If You Go into the Woods

This may not look much like Glasnevin but it does have things in common.

But first, Metsakalmistu is a bit of a mouthful if you don’t speak Estonian; it simply means forest cemetery. It is just about the same size as Glasnevin, fifty hectares (124 acres). I have never been to Glasnevin but often was driven past by my mother going to and from school. My principal memory is of the high surrounding wall. I passed no remark on this at the time but I now know it was built to keep out body snatchers and at times bloodhounds were let loose inside also to deter ad hoc exhumations.

This was in the 19th century and the problem didn’t arise when Metsakalmistu was opened in 1939. Like Glasnevin it is a national cemetery. I looked quite hard for Lennart Meri’s grave close to other Presidents of Estonia and near a path. Cemeteries are maddening places to look for a specific grave – needle in haystack. I did find sections devoted to the graves of eminent architects, artists, writers, actors, athletes, composers, scientists, etc.

I know there was a map and prominent graves are numbered but I still got lost. The setting is quiet and still with occasional birdsong and traffic noise. There was still some snow on the ground and it was colder than outside in the open. Unlike most cemeteries there is a rule that headstones may not be more than 1.5 metres in height giving a sense of cohesion lacking in some cemeteries.

Two features are common to Glasnevin and Tallinn’s forest cemetery: mass graves and soldiers’ graves. The cemetery in Tallinn opened in time for the Second World War but the names of Finns, men and boys, who died on Estonian soil in the first war of independence are recorded on a series of stones of the correct height. It reminded me of the simple rigour of Commonwealth War Cemeteries and I suppose “boys” mean young men.

”In 1993, a mass grave at the site of a Magdalene laundry, institutions used to house “fallen women”, was discovered after the convent which ran the laundry sold the land to a property developer. The remains were cremated and reburied in a mass grave at Glasnevin Cemetery, with the cost of the reburial split between the religious institutions involved and the developer who had bought the land.” (Wikipedia)

“In eastern Tallinn there is a forest cemetery called metsakalmistu, which means forest cemetery. Here the Nazis murdered about 800 Jews in September 1944. One of the killings involved more than 500 Jews from the Lagedi camp just south of Tallinn. The second killing involved about 300 French Jews who arrived in May 1944 with convoy 73 to Patarei prison from the transit camp Drancy outside Paris.” (Historical Sites, Estonia)

On a more cheerful note it is a pleasant thirty minute walk, mostly through the forest, down to the sea and a restaurant on the beach called St Patrick’s. The view along the coast and out to sea is like many of the sandy, forest fringed beaches in Norfolk.