Marika Plooman from Tallinn, a member of the Center Party since 1999, works as a teacher, but for the end of the year holidays her role as a collector will clearly remain.
Marika has a huge Christmas collection. We learned what it means in numbers: so many moons, so many cones, so many garlands, so many elves, or is there some general number? Is it also the largest collection in Estonia?
“Actually, I don’t even know the exact number,” she says. “Certainly more than 800. But today we no longer dare to claim that it is the largest collection in Estonia, one of the largest, yes. I have been advocating collecting and keeping fir ornaments for years, and many people have since started collecting them. What I see in the auction environment is that they are bought in bulk and there are hard auction outbids. I, however, do not chase quantity, but proceed from the originality and timing of the matter.”
Right from childhood
When asked when she started her collection and what was the motivation, Marika answers: “The motivation was a childhood incident. In our old wooden house, there was a porch where a spruce was placed, you know, on a cross like that. I remember that Christmas and New Year were over, I came home from kindergarten with my mother in the evening, and while still outside I noticed that the Christmas tree lights were not lit. When we went into the room, we saw that the fir tree had fallen to the ground and all the beautiful old ornaments – nice hedgehogs, cats, bears, children, pearl leaves – turned into broken glass. It was a huge tragedy for a young child. And it stuck with me.
And when I walked around the Balti Station market with my child about 20 years ago, I found the same jewelry among the items at the antique booth – a huge joy! These became the first pieces of jewelry in my collection – a 1960s sledgehammer, a bear…”
According to Marika Ploomani, she focuses on figures and pearls of Soviet Russia, because at the time she started collecting, she didn’t have much of an idea about anything else. “Soviet-era handmade glass jewelry, especially made after the war in the 5070s, is gorgeous, very original, and deeply valued around the world. Later, jewelry made of papier-mâché came along,” adds Marika.
Spruce ornaments as a vanishing value
However, the oldest treasures of the Plooman collection come from the tsarist era. “There are few of them. Icicles, ball, birds. Adding to the collection is done by following auctions, catalogs of Christmas ornaments, online sales, visiting antique shops and fairs. Sometimes people who know I collect bring. In recent years, people at home say: you can’t buy any more jewelry! Then I still secretly buy,” smiles the collector. “I have hall cabinets full of them, but when they went into the kitchen cabinets, there was a civil war – that you can’t miss the dishes and you can’t touch the dishes. So now I don’t buy like I did in the early years. This year I have bought only one small box, but there are tin jewelry made in Germany before the Second World War, which could have ended up in Estonia after the war as a war trophy.”
Favorite jewelry in the collection are those related to children, animals, fruits and vegetables. Because each piece of jewelry is decorated by hand. They are all unique. Marika’s collection was exhibited quite a lot, also abroad.
“Creating an exhibition is a big job. The jewelry is packed by theme, the very old ones are simply in one box separately. Spruce ornaments are so fragile, so delicate, they break easily, so it’s like a vanishing value. Each piece of jewelry is wrapped in either tissue paper or bubble wrap, must not be hot or cold, sway, or get moisture. Papier mache, for example, has such a story that if it gets moisture, it turns brown, ugly and does not last,” explains the collector.
Fashion and trends here too
“The exciting thing is that something is always missing,” he admits. “If the wallet doesn’t work, well, then my rational mind kicks in (for 11 years I was the leading auditor in the Tallinn City Council) and the jewelry remains unpurchased. What’s more exciting is when the thing is well preserved – the paint is on and bright, the neck is not broken, there are no pieces out, there are no cracks. But that is very rare these days.”
Marika observes the fashion and trends of Christmas and necklace jewelry: “Throughout the centuries, it has been the case that after major changes in society, people throw away the jewelry of the previous era. The last such big throw-away was in the early 1990s, when a lot of beautiful Soviet-era jewelry was thrown away and replaced with… Chinese plastic balls.”
Jewelry from the collection is not placed on the Christmas tree. “We have different Christmas trees from year to year,” notes the interlocutor. “There have been times when I covered the tree with jewelry from different generations of our family: my great-grandfather’s, my father’s, mine and my children’s era jewelry. There have also been Christmas trees with ornaments made by children themselves. This year we decorated the artificial Christmas tree – we try to preserve nature – with modern ornaments. In fact, manufacturers look very much to the past. I know that some have also visited my exhibitions to take a peek. If you look in the stores, you will see that the jewelry has such themes that have already existed, that were produced in, say, the 1960s. Only now they are in the new sixth.”
KN
