Gang of Teen Girls, Estonia, 1930

This photo was given to Kaisa Kaer by her grandmother Aino, the girl on the far right in the second row, lighting her ciggie on another ciggie.

 

“She was about 15 when this picture was taken and these are her friends,” Kaisa updated on her blog. “However, I have no more specific info on who they are. They used to do amateur theatre, and as far as I know, this picture was taken when they were messing around with a production or some such. My grandmother never smoked but she did have a wicked sense of humor, which was all the more striking because it stood in such a contrast with her very poised and polished appearance (among other things, she left me a pair of lace gloves).”

Kaisa said her grandmother married a pharmacist, her grandfather Nikolai. They lived and worked in a small town in Estonia during the Second World War and a German officer, who was billeted at their house, got along so well with them that when the Soviets started advancing, he asked them to go to his family home in Germany (somewhere near Frankfurt) to get away from the war.

“My grandparents refused and well,” she added, “my grandfather was deported to Siberia, was released with Khrushchev’s amnesty and returned home, but died only four years later because his health had been ruined.”

“The most distinct memory I have of my grandmother is going to visit her with my parents and brother, and we sitting around her kitchen table, playing Mahjong for hours on an intricate set which my grandfather had made by himself.”

Aino passed away in 2009.