Loksa, a tiny town on the northern coast of Estonia, half an hour's drive from Tallinn's eastern border, is like San Marino in the middle of Italy: the same money and the same borders, but it dictates its own laws. Compared with neighbouring regions, it is relatively well off. Half the city of Helsinki is reputedly made of Loksa bricks, although the former brick factory has now been replaced by a huge shipyard, the main employer of local people, which belongs to the international corporation Maersk. The hold hatchways of the biggest container ships sailing the world seas are the work of the Loksa Russians. Although cheap labour for the Danish owners, the welders and fitters still account for nearly twice as much income tax for the town per person than, for example, in Jõgeva, a town in southern Estonia. A single industry town, however, carries with it risks as well. Once when the main crane overturned in the mother factory in Odensee, where the completed holds are transported, Loksa was on the verge of a catastrophe. It is better not to even imagine what would happen if economic circumstances no longer require new container ships. Estonians, who form a modest third of the population, do not go to the factory, with its prevailing Russian language and mentality, to do heavy metal work. Those Russians who have had some training also leave for better conditions, either in Tallinn or Finland. Vacancies in the Loksa factory are continually filled by new unemployed workers from Ida-Virumaa, the north-eastern part of Estonia. Each morning, buses bring cheap labour from Narva, Maardu and Tapa to Loksa. However, the town coffers are also filling up nicely, enough for the local men in power to fight over.

Loksa market. early 20th century.
courtesy of the estonian history museum

Little Loksa lies at the mouth of the picturesque Valgejõgi River in the heart of the Lahemaa National Park, by the beautiful sandy beaches of Hara Bay. The neighbouring towns of Võsu and Käsmu are old summer resorts where life gets busy when the sun comes out. Loksa used to be a similar Mecca for holiday-makers as well. Today these glory days are recalled by the small garden suburb called Loksa-Nõmme, between the river and the beach. Running through the town, the Valgejõgi separates Loksa's Estonian and Russian communities. A rural municipality of the same name extends around Loksa, with deserted sandy beaches, rapid salmon rivers, 102 mighty erratic boulders, forests of mushrooms and berries, unmown meadows and a declining economy. Only the sea-loving newly rich, for whom life in the outskirts of Tallinn has become too dense, introduce fresh winds in these areas, building summer cottages and houses in the former fishing villages, thus providing local builders with work and filling the rural municipality coffers with their income taxes. Soviet military and border guard complexes crumble quietly on beautiful beaches, for over ten years now waiting for investors to start the spa business as in Kuressaare, Haapsalu or Pärnu. Money, however, is not keen on Loksa, because the image of a Russian industrial town is not exactly welcoming. The only shining exception here is the art museum complex in Viinistu village, which replaced the former Kirov fish processing place. But these millions were set in motion by a love for the native village and not any business sense. And thus life in pretty little Loksa, near the capital city, quietly proceeds at even a slower space and less vigorously than at the time of the great leader Brezhnev, regardless of the fact that we are now in the European Union.

Mihkel Tiks, (1953), politician and writer, local activist.