A bus from Latvia had come to pick me up in Tartu that morning. It was late July 2010. This was a time of long sunny days, and short nights. After a three-hour drive from the south of Estonia to the north-east, we were approaching our destination: the commemoration site Sinimäed (‘Blue Hills’). In 1944, important battles between the Nazi and Soviet army had taken place here. The Nazi army, supported by thousands of Estonian soldiers, had managed to halt the Soviet offensive, enabling 80,000 Estonians to flee to Western countries (Salo, 2005, p. 19). I was invited to this ‘very interesting commemoration’ by one of the organizers of the national ‘Day of Mourning’ in Tartu. After spending hours writing emails, I eventually managed to find a ride on this private, Latvian bus: one half filled with Latvian teenagers, the other with Latvians interested in history. It would have been impossible to reach the site using public transport since it was far from any major urban centre and close to the Russian border in northeastern Estonia.

I guess I was naïve not to consider my attendance at this commemoration before leaving Tartu. Even while approaching the parking lot at the entrance to Sinimäed, I was not fully aware of the situation I got myself into.