the so-called Scribbles dolls, whose face every child can draw themselves and redo if necessary.
How the invention of this new bestseller doll came about, Kalep recounted in 1950 as follows: “After the doll factory closed, nearly 50,000 doll heads were left over. I started drawing faces on them to pass the time. Due to a slip of the pencil, I started erasing the drawing from one face, and suddenly the idea flashed through my head: why not let the children do it themselves. And now they can do it. With the doll, every child gets 5 chalk pencils, an erasing cloth, and a ‘study book’ from the store. With these instruments, every child can give their doll’s face 1,000 different expressions.”
Elvy Kalep is again in full creative and working swing. Her dolls are in the spring catalog of the popular firm Schwarz. Her pace of life is frantic, interspersed with interviews for newspapers, radio, and television. The energetic lady already had the establishment of a new factory in mind. However, nothing came of the latter.
In the following years, little is heard of her. Thus, it is not even known exactly when Kalep stopped flying. Nevertheless, her tracks did not disappear completely.

Lone wolf

1971. In 1971, a long story about female pilot Elvy Kalep appeared in the newspaper “The Arlington News.” In the same year, a piece about her by Pedro Krusten also appeared in the newspaper Vaba Eesti Sõna. We learn that she still does not seek help from social welfare but is proud and independent. While living in California in 1960, it happened that acquaintances gave her five pieces of leather, all of different colors. They added that she was a clever woman and perhaps she could make something out of them. Maybe even eyeglass cases. Elvy initially put the pieces of leather under the bed because making eyeglass cases did not interest her. In a half-sleep, however, a colorful mosaic rose before her eyes: a Mexican, a cactus… The next morning, she got a piece of cardboard and glue from someone, and the night vision became a reality. She liked the picture and decided to start earning a living with her new hobby. She improved herself for a whole year and then took a patent for her invention.
In 1967, she still did not have a home; she traveled around America, exhibiting her works in expensive clubs, as experience showed that she could only find buyers for her work among the wealthy. In Pedro Krusten’s story, one can read: “Things did not go well for her at the Arlington library. She canceled the announced courses because there was no interest in them. Together we took her pictures from the glass display case and carried them out to where her station wagon stood. In the large vehicle, there was room for only herself to sit. The entire rest of the space was taken up by her belongings, which were under rugs. Mainly pictures. She brought out a large dragon from there. ‘My fifth such work,’ she said. ‘The first four have found a buyer after all. The price is two thousand dollars.’ Made of pieces of lizard and snake skin. Very beautiful colors. She orders the skins from Europe. ‘I am like a gypsy,’ she says, starting the car. ‘A lone wolf,’ I thought, ‘proud and independent.’”
Due to deteriorating health, she moved to the Regency Health Care Center (a so-called hotel for retirees) in November 1986. In the last decades, she had no contact with her compatriots, although she considered herself a good Estonian. Elvy Kalep died in Lake Worth (Palm Beach, Florida) on August 15, 1989. She had no relatives in the USA. She was buried alone, forgotten, but in the hope that perhaps one day she would be remembered in her homeland, Estonia.

The post Flyer with lipstick appeared first on Örreke.

Looking back at my childhood in light of all this, that’s exactly how we—now in our 50s—lived in the “blissful” ESSR during the 70s and 80s.

Living on the 5th floor of a panel house on J. Smuuli Street in Kingissepa, we had a large box in our hallway filled with old, worn-out clothes. From there, we took rags as needed for washing dishes, dusting, mopping floors, or even mending a piece of clothing. My father’s extra-large sports shirts were used for washing the outer hallway, a task the neighbor girl and I had to take turns doing. We often did it together because, as you know, it was more fun that way. The housing association—that was us, the children of that stairwell!

The neighbor girl and I also went to get real cow’s milk together, walking across a dark and cold pasture with a three-liter milk churn swinging in each of our hands. We always got to taste the warm, frothy milk. When real cow’s milk wasn’t available, we had glass milk bottles swinging in a string bag from the nearby Tooma shop. It was my brother’s job to take the empty bottles back to the shop. And specifically in a string bag, because there were no plastic bags. Or if there were, people couldn’t bring themselves to use them. In the shop, white bread, black bread, sausages, and cheeses were all wrapped in paper. You couldn’t get meat from the shop anyway; we got that with the help of an acquaintance who worked at the meat processing plant.

Our family also subscribed to newspapers. My father was the main reader, mostly for the sports pages. Old newspapers were used for washing windows as well as in the toilet. There, you had to rub them between your hands a bit to make them softer before use :). A newspaper also went at the bottom of the trash can—no plastic bag. It worked very well, although washing the trash can was a bit tedious. If there were still newspapers left over, they were taken to the basement, tied together, and brought to school. The Pioneers, of which I was one, had a scrap paper collection competition among themselves.

Windows were washed with a weak vinegar solution and dishes with baking soda. At the summer cottage and my grandmother’s place, it was easier to get pots clean because we could use wood ash. We often washed dishes in two basins: one with soda water for washing and the other with water for rinsing. In my handicraft class, I crocheted a holder for the dishcloth. My mother was especially happy with this gift, as it was much neater to hang the dishcloth to dry inside it. It also dried very quickly over the wood stove.

The summer cottage held an important place in our family because it had all sorts of garden beds, berry bushes, and a large strawberry patch. We looked after them together with our grandparents; that’s where our summers were spent, and that’s how our winter supplies, compotes, and jams ended up in the old root cellar.

My grandparents also raised pigs, chickens, and rabbits—always free-range and fed on rich food scraps. All our family’s eggshells and dried bread went there. For my 18th birthday, my grandfather had a fur coat made for me from our home-raised rabbits. He even tanned the rabbit skins himself. And the roast rabbit from the wood-fired oven was mouth-watering! I still have the coat and still use it. If only there were winters worthy of a fur coat!

I even remember that my grandfather boiled his own soap, which was great for getting woolen clothes clean.

My mother sewed most of the clothes for my brother and me herself, and they were worn until the end of their life or passed down to younger relatives. Soft dress shoes were made by a shoemaker we knew.

I often babysat my cousins, and changing gauze diapers was part of the “job.” The faster a child learned to use the potty, the less washing of rags there was. When I reached my teens, I also learned how to make “sanitary pads” myself from gauze and cotton wool. We also used cotton handkerchiefs, which were a nuisance to wash, but what could you do. Handkerchiefs with lace crocheted around them with very fine thread were, of course, highly prized.

Washing hair with egg or bread and rinsing with nettle water is something else I experienced in my childhood. Quite often, there was no hot water from the tap, so there was nothing for it but to learn how to toughen up. Shared sauna sessions and running naked in the snow are also warm memories.

For a while, it seemed like all of that disappeared. It’s a wonderful feeling of recognition that eco-living is the new-old normal, and our own experiences come in handy for encouraging young people today. Don’t put a plastic bag in the trash can and go to the shop with your own string bag, because that’s what we did in our childhood, and it’s still possible now—nearly 40 years later.

The post The eco-life of the Soviet era – a dishcloth from a rug box and bread for head washing. appeared first on Örreke.

Sappo mountain

Legend has it that the soap is named after the Sappo hill near Rome. It was the site of an animal sacrifice. After the sacrifice, the animals were creamed. During this process, the hot fat dripped into the fire and mixed with the ashes. On one rainy day, the mixture of fat and ash flowed down into the Tiber River, where the women were washing their clothes. It was noted that the laundry washed close to the sacrificial site was much cleaner than that washed upstream.

A brief history of soap

In the old days, soap was boiled from animal fat, and on the coast and islands, also from seal fat. Ash lye was mixed into the fat to start the saponification process. The lye was obtained by mixing wood ash with hot water and letting it sit for several days. Later, caustic soda, bought from merchants, began to be used instead of lye.

It is known that in 10th-century Castile, Spain, soap began to be produced from olive oil, with aromatic plants added to give it a pleasant scent. The luxury of using such soap belonged only to the upper class; commoners still used soap made from animal fat, if they used any at all. Castile soap quickly spread among the upper class in the rest of Europe. Several Castile soap recipes are still in use, and soaps made according to them can be bought in small soap shops.

In Estonia, the skill of soap making was likely acquired from the Germans during the Middle Ages. Boiling soap was an art that no stranger was allowed to watch. Initially, finished soap was so valuable that it was only used for washing hair. However, soap only became a common household cleaning agent about 150 years ago.

Soap was still boiled on farms and in households as late as the 1960s. After that, however, soap production moved to large enterprises.

Today, making soap at home has become popular again, as homemade soap is free from chemical compounds and is suitable for people with sensitive skin. Small soap producers are popping up more and more in Estonia and elsewhere in the world, and handmade soaps offer significant competition to store-bought ones.

Why soap foams

Not all soaps lather! To make soaps lather better, special foaming agents are added to industrial soaps. SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulphate). While SLS makes soap lather, it is still considered a skin irritant and a rather harmful additive. Instead, coconut oil provides lather to soap from natural ingredients.

Dirt and germs get trapped better in soap lather and are washed away from the hands with water. So, it’s good if the soap lathers, but there doesn’t need to be an excessive amount of foam.

A workshop on soap for the elderly

The soap workshop is one of Örreke’s very first workshops. Making soap seemed exciting to us. During the process of making the first soaps, it became clear that it is also surprisingly simple and a perfectly manageable activity for children. So, we made our first soaps with our own children, then with our friends’ children, and then in the children’s kindergarten and school. That’s how Örreke began! From my own childhood, however, I remember the terrible smell that filled my grandparents’ home when my grandfather started boiling soap. Children were not allowed near the soap boiling, as hot fat was boiling in the cauldron and there was a corrosive substance—caustic soda—nearby. This might have been in the early 70s. I still have a couple of the soaps my grandfather boiled, and I keep them as memories!

Both children and adults enjoy making soap in Örreke’s workshops. Soap is made using two methods. The simplest is to use a ready-made soap base and pour colorful and transparent soaps from it. However, it is more complicated to make soap using the so-called old-fashioned method, i.e., using different fats and caustic soda (NaOH) for saponification.

In Örreke’s workshops, we make transparent and colorful soaps from a ready-made soap base. The soap base we use does not contain the harmful foaming agent SLS. Upon request, we also conduct courses on the old-fashioned soap-making method, where we mix soap from various oils and fats and use caustic soda for saponification.

Check out Örreke’s soap workshop here.

The post What’s in the soap appeared first on Örreke.