Andres Hallik | Editor's Portfolio: Cohabitants (2024)

Piirissaare is a tiny Estonian island in Lake Peipus, right on the border with Russia. Nearly 300 years ago, Russian Old Believers settled here, fleeing the reforms of the Orthodox Church and the ruthless persecution of the tsarist state. As the waves have washed the islet smaller and smaller, the community here has withered over time, inevitably reaching the brink of extinction. Yet the local culture and way of life, developed in isolation from the rest of the 'Russian world', has not yet disappeared from Piirissaare.