The NPA Baltic Heritage Network Information day in Petroskoi/Petrozavodsk

Between the 30th of October and the 1st of November 2009, Ms. Tiiu Kravtsev and Ms. Marge Tiidus from the Estonian National Archives and Ms. Anu Korb from the Estonian Literary Museum visited the Karelian Estonian Society (chairman Ms. Elena Ryabikova) in Petroskoi/Petrozavodsk on assignment from the NPA Baltic Heritage Network.

The Karelian Estonian Society was founded in 2005 and has 50 members. The Baltic Heritage Network information day took place on the 31st of October at the Karelian Ethnographic Museum. Ms. Marge Tiidus introduced the usage options of the National Archives’ database, Ms. Tiiu Kravtsev spoke about the Compatriots Programme, the NPA Baltic Heritage Network established in early 2008, and the information portal BaltHerNet. Ms.Anu Korb presented information about the Estonian communities in Russia today and the materials collected from there. Ms. Lilya Grikobelets from the Karelian Estonian Society shared her experiences of recording her family history with the help of Estonian electronic databases. We were also given an introduction to the society’s activities and the work of Ms. Elena Ryabikova and Ms. Irina Antropova – materials about Karelia’s Estonians found in the National Archives in Karelia and Mr. Juri Dmitrievi’s collection of materials on repressed persons, which also contains data about repressed Estonians. The members of the Karelian Estonian Society were encouraged to collect the life stories of Karelian Estonians.

We met the teaching staff and students of the Department of History’s Chair of Archival Science at Petrozavodsk State University and made the acquaintance of the director of the National Archives of the Republic of Karelia, Ms. Tatyana Mayevna Anokhova, who showed interest in co-operation with Estonian archives. During our stay we visited the Veps Ethnographic Museum in Sheltozero.

Anu Korb