Things I Miss About The Estonian Winter

The sun was shining today, and I took a tour to Haapsalu. It was a great day to be out seeing Estonia, and made me realise that an Estonian summer is a wonderful thing. At one stage I found myself thinking back on the long winter we just had. What was great about winter? I decided to put together a list of all the things I miss about winter time in Estonia.

1. Nothing.

The End.

Home Brew

My Brother gave me a home brew kit when he left Helsinki. He had used it to make his own beer, because alcohol is so expensive in Finland. I don't really have that problem here in Estonia, beer is cheap enough, but I have brewed my own beer before and I really enjoy it. However I haven't seen any home brew supplies in the shops here in Tallinn. My brother had managed to get his hands on a coopers can of malt extract. With one of these it's really easy to make good quality beer. I wondered if the Coopers website could tell me if they sold them in Estonia. It didn't, but they did sell them online. I punched in my details just to see how much it would cost. The malt extract was $8.95. Not bad. But the postage was $38.50!!! That's more than four times the price of the can. So I guess it's not really a viable option to ship the supplies from Australia ;)

Coopers Website

Christmas Vouchers

Both of my siblings gave me great Christmas presents this year. Both got me something that couldn't actually be physically given on Christmas day. Both did not have the time or were not able to get a voucher from the actual provider of the service. Both mad their own voucher so that they had something to hand over on the day. I think the respective vouchers say a lot about the difference between my brother and my sister. I have posted pictures of each voucher so you can see.

First up, my sister Brydie made a beautiful voucher for a dinner at a restaurant in Queenscliff for Sirli and I. It was actually far nicer than the official voucher which we eventually received.



James, my brother, decided to organise a go-karting session for the male members of the family. I was a little worried when I noticed he was printing things from the computer 30 seconds before we started opening presents! While it was certainly a great present, the torn, ink smudged voucher looked a little sad compared to the beautiful one Brydie had prepared. But the message really captured the Christmas spirit.


As an interesting side note, the only "ass whooping" was received by James, who was so bad that he had to make up a story about how his kart had no brakes. Actually both karts he drove had no brakes. It seems he is as bad at karting as he is at making vouchers!

Estonia at the Australian Open

I was looking at the Australian Open website to see when Estonian player Kaia Kanepi would be playing. A few people have asked me if there are any good Estonian tennis players. Kanepi is the only one of any real note, having been ranked as high as 18, and currently ranked 60. She will be representing her country here in Australia, a country famed for its beautiful women. However she isn't so much of a beauty herself, and it seems the Oz Open website has selected the worst possible photo of her on her profile page.

Kanepi's picture from the Australian Open website

I think they would have been much better of using the picture below, which was from a womens magazine. Yes, that is the same person!

Picture from a magazine

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!

Sledding at the Song Festival Grounds

With my friend Bryan today, I went to the Song festival grounds to do a bit of sledding. There is a small hill, which is a bit of a standout feature in a country as flat as Estonia, which attracts a crowd whenever it snows. We joined a small crowd, consisting of mainly small children and their mothers slowly gliding across the snow. I think they thought we were very odd, two grown men fooling about on sleds that were clearly made for children, riding down the steepest section of the hill! Here is a poorly made home video which shows a little bit of the action.

Weather

I've been reading on the internet the last few days about some wild weather in Australia, and now it seems that I'm getting to experience Mother Nature's anger first hand here in Tallinn. We had our first snow of the season last week, a lovely, gentle sprinkling which seemed to lift everyone's mood, as the first snow always does. However today a howling wind appeared and caused a snow storm, and I think I can safely say this is the worst weather I have ever seen.

Obviously the weather has caused chaos on the roads. Bus Timetables are all over the place, and as I type this Sirli's parents are stuck on a train that has stopped somewhere in between Tartu and Tallinn. The wind even caused a large section of rendering on our apartment building to come loose, causing a bit of a mess when it fell to the ground. It managed to smash the window of the cafe downstairs.

Words probably cant sum up weather like this, so I was looking on the newspaper sites to try and find some pictures which tell their thousand. I think the following picture of an unfortunate Estonian sheep is the best.


Here's a picture that is taken just down the road from where we live.

Happy Hour

I went out for a meal tonight with Sirli and her parents. We went to a place that had a happy hour from 17:00-18:00. We arrived just before 18:00, presented with that age old problem of wondering how many cheap beers we could sneak in before happy hour ends. Until Kaupo, Sirli's dad, came up with a fantastic solution. He just ordered all of the nights beers in one go, in a big bucket of ice!! Excuse the poor phone camera picture.

Grand Final in Helsinki

The weekend just passed Sirli and I ventures across the gulf to Helsinki, to visit my Brother James. Sirli had bought the ferry tickets for me as a birthday present back in July, and arriving on AFL Grand Final weekend was just a coincidence. Sirli has no real idea about Aussie Rules, although she did beat the entire Meek family in this years footy tipping! Accident or not, this years grand final was a Helsinki affair for the Meek Brothers,

We awoke just after 6:00, and braved the early morning Finnish autumn weather to stroll down to Molly Malones. What it lacks in originality of name, this venue certainly makes up for in cosy atmosphere, a good range of beers and a preparedness to open the bar two hours ahead of schedule for a sport they’ve not got the faintest clue about! James had arranged for the Helsinki AFL team to meet there, so a random assortment of Finns and expat Aussies tumbled, sleepy eyed, into the bar to enjoy that One Day in September.

Now I’m not the biggest of booze hounds, but a special occasion is a special occasion and I was preparing myself for an early morning grand final pint or two. I had a few quiet beers last year in Tallinn and it didn’t do me any harm, so I figured I might as well keep the tradition alive. However, I had forgotten one thing… We were in Finland!

They say that when you’re in Helsinki, unless you see a sign expressly permitting you do something, it’s best to assume that it’s prohibited. No sign about sitting on the grass? Then you can’t sit there. Nothing about whether you can smoke or not? Then you can’t! Finns are nothing if not sticklers for the rules, conformity and order. The pub wasn’t allowed to sell beer before 9:00, and so they didn’t. I was going to try and talk them around, after all it was grand final day, but then again it was also Hansie Cronje’s Birthday, and I think the bar staff cared about both facts equally. So the game kicked off with 30 assorted characters drinking coffees, huddled around the TV in the front of the bar. Most of the crowd seemed to be with the Geelong, and despite being a Tigers fan, I had donned a Cats jumper for the day. There were few relaxed faces in the bar all day!

When normal bar service resumed at 9:00, James insisted that I buy him a pint. He said despite the early hour, a close grand final was too much to endure sober. As the bar opened a few locals walked in, and were most bemused to find their normally quiet, cosy little Irish bar filled with strangers in funny striped jumpers, yelling at some bizarre game on the TV. What they made of the situation I’ve no idea, but they tended to slink to the back of the pub, away from the barracking and shouting.

In the end the result was not what we were hoping for. Riding on the Bandwagon, I simply jumped off just as quickly as I had jumped on. James took respite in the fact that this was Helsinki. There would be no endless news reports to watch. No Hawks fans screaming for weeks. No cars with brown and yellow scarves. If your team is going to lose a grand final, there’s no better place to be than oddly ordered world of Finland. Not that that’s a concern for me. I’m a tigers fan. We finished 9th. Again!

An Autumn Update

Given how bad I am at keeping in touch with my nearest and dearest, perhaps there's a few people wondering what I'm up to here in Estonia. Then again perhaps there's not! But here's an attempt to let the world know what I'm doing either way.

For those who came in late... I took a something of a leap of faith earlier in the year, arranged daily tours for my company, hired a mini bus, printed some brochures and crossed my fingers. To cut a long story short it all worked out pretty well, people paid me to show them different parts of Estonia, and I think I learned a lot so that even more will do the same next year. All in all I see it as a really good expansion of my humble little business and a building block for the future.

I was working six or seven days a week over the summer, and kept myself going with the knowledge that tourism here is a seasonal business and that I would have plenty of time to relax during cooler times. So now that time has come and I am bored already! I have returned the bus, the phone has stopped ringing and I have lots of free time which I am examing ways of wasting.

One thing which I would like to do is improve my Estonian, so I've been thinking about taking some private lessons. Because I'm heading back to Australia I can't complete a full class as I have in the past, so individual lessons are my only option. However I've been amazed to learn that private lessons can be as much as 500 Crowns (A$50 an hour). And to make matters worse that's an academic hour, which is the equivilent of 45 minutes on planet earth. So someone wants to make north of a dollar a minute to help me learn Estonian. This in a country where nurses make about $15,000 a year. I have calculated that a langage teacher could work a standard business week and earn close to $150,000 a year. Now I realise that it's not as straight forward as that, they can't teach people back to back and they dont get all the money themselves etc etc. Still, it's not as though its hard to find someone who speaks both Estonian and Englsih in this country. If I wanted to learn Swahili or Pashtun then I'd happlily fork out 500 Crowns an hour, but I don't. So I am on the hunt for a more cost effective option of studying Eesti Keel. If I fail then I'll be looking for something else to fill in my time, you'll probably be bombarded with more pointless blog posts!

In any case, tell your boss that you are now working academic hours, and that you'll need to be paid 25% more, or work 25% less. Let me know how you get on.

An Estonian Spy Story

Like every loser with a BA, I've always thought that one day I would write a novel. The unfortunate fact is that I've read too many John le Carré novels, and since I moved to Estonia I've convinced myself that I could write some Le Carré style spy story set in Soviet Estonia. However there are just two problems. I can't write to save myself, and not a lot of interesting events of espionage occurred in Estonia during the cold war (or at least I haven't heard of any). Not that I'm the kind of person to let reality get in the way of my illusions of grandeur, but I think it's time to admit defeat. Or is it...

It seems that perhaps there is a culture of spying in Estonia that I can be inspired by. A breaking story has just emerged about how a former senior official in the defence ministry sold secrets to another country. The general consensus is that that country is Russia. Who else would want them!!! So, keep a look out on Amazon for Andrew Meek's great debut.

Oh hang on, I forgot that I still have no literary talent. Kurat! I guess my less than literary rants will have to remain confined to this blog!!