Arts funding has been pumped into Narva, an Estonian town on the border with Russia, to empower the Estonian cultural identity and guard against pro-Russian propaganda, writes Carmen Gray.
The conversion of factories into cultural venues rarely raises eyebrows these days, but the Kreenholm complex here is not just any relic of industry. Once the world’s largest cotton mill and a poster child of Soviet might, it stands on an island in the river that now makes up the European Union’s eastern border. Russia is just a stone’s throw away, leaving Narva — where nearly 90 percent of the population is ethnic Russian — caught between two worlds... Keep reading on The New York Times
The conversion of factories into cultural venues rarely raises eyebrows these days, but the Kreenholm complex here is not just any relic of industry. Once the world’s largest cotton mill and a poster child of Soviet might, it stands on an island in the river that now makes up the European Union’s eastern border. Russia is just a stone’s throw away, leaving Narva — where nearly 90 percent of the population is ethnic Russian — caught between two worlds... Keep reading on The New York Times