The Russians on Crow Island

Looked from the bridge, it is a gloomy and mysterious fortress. The island of river Narva stands in the middle of Russian-Estonian border river like a wrecked ship. The red brick walls of the abandoned textile factory look like torn skin. The Kreenholm factory, set up in 1857, was once the biggest in Europe and only two years ago the machines pounded in the halls. When the factory bankrupted, over 10.000 people lost their job and income, most of them Russian speaking folk of an Estonian city. Adults, youngsters and children walk past us telling their fate-bruised stories. We will see how the equation of unemployment and social exclusion has inevitably come true also here with fateful consequences such as orphanhood, drugs, and crimes, even expulsion.
Elizabeth Marschan | translation by Marika Lammi (DocPoint)