Interview with Aivar Ruukel
Leader of ecotourism in Estonia and the board member of the Global Ecotourism Network
© By Dominika Zaręba | Berlin, ITB 2023
We are at the ITB (International Travel Fair) 2023 in Berlin at the Estonian stand talking to Aivar Ruukel, the leader of ecotourism in Estonia, a mover and shaker and the man behind many projects related to ecotourism and sustainable tourism in Europe. First, I would like to ask you to tell us more about haabjas. This legendary expanded dugout boat from the Soomaa National Park was included on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list thanks to your efforts.
Haabjas is a boat made of one log. In Estonia we use mostly aspen trees (Populus tremula) to build it, which are quite common throughout the region, growing in wet areas. In Estonian, aspen is haab. Why aspen? Its wood is soft, flexible and doesn’t crack under pressure and is suitable for building expanded boats. A one log boat is made in the way that you carve it, but then you also expand it. In boat terminology, it is an expanded logboat or expanded dugout boat. Sometimes we call it a dugout canoe. To build a typical logboat from the Soomaa region, you need a tree of 50 cm diameter and 5-6 meters of length. But when expanding it, you spread the sides and you receive almost a one meter wide boat. To expand the boat you fill the hollow stem with water and put it on a bonfire. The hot water inside causes the inner fibers to expand, while the outside fibers shrink because of the dry heat of the fire.
And you are one of the Soomaa boat builders…
I learned it 30 years ago from old masters who were at that time 72, 73 and 74 years old. Over the course of five summers we had one week-long workshops where young people could learn how to build haabjas. I was one of their students and I was also organizing these workshops. I was trained for five years in a row. And this is how I learned it. Today I am one of the five people who are boat builders. These old masters passed away a long time ago, but because they passed on knowledge and know-how to the next generations, building haabjas is not any kind of experimental archaeology or making replicas of some archaeological findings, but this really is a living tradition in the Soomaa National Park.
How old is the tradition of constructing these boats?
Rivers have been used as transport routes for thousands of years. People have been settling next to rivers and lakes since the stone age, to be more precise, the Mesolithic period. Obviously, they used boats for fishing. They were hunters, fishermen and gatherers. In Europe, the oldest logboat was found in the Netherlands, it is 10,000 years old. In other parts of Europe these logboats were not expanded and they were made of different trees: pine, spruce and especially oak. Expanded boats are a bit like a later development, when people already used iron tools like axes. We don’t know which is the oldest expanded boat. The tradition of haabjas building dates back thousands of years and has Finno-Ugric roots. I’ve been involved in researching this topic a lot for over 25 years… Before the Second World War, given that road transport was rather underdeveloped in these areas, these boats were widely used on the rivers of Soomaa in everyday life: to transport people, milk bottles to the dairy farms, hay from grasslands to the villages or any other kind of goods.
Building and usage of haabjas is now included on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list. What a wonderful story!
Yes, in 2021! It took us three years of work to apply for that recognition, together with the Ministry of Culture and UNESCO representatives in Tallinn and also other organizations involved in cultural heritage protection. It is very exciting to be listed there. Now I’m working on how to make better use of this boat culture for tourism in the Soomaa, how tourists can best experience this heritage. As I said, boat building takes one week. Very few people are able to come for such a long time. That is why I am now testing a three hour program dedicated to haabjas for ecotourists using the UNESCO brand to attract visitors who come to experience boat building and paddling a dugout boat on the river.
How many haabjas do you have?
At home I have six of them. We can take them on the river with a small group of 12- 15 people. In the Soomaa region there are a few other places where you can see and try out haabjas. But I am the main boatbuilder in the area, because some other people who learned how to build it and who are also builders like myself, are based in Tartu, Võru or other regions of Estonia.
Do you see the chance that young people will take over this beautiful tradition?
Yes, exactly. This is the big challenge, but also my main goal. I am now 55 years old. When I was getting all these skills my teachers were around 75, so it means I have like 20 more years to find younger people who will continue the tradition. And I believe that because of the UNESCO brand, it will be an easier task, because the brand creates more value for people and understanding of that value. I’m hopeful that we will find new people and I’m already working with a local school where we try to engage young people aged 14-15.
In the park’s visitor center, tourists can learn more about the history of haabjas.
In the Soomaa National Park Visitor Center in Tõramaa you may see the original boat that was made by my teacher. There are also some of them exhibited in other places and museums around Estonia, for example in the Estonian Maritime Museum in Tallinn. But after the Second World War, the only place where the boatbuilding tradition survived was Soomaa. And the reason for this is the flooding, yearly natural floods that local village people call the “fifth season”.
The fifth season is also a unique tourist attraction of the Soomaa.
Usually, the peak season for this is spring. But sometimes this fifth season can happen during all four seasons. So if it rains, floods can come in autumn. It also happens quite often in summer. All you need is maybe 4 or 5 very rainy days to flood the area. It is a very flat landscape. River banks are also rather low and several rivers merge to form one river, flooding the meadows around the forests; sometimes also around inhabited areas. In the Soomaa, when we have the fifth season, the peatlands are the only landscapes that are spared the flooding because these peatlands are really 7-9 meters higher than the rest of the land, like forests or meadows. During the fifth season boats are the only means of transport. And it really attracts a lot of visitors.
Were you born in Soomaa?
My grandfather’s line is actually not far from Soomaa: it’s to the south, approaching the border with Latvia. My mother’s line is from North Estonia. But my family moved here when I was a schoolboy in 1979. I was 12 years old then and I grew up in Soomaa – we went to these rivers fishing and canoeing by rubber boats. And I remember the moment I saw some of these old dugout canoes because people used them on a daily basis. It was so exciting. For me it was like a real canoe that you see in the movies about Native Americans, North American Indians. Actually this is true, this type of dugout canoe is also made in North America, South America, Asia and Africa. So even today, in every continent there are places where similar boats can be found. Also in Russia, but in the European Union, the only place is Soomaa.
What do you like about Soomaa most? I remember my visit in the park when you were our guide. I realized that you are really in love with nature and the landscape of the area.
The landscapes are shaped by the rivers, meadows, forests and peat bogs. The term for this landscape would be peatlands. It is interesting that the peatlands are growing one millimeter every year, accumulating moss and some other plants. These untouched peatlands, wild river landscapes and forests are very special. And of course, there is all the wildlife connected to this landscape: you can imagine different species of woodpeckers in the forests or corncrakes and great snipes on the meadows. We also have lesser spotted eagles or golden eagles that usually have nests on the bog islands.
I would like to ask you about the ecotourists, nature tourists that you bring to Soomaa. What do you offer them?
We mostly organize canoe trips on rivers and guided walks on bogs. In winter, we do guided kicksled trips and snowshoeing on frozen bogs. Visitors have different motivations to come, but what is common for all of them is that they want to experience nature. Some people are interested in seeing wildlife and the birds. Soomaa National Park has trails which are free to access. There is no fee to enter the park. Soomaa is just an open space for everyone to experience, which is typical in the Baltic and Nordic countries.
From which countries does your travel agency get the most customers?
Maybe half of them are Estonians. During Covid, we were able to survive thanks to the Estonian customers. Now we are again recovering. But we have not yet reached the same level. Before Covid, we had visitors from 40 different countries. Germany is the biggest market as well as almost all European countries, but among them France, Spain and the UK take the lead. We don’t have many Polish travelers but that’s probably because you have many similar attractive landscapes in some regions such as Polesie or Biebrza valley.
What about the age of visitors? Where do they stay?
It varies. Most of the people who come for guided trips are a bit older than average, but there are also young people and families coming. Some people prefer camping with smaller budgets, but there are also visitors who prefer to stay in the best hotels. There are several guest houses inside the national park but also 12-15 in the area surrounding the park. Guesthouses together with local guides, food producers and activity operators form the Soomaa tourist cluster. And we have an NGO where all these businesses are members and we are doing some marketing activities and campaigns together with the local Leader Action Group.
In 2011 you organized in Estonia the first European Ecotourism Conference. In my opinion Estonia is the leader in ecotourism in Europe. You also established the Estonian Nature Tourism Association gathering tourist companies working close to the protected areas in Estonia. Now you are the board member of the Global Ecotourism Network. What is your vision or maybe a dream about ecotourism in Europe?
It would be really great if we could be more formalized as the European Ecotourism Network with the person who could take the lead and professionally manage the chain we already have. There are so many countries in the network with different perspectives and experiences. There is a lot to learn from each other. I see the power in it.
What is your dream about ecotourism, your personal dream?
I see tourism as a kind of human activity, that gives people a kind of growth, understanding of how the world works and what the different cultures are. So I see travel as something really good for humanity. I see tourism as a tool for conservation. These places that have unique natural values can be supported by the sector, by tourism business. The money that it generates to tourism companies can be invested in local values, and in that way these values can be kept, promoted and conserved. I see it like a positive tool or positive engine for a better world. And of course it is a bit idealistic, because the real situation is very much dependent on the local businesses and other organizations, local activists and authorities and also the political situation. Pressure on nature and also protected areas is increasing. I believe that by introducing tourism to protected areas in an intelligent, sustainable way we can still manage it in the way that it is not harming nature, but supporting it.
Do you feel that the young generation, because you work a lot with people of different ages, will follow this idea?
I am hopeful about the younger generation. And I can see they have been growing up with the view that our generation only talks about conservation, but we don’t really act. We don’t always walk the talk. I see it during some classes, that young people often are already more sensitive and they are able to change this in real behavior.
Thank you, Aivar, for sharing your ideas, knowledge and inspiration.
