The regional cultural heritage is like an indigenous tree, which is just as strong as its roots.
Avinurme cultural heritage is rooted in:
1. Local community
Manu local people have lived here for generations. This has been possible due to long-term isolation in the midst of great forests as well as the fact that aside from agriculture, carpentry provided opportunities for earning a living, making it unnecessary to move elsewhere. This is how it was at the time of buying land for perpetuity, after the Great War as well as in the 1990s when families working at home in their carpentry workshops established today’s timber companies that offer employment and have export markets in several foreign countries.
2. Hereditary farms
Once established with the money received for carpentry, the hereditary farms have been passed on from generation to generation. Surviving to this day, the farmhouses are suited for dwelling and to be used as summerhouses. What forefathers have created is appreciated through communal activities.
3. Strong sense of communal togetherness
Avinurme region is a border area in the middle of Estonia that has administratively been placed and considered under different districts. This has evoked strong feelings of togetherness in the people with their local customs, beliefs and traditions.
4. Postfigurative identity
According to cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead the customs passed on and inherited from generation to generation form a basis of identity, helping to carry on the skills of our ancestors.
5. Untouched nature
Accessible only with forestry machinery of the 21st century, the wilds have reserved the diversity of their flora and fauna, hunting traditions and primitiveness. By now these expansive forest lands have been taken under protection to prevent these and hereditary culture thereof from destruction and damage.
6. Kept carpentry skills
The power of tradition is evident in the fact that in times of hardship throughout history carpentry has always been the means to provide local people with work, and has developed hand in hand with time and market demand.
