Jaama pudrett ehk Miks Tartu sai veevärgi nii hilja

The Tartu Poudrette factory or Why the WaterSupply System in Tartu was constructed so lateAt times the sanitary problems grew quite grave in the fast growing cities of the 19th century. Technology and medicine also developed swiftly but it was not always that the different fields provided support to each other at the right time and according to necessity.The University of Tartu is known as an innovative centre of medicine. The city had been studied by chemists (e.g., the research on the wells of Tartu by Carl Schmidt), physicians (medical topography already since the early 19th century), demographers (biostatisticians),etc. Considering this, it is somewhat surprising that the sanitary conditions in Tartu were rather poor at length even for those times. The University constructed its own water supply system already in 1889but institutions and classes were unable to reach an agreement with regard to the city water supply. The newly emergent body of active Estonians responsible for building the grand and modern Vanemuine theatre house was willing to live in quite modest conditions in view of hygiene.In order to solve the city’s issue of human waste a Poudrette factory was built on the territory of the Jaama city estate in 1866. This solution was somewhat outdated already then. The factory produced a fertilizer mix of dry night soil, which sold quite well. Gustav Post, the lessee and later owner, became a rich man. The factory was municipalizedeven before WW I and it developed to be a substantialsource of income for the city in independent Estonia. Tartu was the only city in Estonia where this part of the city’s economy brought a profit. This is likely one of the reasons why a water supply system that covered the entire city was built only in the 1930s in Tartu

Social mobility and career patterns of Estonian intellectuals in the Russian empire

'In the success stories of Estonians across several generations we can speak about certain regularities. The career which moved the person out of the taxpayers' status could be started in governmental (often half-military) educational establishments and was related to civil or military service. The way from leaving the countryside for town and to become a white-collar employee would happen no sooner than within 2-3 generations. A large part of the first generation intellectuals in 19th century left for Russia. It was hard to assimilate into well-established structures of the local society, but the vast Russian empire offered various possibilities to ambitious young people. Estonians, once having accepted to act like Germans, could in Russia make a career as engineers of factories, doctors in chief of military hospitals, chemists, headmasters of schools, veterinarians, land surveyors, postal or railway clerks, Lutheran pastor in the vast spaces of Siberia. The mere size of the Russian empire guaranteed extended job opportunities. At the beginning of the 20th century emigrants tried to come back home and use the knowledge and skills obtained in Russia for the (Estonian) public weal. When Estonia became an independent state, 40.000 persons came back and they had a great impact in the building of Estonian professional elites.' (author's abstract)