In the 90s there was a show called Dexter’s Laboratory that I grew up watching. It was about a genius kid who had a secret laboratory at home, where he would do crazy experiments and was always trying to keep his sister Dee Dee out of his business. Anyone who grew up watching the show has dreamt of building a similar lab for themselves. It is in Tartu that I have come quite close to living out that dream of mine. You see there is this place called Paranduskelder (Repair Cellar/Basement) located in the Aparaaditehas complex which matches my conception of Dexter’s lab.
All my romantic notions about the place aside, Paranduskelder is a place which promotes a circular economy. In the US and around the world parts of what circular economy preaches is coalescing into massive Right to Repair movements. Many products, especially electronics, are designed in such a way that they go obsolete in a few years, this is known as Planned Obsolescence. Or fixing them would cost us more than buying a brand new product. This is what the Right to Repair movements and more broadly the proponents of circular economies oppose. One of the focus areas of the movement is to have products which can be repaired, and repurposed instead of discarding them and creating waste.
Being able to fix things is a skill that is extremely useful. I consider myself quite handy, and have in the past fixed broken zippers, stuck drawers, and plenty of other things around the house. I’m sure a lot of us have had an experience where we know how to fix a certain thing, but simply lack the tools to do so. Having a fully equipped toolkit can be quite expensive and almost impossible on a student budget. Paranduskelder fills that gap by being a place where all the tools that you can possibly need are available. To top it off there are experts who will teach you how to use the tools and fix your things.
WD-40 is the secret weapon everyone needs. (Picture credits: Paranduskelder)
My personal experience with Paranduskelder started at one of the repair cafes that they hosted. I had an electric kettle that got burnt for some unknown reason. I had assumed that only the wires that went into the kettle were burnt, and I tried to open it up to try fixing it. Interestingly the screws that were used in the kettle were so obscure that I didn’t have the right screwdriver to open it up. That’s when I got to know about a Paranduskohvik (Repair Cafe) being hosted at ULA Bar, and I went there hoping to fix it. Seeing so many people working on fixing their things at the cafe made me so happy, and I got some help from an expert on how to work on the kettle safely. Unfortunately the kettle’s heating element was completely burnt so I couldn’t salvage anything from it. Ultimately the kettle had to end up in the trash and this is exactly what is wrong with the current state of things.
The kettle in the picture is no more! (Picture credits: Paranduskelder)
After that school became quite hectic and I almost completely forgot about Paranduskelder until a friend of mine, Charu, made a messenger group of people who are all interested in fixing things. I do owe him a lot of credit for reminding me of the love I have for fixing things. As a result of the group, I started making a little more time to spend at Paranduskelder. The most recent foray being one of fixing my bike. It cost me a meagre 6€ to fix the bike, and that was simply the cost of parts that I had to replace. Had I taken it to a shop I’m sure it would’ve cost me at least 30 euros. The monetary benefit aside, I can’t put a price on the joy that I got from working on my bike and learning from Ilmar, the bike repair expert. I spent about 2 hours fixing and being spellbound by how amazing bicycles are.
Fixing this bike was an absolute delight.
Apart from fulfilling my dreams of allowing me to work with my hands and fix things, Paranduskelder is a place which helps people develop and understand the role they play in the system. Towards that goal, they invite students and educate them about food wastage, and also do plenty of other events around the year. In one of their events they salvaged food by going dumpster diving and then taught school children on how to use the food safely.
If you are interested in knowing more about Dexter’s Laboratory Paranduskelder, check out their website. They post updates about their schedules on their facebook page. The page is mostly in Estonian, but machine translations will be good enough for you to understand most of it. As of April 2022, the space is open to the public from Tuesday-Thursday 17:00-21:00. On Tuesdays you can work on sewing projects, Wednesdays are dedicated to electronic repairs, and Thursdays to bikes and other general products. So if you have something that you’d like to fix, and you’d love to do it yourself, check out Paranduskelder. Also if possible consider donating to the movement.
Join the movement, and start fixing things! (Picture credits: Paranduskelder)
All in all, Tartu has an amazing ecosystem for environment related work compared to where I am from. Granted that there is plenty of more work that can be done, but I do appreciate where things stand as of now. Starting from food sharing, to a vibrant and thriving second hand market Tartu has plenty of avenues. These initiatives are doubly good for the environment since buying second hand products reduces the need to produce more, and at the same time prevent the old products from ending up in a landfill. There are plenty of posts on our blog which talk about the various ways in which you can go about doing this. Here are a few useful resources:
- Our facebook post about all the second hand shops in Tartu
- Blog post by Yulia about spending money wisely (ISA Alumni)
- Blog post by Selbi about going zero waste (ISA Alumni)
- Blog post by Tommy about living expenses
- Foodsharing Tartu
Most of the pictures in the post are from the Paranduskelder team (Lauri and Jaana) who kindly gave the author access and permission to use them.
The other pictures belong to the author.
