Haunted, maybe by a factory.

We toured one of the largest factories in Estonia this week, or at least the bones of it.

It was gorgeous, in the eyes of a photographer and an amatuer artist. The cracked paint, the areas where nature had reclaimed the very foundations of this concrete monstrosity, the dust that caught and sparkled in the beams of our headlamps… it was like something out of a storybook. Perhaps not as good for my lungs, though – I had quite the coughing fit after the tour!

I know I’ll miss it. This last week has been one of head colds and burn out, a bad combination for a bunch of exhausted students. The week ahead of us, however, is one of relentless tests and deadlines: when they said this was an intensive Russian program, they weren’t joking. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’ve taken off my rose-colored glasses quite yet.

I’ll admit there have been a few times when said lenses have been knocked off my face by a particularly brutal test or realiziation about my classmates, but when faced with those motes of dust clinging to the factory windows…. well, there’s no competition. My friends may be sick, but they still shoot smiles every time they see me with my camera. Those little pieces of beauty are what make all of the struggle worth it.

At this point, I can even say some of that in Russian. I’ve been careful throughout all of this to not look back too far, to examine the fragments of my thoughts too thoroughly, I know they’ll hurt as soon as I realize all of this is over.

My language skills are better, though I may be humbled in this week of testing. My friends are stronger, my body too. My mind? Well, I suppose we’ll find out. For now, every time I look back, I see the crumbling staircases and peeling paint of the Kreenholm factory, the graffiti left behind by generations. I know I’ll miss it.

For now, I hold onto a single moment. Perhaps if I haunt them, they will be kind enough to do so back.

This is my last blog post. Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Yours, very truly, Katerina Hemstad.