Emotional reunion with long-lost Estonian sister

  • 2009-05-27
  • By TBT staff
TALLINN - A Moscow woman adopted in Estonia by a Soviet officer five decades ago has found her long-lost sister just days after starting a drive to discover her roots, local media reported on May 26.
 The Meie Maa daily, based on Estonia's western island of Saaremaa, said that Marianna, 54, and her sister Anne, 56, had got in touch after it published a 1958 photograph of Marianna and an appeal for help.

 "I saw her photo in the daily on Saturday and it was like looking at myself as a child," Anne told Meie Maa.
"I knew my sister disappeared somewhere 50 years ago, during those very hard times, but had no idea where to look for her."
 The girls were born to a poor family on Saaremaa only a decade after Estonia had been taken over by the Soviet Union in the wake of World War II.

 Both were sent to foster families. Marianna was then adopted by a Soviet army officer serving on Saaremaa, who later took her home to Russia.
Marianna had been told that she was born on the island, but only recently learned she was adopted.
Following the discovery Anne and Marianna spent hours chatting via Skype 's the Estonian-invented Internet-based telephone system.
According to newspaper reports they communicated in Russian, because as Marianna has forgotten Estonian.