Nikolai Baturin
Nikolai Baturin (5 August 1936 – 16 May 2019) was an Estonian award-winning novelist and playwright. Biography and career. Baturin was born in Arumetsa village, Suislepa Parish (now Maltsa village, Tarvastu Parish), Viljandi County. His father was a fisherman. After attending high school, military service took him for five years to the Caspian oil-fields and the Atlantic Ocean; for fifteen years he was a hunter in the Siberian taiga. For six years he participated in various geological expeditions. Baturin debuted with a collection of poetry, "Maa-alused järved "("Underground Lakes", 1968), in the last wave of the  cassette generation in the 1960s. Besides fiction he has written drama, poetry, screenplays and essays. He has illustrated his own books and produced his own plays. His works have been translated into Russian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian. He became a member of the Estonian Writers' Union in 1973. Baturin lived at his home farm by Lake Võrtsjärv.