Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00Floridante.org.
00:00:03Two eras, one extraordinary evening. On October 24th,
00:00:07the sound language of the 21st century and the best of Beethoven's work will meet.
00:00:10At the House of the Blackheads, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra will perform James
00:00:13McMillan's second violin concerto and Beethoven's second symphony. The soloist will be the brilliant Swedish
00:00:17violinist Avahaari, the orchestra will be conducted by the composer James
00:00:20McMillan. Come to
00:00:21the concert.
00:00:28Eino Tamberg's Concerto Crosso.
00:00:31Alomäties' typewriter concert
00:00:34on October 25th at 5 PM at the House of the Blackheads
00:00:37in Tallinn.
00:00:42I am conductor Henri Kristofer Aavik and I invite you to the Pärnu
00:00:45City Orchestra's 33rd season opening concert, featuring
00:00:49the premiere of Rasmus Puri's new work, Beethoven's first
00:00:52symphony, and the premiere of Lembit Fagott's concerto
00:00:55in Estonia with soloist Martin
00:00:59Kuuskmann. See you on October 23rd
00:01:01at the Pärnu Concert Hall. Estonia's oldest rock festival is back.
00:01:05Sindi Rock 2026
00:01:08on October 17th at 6 PM at the Sindi
00:01:11community center. Kosmikud. 35th birthday program
00:01:15from their hometown. Tuberku Loired. Civilway,
00:01:18Eik and Raev. See you at Sindi
00:01:21Rock.
00:01:46Estonia's first
00:01:48thriller theater psychological
00:01:52thriller Lies,
00:01:55final performances on October 20th and 21st.
00:01:58At the Keller Theater Kellerteater.ee.
00:02:29The natural conditions and soil are ideally suited
00:02:32for flax cultivation. Already at the beginning of the 19th century,
00:02:36large raw flax factories were operating and
00:02:40flax was grown for production on tens of thousands
00:02:43of hectares. Russia was the largest trader
00:02:46of flax. Estonian and Livonian governorates as parts of the empire
00:02:50played a significant role in this
00:02:53success.
00:03:09Fragments of flax scutching tools have been found in Asva, Saaremaa,
00:03:12whose age is estimated to be 2700-2800
00:03:16years. The oldest pieces of linen fabric came out with
00:03:20the Pilistvere treasure, whose age is dated
00:03:23to the sixth century.
00:03:26A flax monument has been erected in Mooste.
00:03:30"This flax blossom was carved into stone by our
00:03:32local tractor driver who worked
00:03:36at our experimental farm, he has such
00:03:40a, well, spiritual following, and since
00:03:43we dealt with flax, he found an opportunity in winter
00:03:47and carved this flax blossom here
00:03:49into dolomite, and then in 2003, its
00:03:53unveiling took place, which was also attended by
00:03:56the then Minister of Agriculture Tiit Tamsaar, and here behind.
00:04:00We also wrote my thought, that flax was, is and
00:04:03will be. In the mid-19th century,
00:04:06when the time came to buy farms into freehold,
00:04:10the income from flax sales was of decisive
00:04:13importance. Free farmers became members
00:04:16of parish councils, the demands of the indigenous people
00:04:19became increasingly represented, and
00:04:22unprecedented opportunities opened up for
00:04:25national uplift. Behind all this was also a beautiful
00:04:28blue-flowered plant,
00:04:31flax. From the mid-18th century,
00:04:35flaxseed grown in Livonia was considered the best in the world.
00:04:38And a century later,
00:04:41in 1867, at the Paris
00:04:45World Exhibition, flax grown from Pärnu
00:04:48seeds was awarded first place. Thanks to the existence of a seaport,
00:04:52Pärnu became Estonia's largest flax export center.
00:04:56The construction of a flax factory
00:04:58began already in 1919.
00:05:02In 1919, a group of Pärnu residents
00:05:05gathered and decided
00:05:08to build a flax factory,
00:05:11because through Pärnu, a lot of flax has been exported
00:05:15for ages, all of Pärnu is full of these flax barns,
00:05:18all these Pärnu centers and museums
00:05:21and these are old flax barns, the flax
00:05:24was processed a bit and then these flax bales were taken away, but
00:05:28why let them be taken out, let's process them ourselves.
00:05:41In 1919, men came
00:05:44together and said, let's establish it. In front of it was
00:05:47Peeter Lepik and then Karl
00:05:51Vihmann. Peeter Lepik became the first
00:05:54chairman of the board of the Pärnu Flax Industry Joint Stock Company,
00:05:57and Karl Vihmann became a member of the board.
00:06:01By the way, Vihmann was Johannes Vares
00:06:04Barbarus's uncle and a major supporter
00:06:07during his studies. The paradox of fate is that
00:06:11it was Vares's signature
00:06:13on the nationalization act that deprived his uncle
00:06:17of his property in 1940.
00:06:20But back
00:06:24to 1919. In November,
00:06:27William Sumberg was hired as the accountant
00:06:31of the joint stock company, who later became
00:06:35a member of the board and the actual
00:06:37manager. On December 6th,
00:06:401919.
00:06:54It turned out that the equipment for the flax industry was very expensive, but
00:06:58used machines were still within reach. So
00:07:00the machinery of one Silesian
00:07:03spinning factory was bought entirely.
00:07:07Immediately, work also began on the construction
00:07:10of new factory buildings.
00:07:16"The territory was bought from the city,
00:07:20the project was ordered from Vienna,
00:07:24the foundation is designed in such a way that there can be four
00:07:28floors here, due to lack of material and money, only two
00:07:31floors were built, to which later during the Soviet era, an entire second building
00:07:35was added, which is no longer there, instead there are beautiful
00:07:38lawns, constantly these shareholders increased
00:07:42the share capital, in other words, they pooled money,
00:07:45pledged their personal
00:07:49property to get money for
00:07:52construction.
00:07:56Above all, the money problems arose from the fact that
00:07:58the Ministry of Commerce and Industry did not want to pay the company
00:08:02the agreed sum of money, citing a recently amended
00:08:05law. Let's add
00:08:08the customs duties on machines,
00:08:10the rising construction costs and
00:08:13cost of living, and we get a poor overall
00:08:17picture, but still, work progressed
00:08:21slowly. The first product was
00:08:25binding twine. There was a shortage of binding twine
00:08:28in Estonia at the time, so such a
00:08:31machine existed, such a machine was bought and
00:08:35they started producing binding twine. Furthermore, since there were no
00:08:38bricks available at that time when they started building the factory,
00:08:42they bought the corresponding concrete and
00:08:45cement casting machines and started casting
00:08:49cement blocks and things, and they produced that successfully
00:08:52until 1940, since they had
00:08:56a large boiler house, the chimney is still standing there,
00:09:00so they also produced
00:09:03electricity for the city during peak hours, and then
00:09:06they also sold steam to the meat
00:09:10factory across the street. They sold
00:09:13steam to them. When they started, they had 11
00:09:17workers, when they had been working for 20 years, they had
00:09:20400
00:09:22workers.
00:09:30Gradually, the scutching got going
00:09:32for them, then since there was a need for fishing nets,
00:09:35at first they made thread from which the fishermen
00:09:39themselves wove the fishing nets, but then they acquired
00:09:43these net-making machines and started producing fishing nets,
00:09:46so that, well, according to the momentary need, the factory quickly
00:09:50reoriented itself.
00:09:53They had many different products, actually, starting from
00:09:56rope, rope twisting, and then
00:10:00ending with very fine beautiful
00:10:02linen, linen fabric
00:10:05manufacturing.
00:10:11They immediately made catalogues
00:10:14in the first year to introduce to the public, so that
00:10:18it would be possible to order, and these catalogues were quite diverse,
00:10:21starting from sackcloths and then ending with
00:10:25decorative fabrics and
00:10:26carpets.
00:10:30In a joint venture of the Chamber of Home Economics, many organizations, schools and
00:10:33institutions, an exhibition was organized in the Tallinn stock exchange halls,
00:10:36"Our Daily Bread and
00:10:38Clothing."
00:10:41The aim of the exhibition was to give visitors tips on how to arrange
00:10:45catering and clothing issues more healthily and
00:10:48efficiently. We see exhibits of daily clothing,
00:10:51whose task is to explain how to extend
00:10:55the life of one's clothing through efficient
00:10:58organization, mending and cleaning of clothing, but at the same time, it was also tried
00:11:01to highlight how beautiful and task-appropriate
00:11:05items can be made from our own domestic linen and
00:11:08wool. Our high-quality linen
00:11:11is one of our most important export articles, but
00:11:14also at home, linen has found very versatile and refined
00:11:18use, both industrially and domestically.
00:11:21Since we have a relatively abundant supply of linen, then.
00:11:42Although Russia also had quite a large flax production, the
00:11:44quality was poor, that's why our flax factory in Pärnu
00:11:48became so
00:11:50famous.
00:12:07In fact, growing flax is quite a risky
00:12:10undertaking, and the primary processing of flax
00:12:14to obtain fiber has always been one of the most difficult farm jobs.
00:12:17The best soils were indeed here in Southern Estonia and
00:12:21Southeastern Estonia in general, that, well, in Mulgimaa.
00:12:25Many Mulks became very wealthy thanks to
00:12:27flax cultivation, when the flax field was plowed
00:12:31in autumn, then in spring, at the end of May, beginning of June,
00:12:34the flax had to be sown, it was then
00:12:38one of the last crops that was planted,
00:12:42because flax was quite capricious and it
00:12:45could dry out and not come
00:12:48up at all, not the beautiful blue flower,
00:12:52when it was pulled up, then the seed pods had to be taken
00:12:56off and the seed pods were then removed
00:13:00with a flax heckle, there were two ways, either
00:13:04the flax bundle was fixed to a bench and
00:13:07using a hand-held flax heckle,
00:13:11the seed pods were pulled off, or the other way was to tie the flax heckle
00:13:15to the bench and hold the flax bundles in hand and then
00:13:18pull them through the heckle and thus separate
00:13:22the seed pods, and the seed pods were then dried.
00:13:25And the flax stalks went
00:13:28to soak, because such a
00:13:30hard, hard stalk as grows
00:13:34on flax, you can't make a shirt or clothes from it.
00:13:37When the flax had been soaking for two or three weeks, it was taken
00:13:41out, but this work was quite unpleasant, because the
00:13:45flax started to smell, its bacteria fermented
00:13:48the flax stalks, to separate the fiber from them,
00:13:52and when this operation was...