the margins

December 2015

 

One of the harbor cities in Europe in a constant process of transformation is Tallinn, Estonia. Simultaneously front and backside, the coastal area north of Tallinn city centre is an ambiguous place. In previous days the reason of existence of the flourishing hanseatic town, Linna sadam -the city harbour- was in the years of the Soviet union closed off for citizens and used for military purposes, in the early years after independence it was an almost desolated place, with its remarkable Linnahall as a huge relict of Soviet megalomania. In the last decades, the area is changing rapidly, driven by speculative and commercial forces. The marginal practices that the in-between state of the coastal area did allow, are gradually disappearing.

 

TALLINN

the carpet paradise
is always closed
loads of liquor
follow traces through vacant fields
sheds not yet demolished
rays of light through broken glass
on trash. beercans, paper, cigarette
- who has been here before?

three men in a black mercedes
fishermen at shore
they are here
they are the marginal
their cityhall in wasteland
their built symmetric rock
their steps on stones become the signs
of systems lost, of feasts
no longer celebrated

they are here
they are the night
they climb their endless stairway
to meet their only sea

 

 

 

KH