On the history of thought processes in Estonia

I am sharing the recollections of Vint user Madison from the early days of the Mind Games Multi-Competition: A little bit about the history of mind games. All of them took place in 1988-1990. These years were the years of the singing revolution, night song parties, the Hirvepark and Rahvarinde public gatherings, the Baltic chain and finally the liberation of Estonia. And also the years of the first cooperatives and small businesses, which at that time were springing up like mushrooms next to large state institutions. One of such small businesses was "Hermes" (Tamsalu Terko's small business), with Enn Koppel as director. Like most cooperatives of that time, it was also involved in a thousand things, sales, production and brokerage. Having known Enn Koppel for over 30 years, I can still say that his main goal was not to get rich quick, he was more of a bohemian figure, his mission was to offer people intellectual entertainment and come up with original events. For example, he published the newspaper "Hermes", which included crosswords (very popular at the time), chess, checkers, bridge tasks, etc. etc. He organized five mind games in total. Competitions: Intellect 88. Organized by Tamsalu Terko. Areas chess, checkers, bridge and memory game. 13 five-member teams from nine counties took part. First place was taken by Rakvere EPT (Vello Peeti, Ülo Ivask, Ülo Karask, Mart Komp and Evald Pakker). All except Pakker are now unemployed. Second place was taken by Rakvere KEK (Ants Olev, Jaan Linnamägi, Andres Rüüt, Ülev Ratassep and Mart Kuusk). Olev and Linnamägi are still among the best in Estonia in bridge, and in memory of Andres Rüüd, the Rakvere Bridge Club organizes a memorial tournament every year. Haapsalu KEK was third. The winning team received a boat trip on the Black Sea as a prize. (source - Viru Sõna, 26.05.1988) Mind games Viitna 1988. Organized by v/e "Hermes". Areas chess, checkers, bridge, memory game and the so-called star game. A total of 32 intellectuals participated. A bit of a star game. It was that letters were called to each other, and as many words as possible had to be formed from them. Whether the invented word actually existed (some even invented very surreal words) was decided by the jury headed by Raivo Raigna. Raivo had thick dictionaries with him, from which he then checked the existence or non-existence of words. Raivo Raigna is so much more than that, that he worked at “Hermes” until 1989 and he is a legendary master of epigrams. I still remember some of the best pieces, such as: “Success” Bold efforts and success, Wishes the locomotive to the wagon! Or “In his place” A man for long hours a day, A bar life accompanies him, Apparently a man has found his place in life! There was an individual competition - the former USSR champion in Russian checkers Vello Luht won, Jüri Raidväli was second and Kuldar Andest was third. All from Tartu. And there was also a team competition - Rakvere KEK won (Olev, Linnamägi, Kuusk, Rüüt and Ahto Külanurk). The winners received a tourist trip to Czechoslovakia as a prize. (source - “Hermes” information sheet, no. 1, 1988). A legitimate question may arise here - so many participants? The answer, in my opinion, is that firstly, memory games, mind games, and all-round self-development were very popular in 1988-89. Secondly, the USSR collapsed, state-owned enterprises with them, the ruble devalued, the money had to be put somewhere, the head of a state-owned enterprise was interested in his employees participating in the mental sports event and was also willing to pay the entry fee. And this money didn't come from his own pocket. Still from the bottomless pit of the state. Often the director even took part in the competition. And thirdly, the prizes were great. Even in 1988, not everyone was allowed to travel abroad, they still had to go through Pagari Street and prove their political affiliation. The KEK men say that a KGB spy was sent with them to Czechoslovakia. Whose sly and resourceful bridge players quickly got drunk, and who, as it turned out later, had been a pretty normal man. “Hermes” III mind games. In Tamsalu, chess, checkers, bridge, memory games and star games were competed. Rakvere KEK (Andres Rüüt, Jaan Linnamägi, Ants Olev and Jüri Raidväli) repeated last year's success. Vinni NST (Märt Sutt, Eino Vaher, Ülar Lauk and Arvi Rootsmaa) came second and Tamsalu TERKO (Enn Koppel, Roland Rand, Ants Tamme and Peedu Vipper) came third. (source: Viru Sõna, May 4, 1989). I don't remember exactly under what circumstances Ülar Lauk, the long-time editor of the chess blog “Vaatleja”, ended up representing Vinni. I guess it was something like that, I was just graduating from college, assigned to work at Vinni NST, and we had a joint extra job with Ülar - namely, we compiled crosswords for newspapers like “Hermes” at some point. Imre Termonen was running the chess magazine “Caissa” at the time, Igor Rõtov and Rainer Raud were also running their own newspaper, we were doing something there. But that’s it. “Hermes” IV Mind Games. There is a little confusion with these games, where I ask the Tartu guys for help. On July 13, 1989, “Viru Sõna” reported that the IV Mind Games would take place again in Tamsalu, on August 17-20, with teams of four, etc. However, after August 20, there are no reports in VS about the results. Mind games were held in Vinni at about the same time, for pairs. There are no reports about that either. Maybe the competition in Tamsalu was canceled and took place in Vinni instead? Or were there two games, both in Tamsalu and in Vinni? "Hermes" published its own newspaper, copies from 1989 are only available in Estonia in the University Library (issues 1-3) and KMAR (Literary Museum Archive Library) (issues 2-4). I'm not going to come to Tartu for this, maybe someone from Tartu can stop by and take a look. If I recall from memory, Jüri Raidväli-Tarmo Päss from Tartu and Ants Olev-Eino Vaher from Rakvere were the third, but who was the second? Maybe Enn Koppel-Kuldar from Ande. The disciplines were chess, checkers, bridge and memory games in Vinni. Intellectual mind games. They took place in Vinni in December 1990 and were organized by the Vinni-Pajusti chess club "Berta" and "Hermes". The disciplines were chess, checkers, bridge and rendzu. I remember that at first, the plan was to play othello (reverse) and go, but none of the participants except Koppel could figure it out in a few minutes, and in the end, he was dropped from the program. Koppel had just attended the World Mind Sports Championship with Kuldar Andest and wanted to quickly popularize new areas in Estonia. Many people also saw rendzu for the first time. The then “Viru Sõna” (22.12.1990) describes rendzu quite nicely: “vendzju – this is a new, but very combination-rich board game.” And in even more wonderful translation: “Vaher-Metsala and Sepp-Maidla won in chess, Tull-Virves in checkers, Sepp-Maidla in bridge and vendzjus”. The overall victory was won by the six-time Estonian chess champion Olav Sepp together with his good friend Vallo Maidla, who is currently, as someone said under cover of secrecy, the best professional poker players in Estonia. The others were Kalle Kask-Robert Shevtsenko and the third Tilk-Kolk. I don't remember which Marek or Marko Kolk Maie Tilk managed to achieve this brilliant achievement with, and this time she would probably make it so that it didn't matter, all three of them were great men. I do remember that every night there was a big card game in a smoke-filled hotel room, lasting until the early hours of the morning, and some men's hangovers in the morning were still very terrible. And so on for four days in a row...oh, oh, oh. But that's how steel was tempered. These were the last mind games of the so-called "antique era". They simply began to lose their novelty and popularity. Capitalism arrived, and mind players had other outlets to express themselves. Many of those mentioned here are still successful entrepreneurs today. Enn Koppel, the main organizer of all the mind games at that time, suffered a stroke in 1991 while on a business trip to Moscow. He planned to buy a brick factory there.. And his company or companies quietly, without much fuss, went into the hands of his former colleagues. One of them is currently successfully working in the field of ventilation in Lääne-Virumaa. For the past couple of decades, Koppel has worked at Tapa Gymnasium as a history teacher. He is still young at heart and has many plans. He talks with excitement about how he and "Memento" are organizing this summer's major political event for the 20th anniversary of the Baltic Chain, the 60th anniversary of mass deportations and the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Some trains decorated with flags and ribbons were supposed to start running, all the way to Poland. I didn't understand everything exactly what was going to happen. Anyway, I wish Ennu success and I really hope that all the "Vindi" mind players will join in. Madison

One question about the aforementioned World Mind Games Championship. What areas were planned there and when did the tradition of this competition end? Does anyone know? When I last spoke with Enn Koppel, it turned out that serious work is underway to revive the World Mind Games Championship, of which he is one of the initiators. We hope that this competition will take place soon, it would be good for Estonia to field a team!