17 September from 10.00 to 16.00

The autumn fair lasts from 10 AM to 4 PM. Program activities take place in the museum buildings and courtyards from 11 AM to 4 PM.

Buy tickets!

Bread has always played such an important role in the lives of Estonian people that the word stands for bread crops, food in general, one’s livelihood, profession and life as such. All of this can be traced in the Estonian language as the word ‘leib’ (bread) is a part of numerous words and expressions, for example, the ones that mean ‘household’, ‘earn one’s bread’ or ‘have a rest after a meal’.

The Day of Estonian Bread and Autumn Fair this year focuses on well-known and lesser-known proverbs, sayings and expressions about bread. What does it mean if you ‘stumble upon good bread’ or ‘bread-winning profession’? Come to the museum and find out!

You will find the stalls of our traditional autumn food and handicraft fair right along the main road and in the cattle yard of Köstriaseme farm while bread producers will be presenting their goods in front the yard of Sassi-Jaani farm. Hobby bakers and small-scale bakeries are welcome to take part in the contest for the best bread of the fair, which will be held at Kolu inn.

GETTING HERE

 

BY CAR

Drive from city center along Paldiski road. Turn right (look for the sign Eesti Vabaõhumuuseum) before you reach Rocca al Mare shopping mall. Drive along Vabaõhumuuseumi street to the gates of the museum.

Free parking for museum visitors.

 

BY BUS

• Take bus 21 or 21B from Balti jaam railway station or Freedom Square (Vabaduse väljak) to the museum's gate (stop Rocca al Mare).

• Takse bus 21A from Väike-Õismäe to the museum's gate (stop Rocca al Mare).

• Or take bus 22, 42, 43 from the city centre and get off at the Zoo stop. The museum is a 15 minute walk away along the seaside road.

To get back to the city center:

• take bus 41 or 41B from across the street of the museum's gate.

• walk ca 10 minutes along Lõuka street toward Rannamõisa road. Take bus 4, 21 or 21B from Sõba stop.

• walk ca 15 minutes along sea-side Vabaõhumuuseumi street towards Paldiski road. Take bus nr 21, 21B, 22, 42, 43 at Zoo stop.

Bread Day Game
Find the red books from Sassi-Jaani, Roosta, and Setu farms, as well as the Peipsi Russian house, and solve the tasks inside. Ask the hostess or host for clues, and with the correct answer, the hostess will give you one letter. Once you've collected all the letters, you can create a word related to bread. For the correct word, ask for a reward from the Setu farm hostess.

Sutlepa chapel – Give us this day our daily bread. Bread blessing

The first known texts in the Estonian language date back to the 16^th century. The Kullamaa Wackenbuch (listing peasants’ farms and their duties) features Estonian translations of Our Father prayer, Hail Mary, and confession of faith. The texts were written down by Ear using the spelling rules of Low German, the general public today is likely to find them incomprehensible. In Our Father, ‘daily bread’ stands for everything a person needs for living: food and clothing, shelter, fields and cattle, friends and family, health, and well-being.

  At 11.30: Bread blessing, singing by the Women’s choir of the National Library of Estonia.

Kolu inn – Enjoy your bread! Competition for the best bread; choir performances
In addition to earning your bread, you need to take your time and enjoy bread and what it goes with and then have a rest because one does not live by bread alone. The inn is where adults and children can find bread and more to go with it. The Estonian phrase for ‘Bon appétit!’ is literally translated as ‘May you have enough bread!’. It dates far back to the time when it was used in the literal sense of the phrase. 

The barn of the inn becomes a stage for choirs.
From 12.00 to 14.30 Voting for the best bread at the fair

At 13:00 Sõsarõ choir 

At 14:00 EVM mixed choir
At 15.00 Announcing the best bread at the fair   

In front of Sassi-Jaani Farm – Village bread tastes sweeter. Bread fair
In front of Sassi-Jaani farm, you can find the stalls of bread producers, whose bread is certainly worth taking home.   

Sassi-Jaani farm – Using a hand grain mill to make flour
You can try to make flour using a hand grain mill in front of the barn!

 

Köstriaseme farm – ‘You need to earn your bread to eat it’. Threshing
Daily bread demanded a lot of effort and hard physical labour: crops in the field were cut with sickles, tied in sheaves, and arranged in stacks. After drying on the framework of the threshing floor, crops had to be threshed and winnowed, grain ground to make flour with a hand mill, and dough to be kneaded. Threshing was one of the dirtiest and most physically demanding chores related to bread-making. Sheaves of grain, dried and laid out on the threshing floor, were threshed with various types of flails until the grain was separated from the chaff.

You can try how hard threshing is on the threshing floor of Köstriaseme farm.  

Cattle yard on Köstriaseme farm – Liquid bread and hop water. 
The cattle yard of Köstriaseme farm is where you will find the stalls of craft breweries and wine sellers. Entrance from the farmyard!  

Nuki cotter’s hut – Any work is good as long as it earns you bread 

Wood-carving workshop where you can make a masher or a traditional shepherd kids’ toy. Depending on the item, the workshop fee is 5–10 €, payment in cash! Allocate 15–45 minutes for the workshop.

Nätsi windmill  –  sweat as you work, then you'll devour your bread (food). Capoeira training and performances
Our ancestors cultivated the field, tended animals and put food on the table by working hard. It required a lot of strength and physical activity, which in turn made the workers hungry. All the better was then the bread, the food at mealtimes. These days, while most people use their brain for work, there are a plenty of opportunities for physical activity, many of which originate form all around the world.
 
Tallinn Capoeira Sportschool invites to an open training. Capoeira is a non-violent sport that teaches how to become stronger, faster, how to be self-confident, motivated and interested in studies. At 12.30 pm, 1.30 pm, and 2.30 pm the members of the sports school give a performance of the training.


Pulga farm – Let’s put our loaves in one breadbox. Exhibition about weddings; smoke sauna
Only married people were regarded as full-fledged members of rural society. So, getting married was what everyone desired, and the wedding day was the highest point of a farmer’s life and had to be celebrated in the grandest possible way. The guest list included not only families on both sides, but the entire village as well. The new household had to receive the support and approval of everyone around it.

You can see a wedding celebration on Pulga farm. There is a table laden with the best food in the kiln room: an abundant feast was supposed to ensure that the young couple has enough bread for life.

An exhibition ‘Hooray to the wedding!’ introducing Estonian wedding traditions is located on the threshing floor.

In the sauna and summer kitchen you can see how barley cakes are made and the smoke sauna is heated for the wedding guests.  

Nulli-Maie sauna – Bread with chaff and soup with nothing
Adverse weather conditions, poor soil and pests affected crop yield, causing crop failure in the worst case. Even in a good year, farmers’ food stock would thin out by the time spring arrived. The poorest peasants who did not own land faced especially tough circumstances. To save grain, bread was made with chaff and other fillers such as tree bark, ground acorns and other available substitutes. The resulting bread was so dry it could catch fire.  

Härjapea farm – Stumbling upon good bread. Baking bread and churning butter Farm owners who made their way in life started building more modern dwellings. A house built in accordance with the latest trends was a matter of pride and a symbol of status as well as the farm’s success. These new dwellings were accompanied by decorative gardens and even parks while the interiors of the wealthiest mansions were by no means inferior to manors.

A bride from a poor family has married the heir of the wealthy Härjapea far, and now she wants to refurbish the outdated parlour of the building. Could a new sofa or a chair be enough to freshen it up?

On this farm, you can also see how festive bread was made and butter was churned.

Kuie school – Putting one on bread and water. Live history
The 19^th century laws regulating peasants’ life also established the creation of manor commune courts in manor lands. Courts would also deal with people whose children failed to attend school. More serious cases were regulated by parish courts, which were also the ones to receive appeals concerning the decision of manor commune courts. Manor commune courts could impose fines and order corporal punishment or incarceration in the form of a couple of days in a cell, or, as it was known back then, the ‘cage’. The manor commune court would meet regularly, mainly once a month, and the sessions were held in the village hall or school building.

In the school building, you can see a parent held in the cell for refusing to let their kid go to school because the farm needs workers.   

Kolkhoz apartment building – Who wants stale bread when there’s fresh to get? Dishes made of bread.  Caft dolls  from straws.
One must treat bread with respect, and an old saying goes “Respect bread, bread is older than us”.

Of course, freshly baked bread tastes better, but wasting food won’t do. In the apartments of the kolkhoz building, you can see which foods were made using bread and leftover bread in various time periods.  

Not a single piece goes to waste, even the straw left from the threshing is not discarded. In the cellar, you can craft dolls from straws.  

Sepa farm – ‘Bread-winning profession’. Blacksmith’s work
Most people in rural Estonia earned their living by working in the fields, which brought bread to the table. Still, there were people doing other jobs in the village than farming. One of the oldest rural trades was that of a blacksmith, who shod farmers’ horses, repaired carts, made or repaired arm tools, sickles, scythes and household items. The village blacksmith would normally work alone, and the customer take on the assistant’s role, working the bellows or the hammer. The payment was given in wheat, meat, eggs and other produce. The trade was often passed on from father to son.

The smith is busy in the smithy, and you can hear how the hammer bangs from afar.  

Sepa farmyard – Herd no cows and eat no bread. Shepherd kids’ games
In the yard of Sepa Farm, you can play shepherd kids’ games: ‘weigh the farmhand’s bread bag’, ‘tame a young horse’, take part in a sack race or ‘folding linen’.  

In the Food Academy Cabin, you can enjoy various oven-baked meat bites and grilled lard on bread. The food is prepared over an open fire right before the visitors' eyes and tastes especially delicious in the open air.

During the event, the Factory House is also open, located outside the museum's restricted area, and admission is free. You can read more about the Factory House here: www.tehasemaja.ee.

The organizer has the right to make changes to the program.
 
Partners and sponsors:  
Tere, Veski Mati, Tartu Mill, Estonian Bakers' Association, A Le Coq, Tallinn Capoeira Sports School. Rye for threshing provided by Rebasmäe farm (Rapla County).