The state is to provide €1.6 million to support crisis preparedness in rural areas, particularly for communities like Meremäe, near the border with Russia and in the heart of Setomaa, in southeastern Estonia.

The Meremäe volunteers are local people who came together more than a decade ago to contribute to the safety of their community. Their equipment includes fire trucks.

"The story began when a garage and another house burned almost completely down, and we had only one municipal vehicle. It was just lying in the garage. Then the idea came that maybe we could have done something to save them even a little sooner," Mikk Kooser, one of the volunteers, told "Aktuaalne kaamera."

Kooser is one of about 30 volunteer rescuers in Meremäe, who in the early days had to make do with what they could. The team for many years lacked official premises to even store and maintain their vehicles, until three years ago, when that situation was finally addressed. But even those funds which were forthcoming then were so modest that only the essentials could be addressed.

"Living quarters remain unfinished, the facade remains unfinished. But we have the main thing — we have the capability to go out from a warm room, and the vehicles won't freeze," Kooser said.

Now, the Meremäe volunteers hope to fully realize their initial plans — to create a space for the community where members can warm up and charge their phones if needed. This would be open to the wider public in crisis situations.

"In the case of two-, three-, or four-day power outages, this would be difficult in apartment buildings. In a crisis, people would have somewhere to come," Peeter Kooser, another volunteer, added.

The community fund established by the Ministry of the Interior gives communities like Meremäe the opportunity to apply for funding to implement their ideas.

As for the future: "Once the rooms are in order, we could also have food supplies on site. We actually even have beds and things to provide sleeping places for some people, so they could stay overnight if needed. And definitely a generator. That would be essential, though perhaps it could be larger," Peeter Kooser continued.

On the basis of the current security situation and the need to strengthen communities in border areas, 70 percent of the government aid will be directed to municipalities and counties along the entire eastern border with Russia — from Narva-Jõesuu on the Baltic Sea, to Misso, at the southernmost end of the border and close to the tri-border intersection of Estonian, Latvian and Russian frontiers.

The remaining 30 percent will be provided for the rest of the country.

Estonia's eastern border mostly follows watercourses, starting with the Narva River in the northeast. This flows out of Lake Peipus (Peipsi järv), Europe's fifth-largest lake, and continues into the connected Lämmijärv and Pihkva järv lake system. The southeasternmost stretch of the border is over land and bisects Setomaa, a culturally distinct region.

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