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The Hippies and the House
Estonia’s New World Society brings a community - and the world - a little bit closer together.
They never saw it as taking back the neighborhood. They certainly never saw it as gentrification. They just wanted to make their community better.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome,” reads the New World neighborhood association's website, “if New World were a quieter, greener neighborhood…where people talked to each other and did good things together for everyone’s benefit…?”
The New World, or Uus Maailm in Estonian, bordered by Tehnika street, Pärnu maantee, Suur-Ameerika, and Endla, is one of the city’s more popular neighborhoods for young people. Its location (five minutes from the city center) and the availability of smaller flats here make it especially attractive to those on tight budgets. Ober-Haus real estate broker Kati Lips said that while in other neighborhoods apartments of 60 square meters might be more common, apartments in the 30- to 40-square meter range can be found in Uus Maailm. With today's rapidly-rising maintenance costs and utility prices, such a neighborhood is a magnet to the young.
Two of those young people are Madle Lippus and Merit Kask, both founding members of the New World Society, which has become one of Estonia’s most well-known community organizations. The pair are often sought out by European journalists visiting in connection with the Tallinn 2011 European Capital of Culture project. When this journalist visited the house one evening, a German television crew was present, and French journalists were on the way.
In 2006, Lippus bought a New World apartment with her spouse, not only because it was close to the city, but because it was the type of neighborhood where people stopped to say hello. Soon her friend Merit Kask began hanging out at her house, as did quite a few others. “It started from a commune and branched out from there,” said Kask.
“It was a club of the poor in the beginning,” added Lippus. “It was cheaper to eat together, and eating was a social event.”
Poverty may no longer unite them - Lippus freelances as a writer for several local magazines; Kask is the manager of New World’s nonprofit organization, a newspaper editor, and studies urban governance at university - but the spirit and vision of the group is still the same. “Our idea was to create our own city. We had a vision of how it could be,” said Kask. “We didn’t want to live someplace where everyone was anonymous.”
Unique to the New World Society in the city is their community house, or seltsimaja, on Koidu Street, which has become a gathering place for the entire neighborhood. There are 10 full-time residents, and whenever anyone is home, the door is unlocked and the community is welcome on the ground floor. Coffee and beer are available on the honor system - there is a donation jar on the kitchen counter.
The community house has brought them fame of sorts, thanks to couchsurfing.org, an organization which facilitates cheap accommodation for people traveling on a limited budget or those sharing the same philosophical approach to travel. One would be hard pressed to argue that couchsurfing.org’s slogan, “Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch at a Time,” differs significantly from the mission of the New World Society. A house resident told me that last summer as many as 500 couch surfers from all over the world spent a night in the sleeping dorm in the house’s attic.
“Some nights you can go to sleep, come downstairs, and it’s a whole new set of faces,” said the resident.
The community house, which also operates a bicycle renovation shop and children’s playroom, is not in the best condition, and critical renovations (a new electrical system, roof repairs) have been made by the residents themselves. A “Couch Surfers' Guide to Seltsimaja,” hangs on the wall, noting that the house runs on “3D,” the third “D” being “Deeds,” such as fixing the roof. (The other two “D”s are “Dinners” and “Donations.”) Another line on the sign reads, “You can also OWN the house by donating to the House Fund.”
All the house residents and Society members I spoke with voiced interest in buying the house, though no one enthusiastically took up the topic of the current status of the house fund. One resident told me they would need to spend a part of the money on the roof.
Lippus and Kask told me the Society paid rent of slightly over 700 euros per month for the house, which is covered by rent charged to full-time residents.
Asked if they might be working against themselves by increasing the home’s value and appeal to other potential buyers through improvements made at their own expense, they acknowledged the risk. “We’ve thought of that,” said Kask, “but we can’t think that way.” Although the two described themselves as “not money people,” from what this journalist witnessed of the economics of the community’s dinner program, the residents of the house are no financial fools.
Owning the house is indeed a dream, but perhaps a distant one. No one seemed eager to discuss the price of the house or the status of negotiations to purchase it. According to public documents, the structure is owned by three different limited liability companies in the hands of at least four individuals. Silver Soekov, one of the owners, said he didn’t believe the house residents were serious about buying it: “They have said that they want to buy it for three years.” Soekov said he believed they did not have the money, and noted that their interests were “making parties and music. They are not realistic.”
But, according to the residents I spoke with, there are not a lot of people willing to pay 700 euros a month for the house in its current condition, so perhaps the owners and tenants are stuck with each other, even if they don’t always see eye to eye.
So for now, Estonia’s New World Society, based from its headquarters on Koidu Street, continues to bring a community - and the world - just a little bit closer together.