Uku Masing Traditional Cache

This cache is dedicated to the Estonian poet, theologian and philosopher Uku Masing (1909-1985). It is hidden in the Koret park close to the Greek San Simeon monastery. The cache is a plastic box that has enough space for most traveller bugs.

Masing was born in Lipa in Estonia in 1909.

Masing was a brilliant student. As a school boy he was once told that he, although being an excellent pupil, had a very bad handwriting. He then stayed home for two days, and when he returned to school he had managed to achieve a perfect handwriting. Masing completed his Master's degree at the age 21 on the science of the Old Testament and Semitic philology. Later he became a professor at Tartu University in Estonia.

In 1939 he was invited to teach at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but because of the war he was unable to accept.

He decided to resign from Tartu University when Estonia was occupied by the Germans, being a fierce anti-Nazi. He also hid a Jewish student, Isidor Levin, in his home during the entire German occupation of Estonia, and arranged false documents for Levin. Thanks to this Levin survived the German occupation , and Uku Masing was declared Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1969. Later also his wife Eha Masing got this recognition.

Masing made great efforts to save Jewish cultural and religious objects during German Occupation. After the war he also helped investigating Nazi war crimes in Estonia.

Masing is claimed to have been able to speak 65 languages, and he made translations into Estonian from Hebrew, Amharic, Arabic, Coptic, Persian, Japanese, Hawaiian, Greek, Latin, Italian, Catalan, French, German, English, Yiddish and Sanskrit.

Uku Masing has published both scientific work, poetry and a novel, but much of his work was never published during the Soviet regime. In the 1950-s he was even forbidden to use the University library. Unfortunately he did not live to see free Estonia reemerge.