How Much Do You Drink?

There has been a big ad campaign across Estonia recently promoting responsible drinking. The main slogan (as seen in the picture below) is Palju Sina jood? (How much do you drink) A good slogan designed to get people thinking about how much alcohol they actually consume. There is also a website where you can answer questions to see how heavy a drinker you actually are, and get a wide range of information about alcohol and its effects. I think it's a really good campaign.


However the secondary tag line poses a bit of a problem to me. Eesti inimene on alkoholi tarbimises Euroopas 2. kohal. Estonian people have the second highest level of alcohol consumption in Europe. An interesting fact no doubt, but if that was in Australia, I know that people would see that as a challenge. "If everyone goes out and and downs a six pack right now we could be number one"!

I'm going out for a beer now. Let's see if we can catch the Czech Republic.

Finnish Tourists

Quite some time ago Sirli and I went to Helsinki. On the way back I grabbed a copy of the ferry company's magazine, which wasn't really a magazine but rather page after page of shiny ads for perfume, watches and, in particular, alcohol. There was one ad I really liked, which is below.


The gist of the ad is that if you buy enough beer, you get a free trolley.



Can you imagine buying that much beer... on a day trip!? Gotta love those Finnish tourists. Perhaps this is where the expression "getting trollied" originated.

Cold Weather

Winter has truly arrived in Estonia. The first decent snowfall has covered the ground in a beautiful layer of white.

Sirli and I have gone away for the weekend. We took a two bottles of wine with us, one red and the other white. Unfortunately there is no fridge in our room to keep the white wine cold. No problem... we just stuck it outside. The wine is colder than any fridge could ever keep it! Looking on the bright side to try and get through another Estonian winter!

Song and Dance Festival

For those not in Estonia this is what is going on at the moment here in Tallinn. The Song Festival is coming up over the weekend, but first it's the Dance Festival. Here's a video of the final dress rehearsal. You may think the crowd is a bit small, but it's worth noting that they just let in people who were deported in Soviet times for the final practice. The actual festival has sold out. This thing is a HUGE deal here. If you don't understand why. watch this!



It's really interesting to see so many people walking around the streets in National Costume. The stadium where they hold the dance festival is just down the road from our place, so we have seen the busloads of people making their way there over the last few days. It makes me wonder what it would be like if people still dressed like that every day. It'd would be kind of cool, but pretty uncomfortable i guess.

Jaanipäev

Last Tuesday night saw the celebration of St Johns Day (Jaanipäev) in Estonia, which is one of the biggest holidays in the country. Last year I worked and stayed in Tallinn, and as I walked around the deserted streets of the capital I told myself that next year I would join the throngs heading for the country for the midsummer celebrations. So this year Sirli and I, along with some friends, headed to Vergi, a tiny little port in Lahemaa National Park for Jaanipäev. I've got to say that it was a great decision. The weather was fantastic and with a few drinks and good company we couldn't help but have fun.

Jaanipäev is a celebration that has been held in Estonia since pagan times, but those pesky Christian crusaders put their religious spin on things and called it St. Johns Day. Though even with Christian meanings attributed to it, the midsummer celebrations have always retained an elelment of unruly pagan traditions. Wikipedia even reveals that:

Balthasar Russow wrote in his Livonian Chronicle about Estonians who placed more importance on the festival than going to church. He complained about those who went to church, but did not enter, and instead spent their time lighting bonfires, drinking, dancing, singing and following pagan rituals.

Even to day there is a tradition to light a bonfire and jump over it, once it has died down a bit. Traditionally this was designed to scare away evil spirits and ensure a good harvest, though nowadays it's just something fun to look at while getting drunk!

The only down side is that from now on every day gets shorter from here on in. Winter is coming! (Is that overly pessimistic??? It happens when you live this far North.)

Those on Facebook will have seen photos already. Those who aren't can look at them here, or just enjoy them in an Animoto video below.

Michael Jackson - Death Reportage in Oz V Eesti

You have to cash in on what's big in the media. I've got nothing to say about Iran, so I'll write something about Michael Jackson. (Actually his death is probably a disaster for Iranian protesters!) The coverage of Jacko's death is probably as intense in Australia as it is in Estonia. With such a long and diverse career, and a life lived constantly in the spotlight, there must have been hundreds of photos for newspaper pictorial editors to choose from. However it seems the Age from Australia and Õhtuleht have used the same picture on their front pages.

Though its interesting that along side Jackson one paper has a Bikini clad girl on the front page, while the other has Aussie Rules and Cricket. Could say a lot about the two countries. Or perhaps just about what a trashy paper Õhtuleht is!!!

Õhtuleht - Estonia

The Age - Australia

Death of a Dream

Some people may know that I ever since I have been in Estonia, I have dreamed of purchasing a run down manor house and restoring it to its former glory. Wilder fantasies even have a little micro-brewery there as well, perhaps even in the former manor brewery, if there was one. I even had one particular manor house in mind. Keila-Joa Manor is one of the stops on one of my tours, and each time I walked past the abandoned Neo-Gothic building I always dreamed of re-rendering and painting the outer walls, getting the garden in shape and sitting atop the tower with a cool beer form my micro-brewery while taking in views of the nearby waterfall.

I even blogged about the place twice, here and here.

The price has dropped recently from 20 million Crowns to 5 million, but even if I could aford that the estimated 200 MillionCrowns to renovate it made it even more of a ridiculous dream. But that's what dreams are, aren't they? Something slightly crazy but fun to think about.

Well today the dream ended. I read in the paper that someone has bought the manor. They will live my dream. I wish them all the best.

New Tour Bus for EstAdventures

I thought I'd put up a few pictures of the mini-bus I bought earlier this month for doing my tours. These are all taken in front of Palmse Manor in Lahemaa National Park. Note the Storks nest on the chimney of the building in the first and last pictures. The bus is a 9 seater Renault Trafic which was formerly owned by the Army. I still haven't got around to putting any signage on it, as I just haven't had time.

Happy Easter

Easter has arrived, and you may think I have some interesting insights to give about the Estonian version of this most important of Christian holidays. I don't! If it wasn't a day off work I wouldn't even know that this weekend was Easter. I had to do a Google search for Estonian easter traditions. What I found made me think that nothing much has changed in this town for 700 odd years:

In the medieval period, Easter was celebrated only for one
day, when aldermen of Tallinn and Riga gathered to the Town
Hall to drink beer or wine. Anu Mänd, who has studied medieval
festivities in Estonia, has indicated that two kegs of dark beer
were consumed at the Easter celebration in 1372, and a keg of
beer was drunk by the Great Guild of Tallinn in 1363

Pretty much sums up my Easter this year in Tallinn, though I'm probably not a good enough drinker to drink two kegs!

I'm not sure how true it is, but I read somewhere recently that Estonia was the least religious of countries in Europe. Being completely atheist, that suits me perfectly well. What I see as sensible pragmatism is just another reason to love this country. But it does leave me with one Question: Will the Easter Bunny still bring me Easter Eggs??!!

How Much E is in E-stonia?

Spend five seconds in Estonia and you'll realise that this place is an internet country. Every Estonian I know is logged onto MSN chat during the day, free wi-fi is ubiquitous, Skype was built here, and Estonia was the first country to hold E-elections. It would be a real challenge to find a pub or cafe without a person using a laptop. While I may joke that Estonians don't actually ever talk to each other face to face but prefer to communicate online, I actually enjoy living in a place that so readily adopts new technology.
I am often embarrassed by how this little post soviet country makes my native Australia look second rate in anything to do with the interwebs. So it came as a real surprise when I read about a World Economic Forum study on IT which ranked Estonia at 18th and Australia at 14th. After making fun of Sirli and telling her that her country was less IT ready that mine for a good while, I actually stopped to think about the results. All in all I'm no longer embarrassed by Australia, but am still pretty impressed by Estonia. The little Baltic nation managed to rank above France, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand and Ireland. I think given the country's history, that's a really impressive result.
I'm also pretty happy I don't live in Chad. I know nobody from Chad will be offended by that, because none of them will have the internet to read this!