Stealing Socialism

Estonia was part of the Soviet Union for 50 years, a period of great turmoil and uncertainty in which citizens came up with creative ways of surviving totalitarian oppression. Against the backdrop of a dilapidated village, in a partially staged setting, local people tell personal tales from that era of how they stole from the state. “Steal and let steal was policy in our country,” claim two aging drinking buddies who saw police officers stealing a load of purloined fish. A seamstress recalls how her husband who worked in a meat factory hid kidneys in his shoes – enraging her mother, who thought he should have brought home something better. And a group of wedding party guests all have their own anecdotes, including one about a boy smuggling in sugar and butter in his hollowed out prosthetic foot. While celebrations at the wedding party become increasingly wild and the new season dawns, a four-piece gypsy band makes its way through the hilly Estonian landscape full of wrecked tractors, weed-infested gas stations and peeling apartment blocks. The film begins and ends with archive footage of the annexation and of the vote for independence.