I
wondered if someone had already written
something of this sort about Runö,
so I thought I'd better check with a web
index.
The
first 600 or so responses I got were all
to do with some computer-technical stuff
called Runon and Runoff... Once I'd worked
out how to specify just "Runö" and
nothing else, I got lots of references to
the place Runö - but that was Runö
Folk-högskola, the Swedish trades union
congress training centre in Åkersberga
Stockholm... When I further refined my search
to include the Estonian version of the name,
"Ruhnu", too, I started to get somewhere:
"Alta Vista Web Pages - Found 58 matches
containing ruhnu" - although I felt I might
as well have stayed at home as I ploughed
through some text-only pages - rather dry,
though they did have these cool little red
buttons - listing the postal addresses and
telephone numbers of the school, library
and local authority on Runö - alongside
every community in Estonia, of course -
and some newspaper accounts of discussions
about fishing borders between Estonia and
Latvia.
But
gradually the real stuff began to come out,
and I now have a map of Ruhnu Harbour -
with a warning that it's a "local harbour
requiring a major overhaul", that I shouldn't
try to approach it at night or when the
wind is coming from three of the eight compass
points, that there are no harbour services
and the shop and post-office are 4 km walk
away - but that there is nevertheless passport
control and customs. I was recommended to
visit the wooden church from 1644 and the
lighthouse from 1877...
"EINST"
turned out to be nothing at all to do with
Uncle Albert, but the Estonian Institute,
with a very rich and informative screed
about the Estonian Swedes - well-researched
and well worth reading, as long as you're
a bit of a left-brained 'wordy' learner
don't need anything dynamic like pictures
or sound...
I
wonder what you would think if you clicked
on a web-link and were suddenly confronted
with a page which starts with the words
"May 1997 New Issues N Z U.S 1997 Duck Permit
Stamp - Surf Scoter, Lighthouse - 1 22.77"?
I must say I was a bit puzzled, and there
were no graphics to give a clue as to what
kind of thing it was ... Then I thought
of using the "Find" command, and typed in
Ruhnu - and guess what? Way down the page
was "ESTONIA Lighthouse Ruhnu 1.40" - if
anything even more mystifying, till I thought
of looking at the foot of the page, and
there it was - "County Stamp Center, P.O.
Box 3373, Annapolis, Maryland... All orders
under $10 are subject to a $4.50 Postage
& Handling Fee". And they had a delightful
filler at the end, made of a little row
of pebbles (which I discovered, five years
later, come from Microsoft Word's clip art
collection) ...
But
the real prize came right at the end:
Ouverture du festival -
Jeudi 6 mars 1995, 20 h 30, Salle Garance
(sur invitation) ... A la rencontre
des pays baltes - Ruhnu saar (L'île
de Ruhnu) de Theodor Luts, Estonie, 1931,
18 mn ...
So
there's an 18-minute film about Runö
made during the first Estonian republic
- what fun!!! It took a whole morning to
trace it, and I had to get a reference from
California to a two-year old web-site on
a Paris server to find out... Of course
I could have asked the National Museum or
the Estonian Institute, but I never thought
there would be something like that to ask
for...
All
in all a fascinating catch.
