There can be few if any other towns in northern Europe where an archaeological dig produced two contemporary 11th-century coins, a penny minted in England under William the Conqueror and a dirhem produced under Emir Daisam in Azerbaijan. Yet Rapla was already sufficiently cosmopolitan then for many traders to stay. It has to be admitted that the region then went into decline for 700 years until Catherine II took the area seriously again. By the late 19th century, it had become sufficiently grand for German Chancellor Bismarck to pay several private visits. He was a university friend of the local Baltic-German landlord, Alexander Keyserling, whose manor house Raikküla is a few kilometres outside the town. The main oak tree there has been named 'Bismarck Tree' as the two of them used to sit and chat underneath it.Rapla has always been at the forefront of Estonian nationalism, from the St George's Day rebellion in 1343, through peasant uprisings in the 1850s and the anti-Tsarist movement in 1905 to support for the Forest Brothers in their guerrilla warfare against Soviet forces after World War II. Estonians are proud of two separate achievements of Rapla, one in Tsarist times and one in Soviet times. Despite the size of the town, neither a Russian Orthodox church nor a statue of Lenin was ever allowed to grace the landscape. The long-term links the town is happy to mention are those with Britain. It enjoyed several centuries of timber and flax trading with Scotland and the design of early iron crosses found in the cemetery suggests that the first Christian influences might have come from there rather than through the Teutonic Knights. In the 19th century, to free themselves from German or Russian names given by their landlords, several Estonian families took British place names instead. Bristol, Glasgow and London still, as a result, feature in the local telephone book. From an architectural point of view, the Soviet era seems to have largely passed the whole town by. This makes a short stop here particularly attractive and, for those with more time, there are many manor houses within the county which are now sufficiently restored to warrant a visit. The county also represents a microcosm of Estonian history. The Antarctic explorer, Adam Johann von Krusenstern, was born in 1770 in Hagudi, 10km to the north of Rapla on the Tallinn road. The 19th-century playwright, August Kotzebue, came from Jarlepa, to the northeast of Rapla. Otto Tief, prime minister for just one day in 1944 before he was deported to Siberia, came from Alu, a village just outside Rapla which has one of the best-preserved 19th-century manor houses. Although Lennart Meri, president from 1992 to 2001, had no links with Rapla, the community is pleased that he made up for this by marrying a Rapla girl. Jüri Rumm is not a name to be found on any book jacket or in any political history of Estonia, but his fame as a 19th-century horse thief has given him legendary status and a recent film will ensure this renown continues. His cover job was as a servant at Kehtna Manor, 10km south of Rapla, but he only really came to life after dark. Monuments, museums and houses throughout the county commemorate these and many other famous Estonians linked to the area. The town of Rapla is famous for its two-tower Mary Magdalene Church. This church is unique in another respect - it has never been destroyed or burnt down so the rebuilding at the beginning of the 20th century came about simply through the wishes of the local people and as a result of their affluence. The font and the altar date from the previous building. The church seats 900 in all: 500 downstairs and 400 upstairs. The congregation dropped to around 200 in 1949 when public displays of religion required the greatest courage. It increased in the 1980s to around 500 and then to 1,000 at independence. At no time in the Soviet era could Christmas trees have been taken into the building, but during more liberal times, the pine trees outside the church were sometimes decorated in late December. The plaques beside the altar note the landowners who contributed to the cost of the building. The peasants who actually built the church have scrawled their names under the supporting arches. The organ, installed in 1939, was probably the last pre-war one built in an Estonian church that survives. (One built in 1940 for St Peter's Church in Narva was destroyed during the fighting in 1944.) Neil Taylor "Estonia. The Bradt Travel Guide", 2007 |
