President of the Republic and Mrs. Helle Meri greeted this year’s best home decorators and supporters of the home decoration movement from all the counties of Estonia on the Midsummer Eve in Paide.

In the presence of the Head of State, who had flown to Paide from the Victory Day celebrations in Valga, the Järva County Governor Theo Aasa sent the Victory Flame that had been lit in Valga, to all the townships of the Järva county. After that, a meeting was convened in the Paide Cultural Centre, and the Paide village band welcomed the home decorators and the President of the Republic, Mrs. Helle Meri, as well as Prime Minister Mart Laar and Minister of Defence Jüri Luik.

As the President said in his address, behind the idea of the home decoration movement there is the memory of the beautiful, clean, friendly and colourful Estonia, where the cleanliness of soul and the cleanliness of state went hand in hand. President Meri said that on his helicopter journey from Paslepa to Valga and from Valga to Paide, he could see all the garbage, scrap iron and waste hidden near the Estonian villages and in the Estonian forests – and that it was indeed strange that there could be room for all this in such a small country as Estonia.

As the President said, Estonia is both our state and the garden around our houses; he also wished that the wave of cleanliness would reach outside the picket fences, so that all the areas behind the fences, from border to border, would become clean. As the President said, the home decorators must carry on, ''let us scrub Estonia clean with a brush!'' the President said, wishing more power to everybody’s elbow and thanking them for the work already done.

In the afternoon, President Meri and Mrs. Helle Meri visited also Särevere, where the Home Decoration Information Centre has been functioning from this spring in the former estate of the Schilling family, which now houses the Türi Agricultural School.


Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, June 25, 1999

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