A hundred-year-old coat could be the exhibition's A and a coat made of an artificial material and bought from a store last year its O. The other 68 coats fall between the two in terms of how old they are.

"When I came up with the name for the exhibition, 'Warm and Fuzzy History' it would have been nice to add that it's also historical. The coats smelled of basements and sheds, they had been kept just in case," organizer Kai Kallas said.

"The legacy, all the stories people tell and bring back to life, which these coats remind them of, that is the value here," said Margit Tammeleht, head of visitation for the Mihkli Farm Museum (Mihkli Talumuuseum) that hosts the exhibition.

Coats were not just for weathering harsh winters in the city, but made for practical garments also in the countryside.

"It was a warm thing to wear, which I can tell you based on the experience of my mother who donned her coat, hung billy cans off the handlebars of her bike and went to the dairy," Kallas said.

She added that another garment may have spelled the coat's doom in rural areas more than half a century ago.

"Fufaikas or puffer jackets became all the rage in the Soviet era. They were given to kolkhoz workers for free, which eventually forced the traditional coat to take a back seat," Kai Kallas pointed out.

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