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Initial concert of Song Celebrations draws close to 100,000 people to Tallinn festival grounds – 7,500 in choirs plus 90,000 spectators.
On location in Estonia, the Song and Dance Celebrations were covered by more than a hundred foreign correspondents. From East Asia, journalists of South-Korea, China and Japan showed up. Among others, we hosted reporters by New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, ARTE and BBC.
By BBC, covering the Celebrations was kicked into gear as early as the last week but one, by a four minute TV clip introducing the event. A British journalist paid a visit to Narva and expressed amazement at how hard it was to get to participate at the Celebrations as singer or dancer.
For the week-end, it wasn’t just the reporters that showed up in Tallinn. Among the prominent people present were former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, and a Canadian MP Peter Van Loan – of Estonian roots through his Mother.
Public transport of Tallinn was in heavy use by «Estonians abroad» resulting in the occasional humorous occasion.
Like the Bus No 23 grinding to a halt at Koidu stop, 1.30 pm this past Sunday. A blond lady, middle-aged, sticks her head in the door.
«Will this bus take me to City Centre?» sounded her heavy Swedish accent, piercing the otherwise still air. At her side, there stood a school-age girl, with contact person phone number written on arm in giant capital digits.
Lots of foreigners and Estonians-abroad actually joined forces. Internationally, 14 groups participated, plus three pan-European bunches. Among others, we had a youth symphony orchestra from Taiwan and close to twenty choirs and dance groups from USA and Canada.
The warmest welcome went to «Koit» (the Dawn) by Tõnis Mägi, on Saturday night – urged by the audience to be repeated. To the ovations, Maestro stepped up personally and led «take two» as soloist.
Mr Mägi himself first came to the festival in 1955, with his Mother. How does it feel to hear one’s own song, at the Celebrations?
«Feels mighty wonderful,» said the man, hinting at the celebrations opening doors for classic tunes to reach the heart of the nation. «Some 15 years ago, no-one would have known some of these songs even exist,» said Mr Mägi, singling out «Ta lendab mesipuu poole» (Flying for the Beehive).
During the Song Celebrations, 160,000 bowls of soup were handed out to participants. This was the largest table ever set to any gathering, in Estonia.
According to Celebrations catering chief Enno Teiter, the team at the kitchen was very experienced. Several of them are involved from the Celebrations of the 1990ies.
Even so, this year had its extremes. «At peak hours, two of us handed out 1,500 bowls of soup to dancers, in 45 minutes,» related Mr Teiter.
The official Celebration Soup was borsch, with fresh cabbage. Its dry ingredients were Estonian, preservative and taste-enhancer free; all told, 50 tonnes of it were prepared. To go with the soup, seven tonnes of dark and white bread were consumed.
To get home from the event, six special bus lines were launched in Tallinn. True: the last special bus headed towards Pääsküla was supposed to leave Saturday night at 2 am but left four minutes early. How many missed it, nobody will ever know.
During the Saturday concert, bicycle parking was filled 80 percent – quite a few opted to pedal.
By midnight, on Saturday, Pirita Road was clogged by cyclists and pedestrians. An Audi, carrying a pregnant lady to give birth, found no way through. Into the maternity hospital at Pelgulinn, the 40-year-old lady made it as assisted by Police and Ambulance working in tandem.