View of Paula’s (grandchild of a deportee) monument-painting: “I depicted the Siberian landscape, a snowy forest in the background with a partially frozen stream and some hills behind the forest. There are some low snowdrifts in the foreground and at the centre of the picture there is a single cornflower with a few fallen petals. My aim was to convey a feeling of isolation.” Photograph: Katarina Meister, 2019

Installation on the train station building, which was was also visible from passing trains. Photograph: Katarina Meister, 2019

View of Tapa train station building from the side of the Tallinn-Narva train line. Photograph: Triin Kerge, 2019

Anni’s idea based on her grandmother’s experiences in Siberia: “The dark background symbolises the past. There is a blossoming flower in the foreground (my grandmother and great aunt). As if the dagger of the past has been relinquished and freed. A digital medium would be best, because there are enough figures and pillars. It would be great if it were produced in a digital format, printed large and fixed on the wall like the large “Eesti 100“ picture was on Vabaduse väljak.” Photograph: Triin Kerge, 2019

The Tapa train station posters were printed on delicate paper and therefore susceptible to the elements. Photograph: Triin Kerge, 2019

The “Blossoming Monument” (Õitsev monument) bird cherry tree in Tapa is located near the train station and orthodox church. Photograph: Tanel Rander, 2019

Asta’s grandchild: “I wanted to convey the moment, when my grandmother was a little girl and was looking at a globe and saw Estonia. It glows and my grandmother looks at it in surprise. My grandmother is wearing a Siberian dress put together from various pieces of fabric. On the globe Russia is red, Finland green and Estonia bright golden with the Baltic Sea in the Middle.”

Kersti’s son: “My mother contacted me and asked me to draw a monument. I was reminded of the rhyming couplet “My father’s home is tiny” (Isakodu on tillukene) from the sing “A Nice Quiet Place” (Vaikne kena kohake), because we sang it during the Soviet era. The railway holds a symbolism for us. I imagined the moment when the Estonians disembarked from the train and started towards their new home among the hills.”

Deportee Heino: “A monument should be made of stone: it doesn’t fade and survives long into the future. It should be a large beautiful stone. An Estonian stone. Why not a great boulder? The surroundings of the stone, amid nature, should be designed and set in order. The monument should be located in its natural surroundings and people would have to go out into nature to visit it. It should be untouchable. That would be a monument to freedom; instead of the current Czech glass laughing stock of a monument that dripped water, suffocated and grew mould. Surrounded by nature, a monument is beautiful without technical treatment as long as its immediate environment is properly designed.”

Sandra-Ruth: “My grandmother suggested a monument consisting of two railway tracks. The journey to Siberia was awful and some didn’t make it. The monument has an authentic appearance. The wood has indentations. It could just as well be a section of track from 1949 when they were sent to Siberia.”

Karin, who was born in Siberia: “When I think of what the monument could be, I imagine a mother giving her child half a piece of bread. The idea is imbedded in the hands of the mother and child and also in the small piece of bread.”

Külliki (daughter of a deportee): “At our home there is an old dilapidated stone barn, which is still standing today. For me it is a symbol of persistence, which shows how the manual skills and work ethic that the Estonian craftsmen possessed, is vital for survival. It’s especially impressive that the arches were set so well that they are still standing despite the building no longer having a roof.”

“I depicted the Siberian landscape, a snowy forest in the background with a partially frozen stream and some hills behind the forest. There are some low snowdrifts in the foreground and at the centre of the picture there is a single cornflower with a few fallen petals. My aim was to convey a feeling of isolation.”

Natalia (grandchild of a deportee): “People think Siberia is a cold place and stone is also cold. There are many oak trees in Estonia. They’re also on my Estonian passport now. I would like to combine stone and an oak branch reaching upwards: Siberia and hope. The oak proves that if you want to survive, you will always find a way. The branch grows from left to right, from the past towards the future. There would be a monument in both Siberia and Estonia and made from the stone used for gravestones, thereby containing a memory of all the dead Estonians. The memorial should be located in both locations, because Estonia is the mother country and a mother always remembers her children. Many never returned, and yet they provided our roots.”

Kartin Heele: “The village of Lugavskaya, where my mother was born, no longer exists and by now the graveyard where many Estonians were buried has burnt down together with the village. When I had to come up with an idea for a memorial, I was inspired by this story. Nothing is left of the people who once lived, not even a cross. This relays a very total finality, because, if nothing else, a graveyard should survive.”

“Memory Lines” (Mälujoonised) is an artistic research project created in collaboration between artist Katarina Meister and deportees and their relatives. On the windows of the Tapa train station building we installed designs for monuments with which the deportees would like to commemorate what they experienced. The designs were created through dialogues between the deportees and those close to them, who then drew the monuments based on the descriptions. The initial concept for the exhibition was born from the fact that Tapa does not have a memorial to the March deportations, which meant it was the ideal location to hold discussions around remembering and commemorating.
 
48 train wagons left Tapa on 26 March 1949 with 1,064 people, of whom 543 were women and 327 children. The destinations of the train were Uzhur and Abakan, 5,000 kilometres away. For this reason we hung an “Uzhur” sign on the Tapa train station building and there was a series of photographs of the present day Uzhur train station in the waiting room of the bus station.
 
Our programme included hanging a sign bearing the name “Uzhur” on the Tapa train station building and planting a Novosibirsk bird cherry tree nearby.​