The scene is somewhat reminiscent of the movie "Straight Story", in which an old man drives through America on his lawnmower.

Except that it is a young woman who comes towards us in her vehicle: a thin figure, the headscarf tightly wrapped around the skull, over it, sitting a little crooked, soundproof headphones with an antenna.

And of course we are not in the American West, but in the European East, in Estonia, on the Baltic island of Kihnu.

This, in turn, is so small that you could easily measure it on a lawn mower.

The landscape of the island is rather inconspicuous: flat, light pine forests, pastures and fields, yellow-painted farmhouses. The sea here looks like a large lake, calm and full to the brim up to the reed belt. You can wade out a hundred, two hundred meters without getting into water that is more than calf-deep.

Those who take the ferry here visit the family, are looking for peace and quiet - or are interested in a very special kind of exoticism: the women of Kihnu, it is said, have established a special culture.

Because their men go to sea, they have always taken on all tasks on land, from farming to repairing motorcycles.

In the photos on the Kihnu tourism website, they are wearing traditional costumes and their companions are Soviet military motorcycles from the 1940s.

It looks spectacular - and it attracted not only tourists but also film teams to the small island, reporting on “Europe's last matriarchy”.

Every woman has a treasure chest

So now also us - who we immediately run into a first supposed representative of island culture. After all, she wears the traditional headscarf and a small hip pocket with the typical striped pattern, but with leggings and trainers. "Matriarchy? Yeah, that's a nice story, ”she laughs.

Reene, as the lawnmower woman is called, willingly uses our appearance to postpone her actual project.

She lives in Tallinn for most of the year, only coming on vacation to renovate her ancestors' farmhouse - and mow the grass around it.

But instead she prefers to chat and leads us through the still dark, dusty rooms of the thatched wooden house.

To a small shed in which not only the work tools have always been kept on Kihnu, but also, in a special chest, the traditional costumes.

"The treasure chest," says Reene, as she pries up the lid, "every woman on Kihnu has one like that."