What really links Turku, St Petersburg and Tallinn?
The project’s aim was to raise the issue of shared memory between Finland and Estonia. To do so, the authors decided to link up both towns by solid land. Doing so, they made a detour by St Petersburg and Russia, the Great Eastern neighbour that has influenced the history of these two small nations.

Memory, separation, war, independence, occupation, identity, revolution, cooperation… Along the way, do there exist any traces of these phenomena that directly affect the three countries’ history and relations? To answer, the authors chose to dwell on the places. In total they selected 121 places depending on one and only criterion: they had to have a direct or indirect connection with a historical event regarding at least two of the three countries.

When one listens carefully and has eyes wide open, sometimes the places speak for themselves and teach us a lot. And yet, often, people need to fathom out and understand what stories, anecdotes, memories and traumas the places carry. During the months of travelling in the region, Nicolas Pannetier and Simon Brunel met many people from many horizons with whom they managed to communicate with the resources they had: especially English and German, French, a little Finnish and Russian and above all a lot of listening and curiosity. All the photographs, the sounds and the stories collected on the premises as well as the interviews of the people are all made available on www.detour2011.eu : the mosaic which gives an overview of each place, the long and detailed list, maps, and the search module.  All this enables to share at best what the authors saw, heard and learnt along this 1960 kilometres long itinerary.

A documentary The Detour was filmed on the road and the premiere of the feature took place in Tallinn on 29th September 2011.
The trailer of The Detour:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osCxGMzu0fs

The itinerant tour will take the film and its authors in towns and villages along the route: Kunda 13.10 at 18.00, Kohtla-Järve 14.10 at 14.00, Rakvere16.10 at 16.00, Narva 17.10 at 17.00, Keltto, St Petersburg 18, 19, 22.10, Zelenogorsk, Vyborg, Lappeenranta, Kotka, Helsinki, Porkkala, Tammisaari, Piikkiö, Turku.
The period of the itinerant tour: from mid Oct to mid Nov 2011.

19.10 St Petersburg,  House of Nationalities (Gobelin Hall), 13:00

20.10 St Petersburg, Polytechnical university, 14:00

20.10 Keltto / Колтуши (Ingrian village near St Ptbg), University of theology 19:00

21.10 Vyborg, Alavar Aalto Central Library, 18:00

22.10 St Petersburg, Museum of modern Arts «Erarta», 18:00