Tartu: Jailed for non-return of a library book by Steenie Harvey Tartu, Estonia's second city, has around 100,000 inhabitants-and a fifth of them are students. With a venerable history as a student town, its university was founded in 1632 by Sweden's King Gustav Adolf. Nowadays things aren't so tough for the country's budding doctors, lawyers, and philosophers, but 19th-century authorities knew exactly what to do with unruly students: jail them in the university attic! Did you know…? ? Tartu county is getting a name for itself as Estonia's medical center. An increasing number of medicine-related firms have set up offices in the region and the university clinics here are among the largest research and health care institutions in the country. ? Domestic tourists visit Tartu for the willow-banked river Emajõgi, which has been the inspiration for many a poem. ? Pre-Christian Estonians were a blood-thirsty lot, appeasing their gods with sacrifices: You can still see one of their sacrificial stones-a massive boulder-on the north side of the cathedral. (The original settlement of Tartu dates back to 600 A.D.) These days, however, the sacrifice is a paper one as students burn their lecture notes here after their exams. |
Crime? roistering with students
The confinement period depended on the crime committed: disturbance in a theater could result in anything from a sentence of one to eight days; failure to return library books meant two days; smoking in the university buildings was two to three days. And insulting a lady carried a four-day sentence. Cursing? As the sentence could be anything up to three weeks, I guess it depended on how foul-mouthed the student was. Other really heinous crimes were deceiving a shopkeeper or dueling; each carried a three-week sentence. In 1819, the Estonian poet K.J. Peterson spent time in the lock-up for "aimless wandering in the streets after dark." But it wasn't only youngsters who got into trouble. In 1837, the director of the university's art museum spent time in the lock-up for roistering with students. Originally there were five lock-ups, but four were destroyed by fire last century. If you're willing to climb four flights of very steep stairs, you can still visit the remaining one. Go into the university's main entrance on Ulikooli St, head for the art museum, and ask the custodian there to let you in. Graffiti and girlfriends
For a small payment of 5 kroons ($0.40), a student guide will take you to see what previous students endured: a hard-looking bed… a desk and chair… a pitcher and bowl for washing. And that was about it in the cell. To pass the time, some young prisoners covered the walls of their cells with graffiti--pictures of devils, skeletons, cats, and owls. This is not to say that every student was bored witless. Apparently, wealthier bad boys bribed the guards into letting their girlfriends visit. Reflecting Estonia's history of conquest by neighboring countries (and its status as a Hanseatic trading nation), many of the graffiti inscriptions are in German. In the early 19th century, when the country was claimed by Czarist Russia, Tartu had the distinction of being the only German-language University in the Russian Empire. It wasn't until 1919 that it became an Estonian-language institution. |
