The ice was appreciate a present that arrived in time for Christmas. Lake Peipus had frozen over earlier than expected: the ice expanding through the long nights, stealing shoreward to smother the reeds and touch the boats beached beside the lighthouse.
The event was special, locals told me, because the ice had been scarcer, arriving later in recent times. Five years ago the lake didn’t freeze over at all. But this winter had been appreciate the winters of childhoods long ago. Villagers had held festivals out on the ice, whose diamantine depths mirrored the full moon. Once or twice people saw the Northern Lights wisping above the great white desert.
By the time I stood in the village of Nina — on the Estonian shore of Lake Peipus — the ice had grown 50cm thick. Typically I would have lowered my first foot on a frozen lake with the trepidation of a first chess piece being placed on the board. But it felt rigid underfoot. Out on the horizon were pinprick figures where the lake met the morning sun. Walking closer to them, they resembled a monastic order, sitting in silence, their heads hooded and dipped as though in prayer. Their focus was on holes in the ice, about the size of a cat flap. Among them was Valdis Maslouskis, deputy mayor of a town in Latvia.
“The best thing about ice fishing is you don’t have to talk to anyone,” said Valdis. “My job is stressful and you have to talk talk talk. Here you can be quiet. relish the process.”
The process in question involved reeling half a dozen perch through the hole, listening to the howling wind with numb ears. Just after 8am, another fisherman reached for a carrier bag.
“Would you appreciate some moonshine?”
Lake Peipus is the fifth largest lake in Europe — an inland sea measuring 3,550 sq km — and it is the largest transboundary lake on the continent. The boundary in question is the Estonian-Russian border, which runs midway across the lake (10km east from where we were fishing). The edge of Nato territory and the European Union is marked by STOP! signs jammed into the ice. Since February 2022, this has been a border talked about in parliaments, bolstered by troop surges, watched nervously by five-star generals. In one sense, the fishermen are directly on a tense geopolitical faultline. In another, Nato’s Article 5 affords them the same protection as the residents of London, Washington and Berlin (providing they stay behind the signs).
The lake remains a much-loved tourist destination. In high summer its shores are still busy with sunbathers from the Baltic states, Finland and beyond. I had been invited as a guest of the Estonian tourist board, keen to advocate the region’s winter credentials as an alternative to the more commercial snow-and-Santa holidays on offer in Scandinavia. For locals, the leviathan presence on the far shore was nothing new. Even at the lake’s widest point (where it is more than 45km across) you can see the lights of Russia twinkling on the horizon on clear spring nights.
And, in truth, geopolitics were far from the thoughts of the ice fishermen I met. The frozen lake is where you can come to unclutter your mind: spending days in a landscape of spirit level-flatness imparts its own sense of inner equilibrium. And ice fishing is — I soon discovered — a hypnotic ritual. First you drill a hole, then a gossamer-thin line is dangled into the invisible underworld of shadows and reeds. You expect for a twitch on a fishing rod about the size of a magic wand, then haul in the fish — which makes its ascension through the ceiling of ice into bright celestial light. Here it is grabbed by godlike hands, then you chuck the fish anywhere: the ice works as a giant fishmongers counter. And repeat. I caught 23 perch. The flip-flap ballet of dying fish was often the only movement on the lake, apart from the eagles which sometimes swooped down to steal them.
And of course the karakats: the strange vehicles especially designed for ice fishing on Peipus, just as homemade as the moonshine. They are made to be lightweight; the tyres are recycled from the landing gear of Soviet TU-22 supersonic bombers. On top is half a family car, at the back a metal box for the fishing gear.
Marko and Herling Mesi’s karakat is part-1980s Volkswagen Passat. Marko had been a border guard here, and Herling was the first female karakat driver on Peipus. Together they run a guesthouse, Mesi Tare, and use their vehicle to ferry fishermen about the ice.
They took me on a karakat safari from the village of Varnja: crashing about in the back was a samovar to make hot fireweed tea and a pot to boil fish soup (made with lakewater) — a nod to centuries past when fishermen lived on the lake for weeks, setting up villages with drinking dens and chapels on the ice.
“Marko sweet-talked me into moving here,” said Herling — who is originally from western Estonia. “He promised me the lake would be different from month to month. He was right.”
Herling and Marko talked about windy days when ice ridges form — some rising five metres high with crystal summits. They talked too about foggy days: appreciate the one when Marko’s karakat broke down on the ice and Herling had to trace his tyre tracks through mists to rescue him. Even during my stay, the ice was shape-shifting. One day it was covered by fresh, fluffy snow: appreciate looking down on clouds from a cruising airliner. The next, rain pooled atop the ice, and fishermen waded through shallows appreciate Jesus on Galilee.
The ice dies in different ways, too. Sometimes it smashes on to the beaches, making a noise appreciate footballs crashing through window panes. Eight years ago the ice melted suddenly along the shore — villagers scrambled in boats to rescue the fishermen floating adrift on icy islands. Come spring, Marko sets out every morning promising Herling it will be his “very last drive’” — but he keeps gambling, day after day, until the ice finally splinters and the karakat goes in. Fortunately, the tyres mean the vehicle floats and Marko gets winched out.
“Locals can read the ice,” said Herling. “But sometimes you think you know what it is doing — but you don’t. As a wife, I still worry.”
Sometimes the ice exacts a lethal toll. A few Christmases ago it was two people in a 4×4. It doesn’t take much: a hairline fracture hidden by snow, a miscalculated advance, checkmate. There is the political boundary in the lake and there is the vertical boundary — the membrane which divides the whiteness from black oblivion. Some say you have 10 minutes in the water until your muscles stop functioning, and you feel a burning sensation. Part of Marko’s job as a border guard was to rescue people who fell in. He says people don’t panic and splash about appreciate in movies: they just go quiet.
In the 1930s, as the USSR faced war with Nazi Germany, Stalin commissioned Sergei Eisenstein to make Alexander Nevsky. A landmark of cinema, it sees the 13th-century prince Alexander facing an invasion of Teutonic knights — “Germans” with helmets adorned with satanic horns. The climax of Aleksander Nevsky is the “Battle on the Ice”, where Russian and German armies clash on the frozen Lake Peipus.
“These parts are foreign to us and covered with darkness,” says one doubting Russian soldier in the film. “It will be easier to fight on our side!”
“One who won’t fight on enemy soil has no need of his own!” booms the heroic Alexander, leading his infantry on to the ice.
The battle ends when the ice buckles under the weight of heavy German armour, and the enemy sinks into the depths. The scene was shot on a sweltering hot day outside Moscow — historians debate whether the ice actually broke. But legend can be more powerful than fact, and the film endures as an artefact of Soviet attitudes to the west.
But in truth, this border is not a clean schism of one people from another: 24 per cent of Estonia’s population are ethnic Russians, and certain Russian communities have lived on the Estonian shore of Peipus for more than 300 years. These are the Old Believers — Christians who broke from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century after rejecting certain reforms: among them the spelling of the word “Jesus”. They have scattered as far as Siberia and Bolivia, arriving on Peipus’ western side when it was under Swedish govern, along with German gentry.
Their numbers are a few thousand but steadily falling: they inhabit lakeside villages of wooden homesteads with smoke saunas and onion gardens, and worship in humble prayer houses. The Old Believers had faced death and persecution on terra firma — but became expert fishermen out on the terra nullius of the lake.
In the village of Kolkja I met Aleksei Pashenkov: an Old Believer who lives in the house his grandfather built, and reared a family of championship swimmers in the summertime lake. The Nazis once commandeered his family home as a canteen. The returning Red Army smashed up their possessions with rifle butts. An admin error meant his family avoided the gulags, so the story goes. When Estonian independence came in 1991, he remembered his aunt applauding. He said he isn’t representative of all ethnic Russians along the lake — some of whom tweak their satellite dishes to get TV news from Moscow. But he was content living in modern Estonia.
“We can live here, and no one tells us how to be.”
On my last night by Lake Peipus, I took a midnight walk: there was not a soul on the ice — only me. The blue light of a half moon illuminated the karakat tracks, and pawprints of a fox who trotted off in explore of discarded fish. Some way out, I looked back over my shoulder to see my footprints trailing to dry land. If you approached directly from the east, this shoreline would be your first impression of the European Union, Nato or — if you appreciate — the western world. A picnic bench. Silver birch woods. Villages where Old Believers sleep under roofs heavy with snow. The twinkling of electric candles in the cemeteries.
And then advancing a little advance inland — pine plantations. Foresters’ tracks. And a castle — in fact, Alatskivi castle — built by a German baron in the 19th century as a replica of Balmoral. Quite why this nobleman chose to build a Scottish-style castle here in the Baltic is a mystery. Perhaps he liked the design. Perhaps it was meant as an expression of unity: a kinship that could reach across an entire continent, from the western glens to the eastern ice.
Details
For international travellers, the Estonian capital Tallinn is the gateway to Lake Peipus. For the most part, the western shore isn’t served by railways or extensive public transport connections so it’s best to opt for car hire at Tallinn airport: from here you can expect a two- to three-hour drive to the lake (note that from December to March winter tyres are mandatory).
Start out by exploring the Peipsimaa Museum (peipsimaamuuseum.ee) in lakeside Mustvee — which has exhibits on the Old Believers, as well as a magnificent collection of historic samovars and Orthodox icons. Admission is €4. Perhaps the most picturesque Old Believers village is Kolkja — a half-hour’s drive south from Mustvee. Aleksei Pashenkov offers guided tours on a kicksled, enabling you to glide among the historic streets, docks and churches. Contact karpa.maja@gmail.com; a two-hour tour costs €100.
If you’re keen to head out on the ice, travel in the company of a reputable guide. Mesi Tare (mesitare.ee), a cosy guesthouse in the village of Varnja (next to Kolkja), offers day-long karakat safaris which include ice-fishing, soup-making and a sauna upon return, from €375 for up to six people. Don’t leave without admiring the colourful collection of Glasnost-era ceramics in their guesthouse.
The Scottish baronial pile of Alatskivi Castle is set in parkland a few miles inland — inside you’ll find restored interiors and exhibits on local history. Admission costs €12 (alatskiviloss.ee). Close by, the eight-bedroom Nina Kordon (ninakordon.ee) is typical of the guesthouses along Lake Peipus: friendly, simply furnished and with the heating on at full blast. Doubles start from €80 including breakfast.
Oliver Smith was a guest of the Estonian Tourist Board, whose website visitestonia.com has more details on accommodation and other activities.
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