puhkusel pärnus

And so it came to pass, that I was given time off from work. Weary of another flight, I pleaded with my mercurial spouse to spend it within the borders of the Republic of Estonia. All I wanted was to get away to the west coast of Eesti, where I could indulge in saunas and swimming pools and maybe get a massage.

While the spa Eden of Saaremaa seemed like the immediate target, like true mainlanders we decided that the ferry ride to Muhu was just asking too much and settled on Pärnu instead. Pärnu, pop. 44,000, is the fifth largest city in Estonia, located on the country's southwest coast. It's also the "summer capital" of Estonia, which made our choice of visiting during the first major blizzard of the year somewhat unique.

The road from Karksi to Pärnu was tiring. I was already beat from driving from Tartu to Karksi and the roast pork, sauerkraut, and kohupiimakook didn't help. There are few signs of humanity in between the two places, other than the occasional rullnok driver speeding past you. You hit the town of Abja-Paluoja then stretch through the woods past the lights of Kilingi-Nõmme. This is my wife's family's neck of the woods. Every family story is decorated with strings of vowels that denote a place where one or the other of them have lived or worked or taken a dip in a lake.

According to travel guidebooks, south Estonia is just another band in the layer cake of "the Baltic countries," but in my mental geography, we were at the bottom of Estonia, and maybe something bigger. With south Estonia also begins the zone of Baltic-Finnic languages that stretches north past the Arctic Circle. Sami, Karelian, Vespian, Finnish -- it all started a bit south of Häädemeeste.

We pulled into Pärnu at night in the snow, and headed to Terviseparadiis -- "Health paradise" -- a modern-looking spa right on the beach. In the cold wind, five flags flapped from atop flag poles in front of the spa -- the flag of Terviseparadiis, the EU flag, and the flags of Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. The interior design of Terviseparadiis seemed to adhere to the aesthetics of the nordic tourist: futuristic metallic furniture, wood-laminate hotel-room flooring, and bossa nova elevator music. They didn't even have an Estonian Bible in our hotel room, though there was a copy of the Uusi Testament in Finnish.

The next day I finally got my long-awaited massaaž, which, as the signs indicated, is also called hieronta in Finnish. In fact, this spa-in-Pärnu experience was taking on visit-to-foreign-country-like undertones. Did you know that the Finnish word for keefir is "piimä"? I learned that at breakfast, where I found comfort in the muesli and toast while Finns and Estonians around me indulged in marinated fish, because that's what these people eat to start the päev/päivä.

The massage did the trick; it hurt a bit too. Writing for a living kills your back. You pray for the day when you get to lay flat in a room with Eastern meditation music on and a silent masseuse by your side kneading her elbows into your spine. I'm told that Pärnu is famous for its mud baths. Though I'd love to try it, it wasn't on our agenda for this trip.



After breakfast we moved from our Scandinavian cocoon at Terviseparadiis to the aptly named "Estonia" spa down the street. From the window in our new spa we could look out on the snow-covered roofs of downtown Pärnu. Architecturally, Pärnu is a treat, with the same eye candy as Haapsalu. The streets offer up curiosity after curiosity. There are at least two really nice churches, the Lutheran Eliisabet and the Orthodox Katariina. This being agnostic Estonia, I suspect the churches more fan the passions of touring choirs, than they do the beliefs of local people.

The Estonia spa had an extensive swimming area with a variety of saunas, including a "salt sauna," where one takes handfuls of salt from a wooden bucket and smears it all over their body to facilitate the discharge of toxins from the skin. While Terviseparadiis catered to the Estonian, Finnish, Swedish, and English tourist, Estonia was clearly for the Finns. The flags of Estonia and Finland were on display in the reception area, as was a poster for a dance where one Juhani Markola was set to perform.

Middle-aged Finnish women tend to look a lot like President Tarja Halonen, which may explain some of her every woman appeal in Estonia's northern neighbor. Middle-aged Finnish men? Well one old guy kept staring at me in the hotel lobby, perhaps suspecting that I was not of Baltic-Finnic origin. I reached for one of those handy expressions I learned on YouTube. What were those phrases they were always saying to one another? Mitä vittuu sää mulkoilet siinä? Perkele? Ugh. Why was it that the only phrases I knew in Finnish were inappropriate? I decided to leave Old Man Suomi to his Ilta Sanomat instead.

In the changing room for the bathing area though I was greeted by an older gentleman who was the spitting image of the Estonian entertainer Tarmo Leinatamm. He began speaking to me in a language that sounded like someone had loaded Estonian sentences into an open blender. From the various bits and pieces that spurted forth, a mosaic containing meaning could be constructed. He had gone somewhere. A sauna. Something about women.

He then tried communicating with another guy in the room who told him directly ma ei saa aru -- I don't understand. But Finns are a stubborn sort, and they insist in speaking their own language in their little brother country, much like the Russians next door. He just kept at it, and sooner or later the Estonian guy figured out what he was talking about and told him something I didn't understand and Tarmo Leinatamm's lookalike disappeared into the showers.

"What language was he speaking?" I asked the Estonian guy for confirmation. "Soome keel," he shook his head in response. "Yeah, I couldn't understand him. I though he was speaking some really weird Estonian." The Estonian guy gave me a look that said, "no shit." Then the unbelievable happened. Another Estonian guy came in and they had a conversation. Two Estonian guys having a conversation in Pärnu spa. Imagine that.

It then dawned on me that a minority need not actually be resident to influence the psychology of a city. The steady flow of tourists from Finland meant that any given time of the year Finns were a de facto minority in Pärnu. This explained why not only the spas made sure to create a linguistic environment in reaction to this reality, but even some signs in downtown Pärnu were in Finnish. "Tervetuloa Pärnussa," I thought to myself. See, even I was picking it up.

The main walking streets in downtown Pärnu revolve around an artery called Rüütli. Estonian street names follow a familiar pattern. Every former Hanseatic city in this country -- Tallinn, Tartu, Viljandi, and Pärnu -- has an ensemble of medieval street monikers: Rüütli [knight], Munga [monk], Lai [wide], and Pikk [long]. Estonia seems unique in that political figures are rarely honored with street names: there are no Päts streets or Tõnisson boulevards. What I like are the names that distinguish a city. In Sillamäe, for example, one could stroll up Gagarini street to where it meets Geoloogia. In Pärnu, you could walk from Malmö street to Nikolai street in a few minutes.

Walking around downtown Pärnu reminded me of two other places I have visited -- the French Quarter in New Orleans and Turku in Finland. Like the French Quarter, there was a dizzying array of 18th and 19th century homes painted in candyland colorschemes, many of which were for sale. Unlike the French Quarter, there were no mounted police or dealers purveying ganja. And also, no city-destroying hurricanes, though flooding in January 2005 caused 23 million euros worth of damage here.

Some of Pärnu's architecture reminded me of Turku, but it was also its placement away from the center of national social life that evoked memories of Turku's quiet streets and maritime ambience. While Tartu is a powerhouse of elite building in Estonia -- the prime minister, minister of justice, minister of culture, minister of education, and minister of defense all call it home -- Pärnu seems refreshingly apolitical, as if all the drama of Estonian life was far away. It is very much a west coast city. Still, this is the birthplace of the country. The state was declared from the steps of the Endla Theater on Feb. 23, 1918. The theater, sadly, has not survived.

We left Pärnu in a lull in the second wave of a snow storm that caused up to 35,000 homes in Estonia to lose power. The road back from Pärnu to Kilingi-Nõmme resembled a confectioner's best work; the naked white birches guarding the sides of the roads; the ground covered in shifting snows driven by strong winds that, interestingly, made the journey possible. The wind cleared the roads of the loose powder, allowing our vehicle to coast along at around 70-80 km for most of the journey.

We passed by many small villages where there were no lights in sight; presumably, they had no power. One had to really respect the value of wood heating in these occasions. No matter what happened, there was always a stack of puu next to the house that could be used for heating and cooking purposes. The roads were clear of most traffic. I was lucky to get stuck behind a few vans that left deep tracks for me to surf all the way up into Viljandi.

Coming into Viljandi was a mess. The reliance on roundabouts killed commercial traffic. These large, 18-wheelers were the main victim of the snow storm. They were unable to make the bends and were here and there abandoned at the side of the road. At no point did I really think that we weren't going to make it. Fortunately, Estonia is mostly flat. This helped a great deal in allowing us to coast home in the wake of other travelers.

While there was a shortage of road traffic, there was also a preponderance of pedestrians. Viljandi seemed alive with people, even more alive then during the summer months. And this was a Monday night! Even out in rural communities we saw the reflectors of people braving the harsh winds to walk from one point to another. The chaos of an early winter had reinvigorated people. The desire to cuddle up with a fresh batch of piparkoogid and some hot glögg was overwhelming.

We finally pulled into Tartu several hours after we had left Pärnu. On the way in, we passed our friend Pille who was coming back from Veeriku Selver, a supermarket, with her kids on a sleigh. Epp rolled down the window and yelled out "väike Tartu linn!" and when Pille, a woman deep into her 30s, looked back, she wore the same jubilant expression as her three-year-old daughter Roos.

eclipse of a foreign ministry

The Social and Humanitarian Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a document on Nov. 18 voicing "deep concern" over the "glorification of the Nazism movement and members of the former Waffen SS organization”, as well as “opening the monuments, memorials, and holding public demonstration glorifying the Nazi past, Nazi movement and neo-Nazism.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry sees the adoption of such a resolution as a great achievement, but the probable passing of this document next month by the General Assembly will have no impact on my life in Estonia and will go unnoticed by my colleagues, friends, relatives, and others with whom I have day-to-day contact.

Why? Because, contrary to the line from Sergei Lavrov's Russian Foreign Ministry, there is no mainstream revival of Nazism in Estonia. There are extremists, yes, but there are also extremists who think Russians should control all the land from Paldiski to Narva, even if Russians don't dwell in most of that territory. I believe such extremists exist, and are paid too much attention, in all countries.

I have found that in Estonia, there is actually very little interpersonal discussion of the Second World War, as most of Estonia's political and media elite are of a post, post-war generation and they are tired of it. These are people born after the Khrushchev era for whom World War II and its aftermath are as distant and foreign as Vietnam will be for my children. It makes for good pub discussion, but little else. The current economic crisis is relevant. WWII? Not so much.

Now, there are political forces within Estonia that wish to honor the personal sacrifice of Estonians, most of whom were drafted, who served in the Estonian Waffen SS. As far as I can tell from reading books, such as Eesti Leegion, authored by former Prime Minister Mart Laar, there is no open, official embrace of the German Third Reich or its values, other than its value of anti-Bolshevism, which is a value embraced also by the Russian Federation today.

Also, because Estonia is a pluralist society with a parliamentary democracy, that means that there are also political forces that do not seek to pass such sense resolutions, or who share the same interpretation of history as others. The controversial vote to remove the Bronze Soldier statue, for instance, passed by 2 votes in Estonia's 101-seat parliament, the Riigikogu. Resolutions to proclaim the Estonian SS as freedom fighters in Estonia failed. The monument to those who fought against Bolshevism in Estonia, erected by the local authorities in the West Coast town of Lihula was removed.

I have Estonian friends and colleagues who think the portrayal of the Estonian SS as freedom fighters is BS. They too are entitled to their opinion. It's nice to portray ever Estonian citizen who ever lived as acting in the state's interest. Some have even tried to rehabilitate the June 1940 puppet government that first told the people upon coming to power that Estonia would remain independent, and yet voted to join the country to the USSR the next month, with hundreds of Red Army and Navy personnel in the Riigikogu chamber to make sure the vote went the right way. They were naive, idealistic Estonian communists, the argument goes, not cut from the same cloth as their comrades next door, for whom human life was incredibly cheap.

These arguments go back and forth from time to time in the editorial pages of Estonian newspapers. Estonians are voracious consumers of historical works and their media caters to this interest with article after article about anything that ever happened here, from the diet of the peasantry in medieval Danish Estland to 1930s agricultural trends. Perhaps there is a new book out, or a domestic "thought leader" has something to share about his interpretation of the past. Were the people under consideration heroes, villains, or in the wrong place and the wrong time? You be the judge.

That's how I think we should deal with history. The Russian foreign ministry has other ideas. They don't think you should evaluate your own history by yourself. They think that they should tell you what the correct version of history is, and they will use all avenues, such as the UN, to do so.

This is what Sergei Lavrov's foreign ministry spends its time doing: telling the Estonians they don't know their heroes from their villains; telling the Latvians that they are confused about their past -- your state wasn't founded 90 years ago, those extremely rapid 22 years from 1918 to 1940 were "short-lived" -- just a blip, a two-decade-long lost weekend not worthy even thinking about. Ukraine, there was no Soviet effort to specifically wipe your nationality off the face of the Earth. Besides, you are "not even a state." If you only ascribed to the official, Lavrovian view of history, then everything would be in order.

What sad is that most of this is such a waste of time, for Russians, Estonians, and all others touched by political campaigns to rebrand history. The modern Estonian historical narrative is the same narrative that existed, in exile, during the years of Soviet rule. The reason that it emerged in Estonia proper the late 1980s, is because Gorbachev's policies allowed people for the first time since 1940 to openly discuss their national history.

And because 22 years are not really just a blip, but a whole generation's worth of time, there are plenty of people alive today, such as my wife's grandparents, both of whom saw one or both parents deported, who can explain what they witnessed and what happened to them. You cannot shut history up Lavrov; it has a way of talking whether you like it or not.

US former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger writes that Russia's main dilemma in foreign policy has been that it has yet to produce one truly gifted diplomat. Despite all of Kissinger's associated baggage, I think he may be right.

tarbijakultuur

It's getting cold again, which means we renewed our subscriptions to Postimees and Eesti Ekspress -- both for the pleasure of staying up to date on Estonia's goings on and for our many fireplaces -- this Tartu city house is heated by ahjud, let's not forget.

Sometimes when I pore over the pages of Ekspress or Postimees, I recall the anecdote of the great Brazilian Caetano Veloso, who used to visit supermarkets not to stock up on groceries, but for the sheer aesthetic pleasures of being surrounded by mountains of glistening fruit and vegetables.

In Estonia I similarly cannot let go easily of banking advertisements, such as the one above, for a new card from Nordea. Must alati sobib, the seductive card holder whispers to you from across the pages, "black is always fashionable."

I contemplate her black plastic bank card along with the reklaamid for various real estate deals and buckets of Rakvere saslõkk on sale at the local Selver with the voracious eye of a stranger. It is beginning to dawn on me that Estonianness is defined just as much by consumption of local and regional products as it is by song festivals or Kalevipoeg.

In fact, the way that the characters of Kreutzwald's epic Kalevipoeg -- which many Estonians cynically dismiss as a fraudulent imitation of the Kalevala -- have again become relevant is as the motifs of various chocolates sold by AS Kalev. I may have not read one verse about Kalev and his wife Linda in Estonian, but I have devoured Kalev and Linda chocolates on many occassions.

For the uninitiated, there is whole universe of advertising containing Estonianness for you to become acquainted with over time. The cute ladybugs of EMT; the wholesome expression of the childhood character Lotte, who will sell you anything from cookies to bed sheets; the savory pop of anyone of Eesti's young singers: Ines, Lenna, Liisi, Birgit; and the real life images of the living Estonian legends who come wrapped inside the advertisements in the guts of the media.

And now to the news. The Estonian media at this point seems to be asking a lot of questions, yet finding few answers. There are several ongoing debates:

Topic One: concerns the fact that Estonia's entire financial sector is essentially owned by Sweden and Finland [see above reklaam]. Is it a cause for concern? Some, say jah, others say ei. Is Estonia's banking sector still owned by Pekka Põder and Svensson as of me writing this? Jah.

Topic Two: concerns can Estonia improve relations with Russia? God knows, they keep turning this one over and over again, hoping to unpick the lock that will open the door to both respect and Russian ruble-fueled bling. Tiit Vähi, former peaminister and suurettevõtja, thinks Estonia should just remove its preamble to the stalled border treaty to make nice with Putin-Medvedev.

Vähi is also suggesting Swedbank's Indrek Neivelt for prime minister. You know things are weird when the business community is conspiring to take over Stenbock House. Talk about a fifth column! These guys are assigning portfolios to one another in the sauna. Seriously. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Urmas Paet doesn't think that Russia is ready to repair its relations with a bunch of chudes from across the lake.

As I crumple up these articles to feed them to the fire, I privately guess that maybe Russia doesn't care that much about repairing relations with Eesti. And why is Estonia so eager to win the affection of a country that, as Pete Townshend would say, likes to fiddle about? Riddle me that, Härra Vähi.

Topic Three: There is a financial crisis going on -- what has Estonia done wrong and what can this plucky nation of 1.3 million people do to fix it? The mustachioed EU Commissioner Siim Kallas has the answers here and here. Kallas seems to be fond of the word "reform." Hmm.

Topic Four: Eesti SDE, led by Population Affairs Minister Urve Palo and Europarliamentarian Katrin Saks, thinks that Eesti Rahvusringhääling [Estonian Public Broadcasting] should put serious effort into bring Estonia's wayward Slavic community into the Estonian inforuum* by creating more programming in vene keel. Perhaps a Russian version of the soap opera Õnne 13 is in order? Tolstoi 13? The Economist's Edward Lucas agrees. Isamaa-Res Publica Liit disagrees.

Topic Five: Olympic gold medalist Kristina Šmigun-Vähi is taking the season off to spend time with her baby. This will mean less skiing glory for Estonia but more mental peace and stability for "Suusa Kiku" and her offspring. In the long run, however, this extra motherly care could turn out to benefit Estonia, as skiing runs in the family.

As you know, it's always hard for me to feed a photo of a young Estonian woman holding a baby into an ahi, but living in Estonia plus the successful integration programs spearheaded by IRL have made me more stoic and conservative with my feelings.

So, it's only a matter of time before I will be able to watch the Nordea girl go up in smoke. And besides, it's getting friggin' cold outside and there's a new batch of Estonian media delivered to our mailbox everyday, ripe for the picking, along with deals on sausages and fixer-uppers in Setomaa.

naabrid

The last time I checked, Estonia only has a handful of neighbors. It shares land and maritime borders with Russia to the east and a land border with Latvia to the south. It also has maritime borders with Finland to the north and Sweden to the west.

According to an interview with Foreign Minister Urmas Paet in this week's Eesti Ekspress, though, Estonia, has at least virtual borders with other countries, including Iceland and Georgia.

The question at hand was, why hasn't Estonia directly supported Iceland during its financial crisis, while it has been willing to shell out humanitarian aid to the tune of 17 million EEK [$1.3 million, €1.1 million] to help rebuild Georgia, especially when the Faroe Islands, home to 48,500 [slightly larger than the city of Pärnu], gave their Icelandic brethren a 620 million EEK loan?

Paet's response: a) a "loan is not a present; it has it's own price"; and b) "it's improper to compare Georgia and Iceland: When you have two neighbors and one has had their family killed and house burned down and the other has had one of their two Lexuses stolen, then you can't compare the two."

Except, Iceland and Georgia are not in any physical sense neighbors to Estonia. The Icelanders have an excuse for seeking out neighbors in the Baltic; other than Greenland, they actually have no neighbors. This is why Iceland is on the Council of Baltic Sea States, even though its rocky shores are not lapped by the blue waters of the Läänemeri. They're lonely. They need friends.

Georgia, though, has more neighbors than it knows what to do with. Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, plus the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- that's more genuine neighbors than Estonia has. Some other addresses in the neighborhood include Iran and Ukraine. So, the Georgians are not without neighbors, though they may not like the neighborhood in which they live.

But here's the question: do the Estonians consider the Greenlanders to be neighbors? Do they consider the Azerbaijanis or Turks to be neighbors to their country? "Just drive south to Luhamaa, take a left turn, and you'll be in Istanbul in about ... a week or two." No, I don't think they do.

Now, I understand Paet was just using a metaphor to make a point, that the Georgians were in more immediate need of assistance than the Icelanders. But his metaphor, coupled with Estonian policy, seems to confirm an odd trend in our young century.

It used to be that in the past one could not choose their neighbors. Today, though, countries can live in selective neighborhoods, where states that are thousands of kilometers away can seem like they are right next door, and states that are right next door can seem like they are thousands of kilometers away.

maria ivanova

If Americans could elect a black man president, ponders Rein Sikk in the Nov. 7 issue of Eesti Päevaleht, it can't be long before "Maria Ivanova," a fictional embodiment of an Estonian Russian, makes it to Kadriorg.

With her boisterous Slavic style and perfect Estonian language, the talented Maria Ivanova could claim to speak for all Estonians, just as the gifted Mr. Obama speaks for his gay friends in the red states and little league coaching pals in the blue states, Sikk writes.

I stood on line thinking about Maria Ivanova at Selver yesterday night, when I noticed that two "Estonians" on the front pages of different newspapers could be Maria Ivanova, too. One was Robert Antropov, the CEO of Paldiski Northern Port, and the other was Luule Komissarov, an actress. Then I glanced down at my receipt and noticed that the clerk also had an pithy Estonian first name [Triin] and a longer Russian last name [Aleksejev]. "Where did all these Estonians get Russian surnames?" I wondered.

Next to me in line were three Estonian Russian teenagers. It was Friday night and Selver was busy with young people buying up booze. These kids were no different. There were two young women and one guy, and all of them looked just old enough to legally purchase alcohol. The young man was in especially good mood (two dates for the evening?) and he was speaking loudly. He then got into a conversation with a guy on line, and switched into Estonian, even hitting the dreaded letter Õ in stride. Then back to Russian, with his friends, and back into Estonian again with the cashier. I was really impressed.

When I walk into a store and I am not feeling up to it, I can get in a lot of trouble with the troublesome letter "õ." Today I went to buy a basket -- korv -- and may have asked the clerk at the mööblimaja for an ear -- kõrv. The nature with which the young man at Selver was able to slip between languages is something that will always remain foreign to me. He's from here and has heard korv and kõrv side by side for his entire life. Even if his mother spoke another language to him, he is still, in some way, a native speaker of Estonian.

Sikk's article prompted 535 comments, some of them insightful [did you know that Konstantin Päts was half Russian?] and the others your typical outburst of "tibla välja" [tibla, get out!] The Estonian word "tibla" is a derogatory, yet not wholly malevolent term for Russians. It comes from the Russian "ti bliad," which means "you whore." Occasionally, the Russian Federation is referred to as "Tibladistan." I suppose some Estonian soldiers heard "ti bliad" on the front lines during the War of Independence and made it their own -- the term allegedly dates back to the First World War.

That being said, I have never actually heard an Estonian person use this term to curse any single person or group of people. However, it always manages to surface in the online comments of article's like Sikk's. There are some real armchair rullnokad in Estonia who spend their time giving all Estonians a bad name by writing offensive things about eestivenelased in the comments of Postimees or Eesti Päevaleht.

To me, though, Sikk's proposition wasn't so outlandish. Estonians are quite comfortable with the Maria Ivanovas of their country -- indeed many "aboriginal" Estonians have names like hers. And because of the cultural fluency of Estonia's youth, I don't think it will be too long before Sikk's hypothetical scenario comes to pass.

phew!

I am unsure of how most Estonians view the results of the American presidential race. In some Estonian polls, the charismatic Democratic candidate Barack Obama was seen as a favorite, yet support for Republican John McCain was strong, especially compared with the rest of Europe.

John McCain certainly appeared to be the safe, trans-Atlantic candidate -- the one Estonians could pin their hopes on to bring the "straight talk express" to Moscow, should the need present itself.

At the same time, Obama's popularity made him a strong candidate too. It would be much harder for Western Europeans to reject the initiatives of a President Obama, who is so popular among their own residents, than it was for them to reject George W. Bush's doctrine of preemptive war and "cowboy capitalism." They probably will wind up rejecting Obama anyway, but the honeymoon has yet to even begin, so let's not predict its end just yet.

Also, Obama was the candidate who represented what still makes America attractive to the Brazilians and the Kenyans and the Japanese. That's why they still flock in droves to Bay Area start-ups and East Coast universities. And a strong mandate from the American people, plus a warm reception in many countries will make American power competitive again, not only in Europe, but in Africa and South America and Asia. We should not forget that our president-elect still speaks some Indonesian.

This election had strong ideological undertones, but, ultimately, I believe it was decided on the perception of competence. Most Americans are not ideologues. They just want the president to do his job. We forget that George W. Bush's poll numbers tanked in September 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina. It wasn't his ideology that hurt him, though the seizure of the Republican Party by its right flank didn't help. It was the perception that he was asleep at the wheel. That he was incompetent.

John McCain was dragged down by this legacy and so underperformed in most polls. But up until September, he still had a chance of winning the election on the residual strength of the Reagan Republican brand: lower taxes, strong national security, ownership society. Then he picked Sarah Palin, who came on strong but was not prepared for national politics and eventually embarrassed the Republican ticket.

McCain also reacted to the financial crisis in a very convoluted way, suspending, then unsuspending, his campaign to go to Washington, only to arrive too late to make an impact on the bailout deal. Suddenly, McCain looked dazed. It appeared that he did not know what he was doing. He supposedly picked his VP after meeting her only two times, and, it was rumored, to spite those in his party who told him to pick Mitt Romney. He seemed to have a predisposition for impulsive decision making.

And so Obama's lead strengthened, and McCain was unable to make up the difference to the end, even with the help of Morning Joe, Joe Sixpack, and Joe the Plumber. Obama, despite his slim resume, was seen as a better communicator and more competent by most people, and that is what, I think, made the difference in the end.

In terms of policy towards security issues in northeastern Europe, Estonians and others probably know that the president-elect believes that Finland should join NATO "as soon as possible." That is, American policy will not really change. They should also understand that Obama is a post-Cold War candidate. As Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb has said, Europe, whole and free, is the default in the minds of most working age Europeans and Americans. Russian revisionism and German sauna diplomacy looks pathetic compared to these stronger appeals to pan-European and global prosperity.

Furthermore, ideology and personal preferences aside, Obama/Biden seemed like the stronger ticket. They already had a transition team in place and had made advances to possible secretaries of treasury, defense, and state. So, they were ready to take over. The McCain/Palin ticket seemed to be imploding in recent weeks and had they somehow won, they would have still been stuck with a Democratic majority in Congress. Exhausted by eight years of rule with most of their major players sidelined (remember Bill Frist? Tom DeLay? Rick Santorum?), Republicans are in no position to lead the country at this moment. So Americans chose the more apparently confident and competent ticket.

Having a strong, empowered American leadership, with a hefty mandate (52 percent of the vote, 349 electoral votes and counting) is good for the United States and its allies. Despite two wars and economic recession, the country has, for the moment, been reenergized by this election and will soon be ready to reengage the world under a new administration.

kodakondsus redux

For the first time since I became acquainted with Estonia, there is a renewed public interest in the criteria for obtaining Estonian citizenship.

You may find that humorous, in that myself and others have written about this contentious issue to the point of exhaustion over the years.

However, these were external debates. The visit of a PACE chairman here or a UN high representative there could spur heated conversations about Estonian citizenship laws by outsiders, yet within the country they mostly provoked defensive reactions. I encountered few passionate arguments within Estonia about citizenship. The Estonian mindset seemed to be, "the law is the law, and I have more important things to think about."

Last week though, several government ministers met to discuss the current policies. Minister of Education Tõnis Lukas did not divulge the agreements, if any, that were reached during the talks to the media. He said an official statement on the internal discussion was unlikely. But what has changed to bring about such a debate?

One major factor is undeniably the war in Georgia. The Kremlin's logic of protecting its citizens on the territory of another state did not go unnoticed in Tallinn. 8 percent of Estonian residents hold foreign citizenship, mostly Russian, Ukrainian, and Finnish. And then there's that other 8 percent, the roughly 100,000 people who still have undetermined citizenship.

Ideally, most long-term residents of Estonia would adopt Estonian citizenship. That is what the government is trying to encourage. Learn the Constitution. Take some language courses. Here's your passport. But many stateless persons enjoy the best of both worlds. They have visa free travel to both the European Union and the Russian Federation. And what do they get with their eesti pass? The freedom to join the Center Party and vote for Edgar Savisaar in European Parliamentary elections? How grand.

That solid bloc of ~100,000 residents with undetermined citizenship is indeed a challenge. As one recent op-ed pointed out, that's more people than live in the city of Tartu, Estonia's second largest. In the 1990s, Estonians might have been quick to passionately defend such a policy. They were still sorting through the broken garbage of the Soviet legacy and probably believed, next to the legal and moral arguments, that the *temporary* exclusion of part of the population from the democratic process was the best way to consolidate the state within Western institutions.

Today, though, with the average Torumees Joosep anxious about the global financial crisis and the implosion of Estonia's consumer-driven market, this is just another headache that I believe most would simply like to go away. With Estonian reestablished as the primary language of public life and the fear of being subverted by Homo Sovieticus retreating into memory, Estonians now feel comfortable again within their own skin and within their own land. To be Estonian is uhke ja hää? When was it ever not?

In this environment, one would hope that the law would work and the situation would naturally resolve itself. The news that the Russian embassy handed out more Russian passports to stateless persons than the Estonian government did last year, however, is symbolic of the challenge that faces either this Estonian government or a future one.

What is the solution? There are various incremental actions being discussed by the current government to encourage more to take Estonian citizenship. But I think that ultimately a larger renewal of policy may be underway. This is probably no longer an issue that the Estonian government wishes to expend vast resources to resolve. In my experience, Estonians are ultimately stubborn yet practical people. I have confidence that a solution will eventually be found.

ace of disgrace

A couple of years ago there was a discussion track that would go something like this: Estonians would rejoice in their invention of the ubiquitous Skype, only to be rebuffed by non-Estonians who would remind them of the Scandinavian capital and management behind the successful IT start-up.

It didn't seem fair. The Finns could claim Nokia, the Swedes could sell their Volvos and Ikea furniture, but the lowly Estonians would have nothing of their own, because their expertise was exploited in a time of globalisation.

Due to size and capital constraints, Estonians would most likely be stuck under the yoke of "foreign" capital for all time. The minute somebody thought up something good, there would be Per or Lars with his bankcard, ready to bring it to the rest of the world.

The inequality of Nordic and Baltic relations were thus laid bare. The Nordics were the big people; the Baltics little. Sure, tiny Estonia could take part in the Nordic Investment Bank, but the Baltic brigands could not join the Nordic Council proper, lest they dilute its purity with their tainted, post-Soviet blood.

And so the nordic world remained somewhat fractured along national lines. Nordic banks might be the only banks in Estonia, but Estonia was outside their "home" market, even if said banks were managed by Estonians. Nordic companies might own most of the Estonian media, and yet that media was peripheral. Despite EU comradery and paeans to integration, a sense of otherness, nurtured during the Cold War, was maintained.

This way of looking at Northern Europe, though, is archaic and wrong. The reality has manifested itself in recent weeks as the Icelandic government goes from door to door in northern Europe, begging for alms to keep its bankrupt financial sector on life support until the IMF or the Russian Federation comes through with the big money.

Iceland, a quiet country known for its fishing industry, glaciers, and electronic music, is now a paragon of recklessness and instability. What do the two words "Iceland" and "bank" bring to mind? Exactly. If President Ilves had once hoped to follow the parliamentarians of Reykjavik into dull, nordic normalcy, he was sorely mistaken.

Meanwhile in Stockholm, the imperial financial capital of the nordic world, where my money and yours is likely counted and managed, rumors prevail about a bailout plan for Swedish banks with Baltic holdings, like SEB and Swedbank, formerly Hansapank. No one can predict the financial future in this autumn of 08, but I would be unsurprised if my Estonian bank goes the way of my American bank, which went bankrupt, was seized by the government, and sold/bequeathed to another bank in one night.

We up north, though, presume competence on the part of the Swedes. We presume that even if the Icelanders go bankrupt and the Estonians are forced to live out of their leased BMWs, there is a mountain of gold generated by sales of ABBA LPs and Volvo station wagons that is kept beneath Gamla Stan for rainy financial days in the nordic countries. And yet, while that sense of interconnectedness is so deep that the first country Iceland or Estonia might hit up for extra cash is Sweden, there are few institutions that can help to regulate that relationship.

And that is the real question the big people with power might wish to mull over a few times over a warm cup of glögi this coming holiday season. The interconnectedness of the nordic region has materialized in the form of a banking crisis that affects not just Reykjavik and not just Tallinn, but involves Stockholm and Copenhagen and Riga.

Still, the instruments of policy have yet to be refined. There are Nordic-Baltic 8 summits, which can serve as a powerful regional engine within the EU. There's even an EU Nordic Battle Group. But are nordic regional institutions really up to the tasks at hand? Do the requisite forums exist to help these interconnected countries face their challenges?

I feel so often that the thinking on these issues is mired in the past. As the Skype example illustrates, it's quite hard these days to locate a point of origin for a northern European company. And it's quite hard, such as in the cases of Estonia and Sweden, to know who is really in control of monetary policy. These new obstacles beg for new policies and institutional adjustment. While I am not advocating any specific changes at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if the way we think about northern europe and the way it functions will change in response to this crisis.

whither liberalism?

Flipping between the 24-hour cable news networks on my JetBlue flight out to San Diego on Sunday was interesting.

MSNBC showed Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama over and over again, and why wouldn't they? He explained much of it on their own program, Meet the Press.

CNN's approach was dominated by their newfound appreciation for the celebrity journalist. Four years ago, Anderson Cooper seemed like the only interesting person on the network -- to the point that they extended his program, Anderson Cooper 360, from one to two hours every night. But now they have Campbell Brown and Soledad O'Brien and Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty. It's a news celebrity love-in. You tell 'em, Anderson/Campbell/Soledad!

FOX, unsurprisingly, did not cover the Powell endorsement, except to trot out a few loyal analysts to explain how Colin Powell isn't that important. What's really important is that Barack Obama once sat on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago with former "Weatherman" Bill Ayers. And McCain has taken to calling Obama a "socialist" or purveyor of "tax and spend liberalism," which was Alan Keyes' line of attack during the Illinois senate campaign four years ago.

As a person who first became aware of the political world at a time when Reagan and Gorbachev were sitting down in Geneva to discuss a ban on ballistic missiles, this deep spring of knee-jerk anti-liberalism that McCain is hoping to tap into is foreign to me. The first political reality I ever knew was one where "greed was good." I learned about Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiatives in school; the idea that you are going to stir me into voting Republican by linking Obama to a philosophy of government that hasn't really been in vogue since 1966 isn't going to sway me.

FOX, though, relies not on first-hand experience, but conditioning. Their newsmasters believe that you may not remember Lyndon Johnson or the Weather Underground or even a time when liberal politicians won districts in the American South handily. But if we link Obama to domestic terrorism and Kennedy-Johnson liberalism, nay, socialism enough, it will stick. McCain stands for "real American" values like free trade and cutting taxes and preemptive war. Lyndon Johnson? Socialist. Harry Truman? Appeaser. Jack Kennedy? Elitist. Barack Obama? Terrorist.

Estonian politics aren't too far removed from American politics. I recently sat down with an Estonian journalist who referred to Finance Minister Ivari Padar as a "socialist" throughout the conversation. Now, if you are like me and you have traveled the dark backalleys of the Left, you know the difference between your socialists and your communists and your anarcho-syndicalists. To them, social democrats are right wing. To a lot of Estonians, though, they're all the same.

Still, a recent poll though found that 50 percent of Estonians said that Padar was performing well, compared to a third who said the same of Prime Minister Ansip. On Hannes Rumm's blog though, a commenter pointed out that unlike their counterparts in Finland, Sweden, and the other nordic countries, Estonian Social Democrats only can garner 10 percent of the electorate's support.

That seems like a tiny sliver, but when you realize that most voters have no party affiliation, it's a reliable slice of the Riigikogu and one that has served their interests well enough to boast of Padar's public approval. At the same time, there is a disconnect. Pre-war Estonian Social Democrats went the way of the Estonian state in 1940. The heydey of social democracy was in the 1960s. Now as we near the end of this decade, some Estonian voters are looking for a viable alternative to the economic liberals and conservatives, but it doesn't seem to exist.

There is an unmet market need for something new, the only question is in which ways it will materialize. In America, some voters might see a false choice between Reagan and Johnson, when Obama and McCain perhaps represent neither. In Estonia, voters may see a choice between liberalism and socialism or conservatism and populism, but is that really the case?

In presidential and parliamentary democracies alike, there is an idea that there are two polarities each tugging the electorate one way or the other given the time and circumstances. In the US, we've had a quarter century of the Washington consensus. In Estonia, you've had nearly 20 years of a similar consensus. But as we prepare to consider the other side of the coin, voters like me in either country are confused about just what that other side will be.

mõjupiirkonnad

I am an ardent follower of international relations, but quite often some basic, bread and butter concepts pass me by. It's not that I don't grasp their meaning, it's that I question their underlying logic and I find overwhelming evidence that challenge their primacy in the way we think about the world.

One of the most questionable concepts is that of great powers having spheres of influence [mõjupiirkonnad]. Russia has a right to intervene in the domestic political affairs of Georgian life because it falls within its centuries-old "sphere of influence."

The concept of "spheres of influence" seems to be embraced by President Dmitri Medvedev who claims that Russia has regions of "privileged interest" that others are presumably not permitted to engage on a bilateral basis without Moscow's approval. Moscow should speak on behalf of Tbilisi before Tbilisi does, according to this way of thinking. Russian national interest trumps the interests of all its smaller neighbors.

The Americans are credited with the foundation for this manner of carving of the world. Experts cite the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 as forming some kind of precedent for Russian intervention in its "near abroad." But has the Monroe Doctrine ever really been respected? And how can one really argue that the United States has cultural or political domination over countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Bolivia? Have European powers ever really stopped meddling in the Western Hemisphere? No.

The very concept of spheres of influence seems to be dead on arrival. It may serve as a convenient excuse for military action in an adjacent country, but it doesn't pass muster upon inspection. And yet, in the year 2008 it seems to have been reanimated to defend Russian interests in its region of privileged interest, the former Soviet Union.

The concept of the the former USSR also baffles me. Huge meaning is ascribed to membership in this Communist superstate that was formed at the end of World War I and fell apart in the summer of 1991. Could you imagine, some analysts state, that NATO has expanded not only to include Warsaw Pact countries but countries that were once constituent parts of the USSR itself!

Why do we ascribe such tremendous significance to this factor when we make decisions about our future? People are intoxicated by the idea of cycles and are convinced that just as Russian influence has contracted it will once again expand. And yet, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania once held land to the Black Sea. Does anyone really envision the gold, green, and red flying over Odessa anytime soon?

From an Estonian perspective, I would actually think the Germans to have the greatest "sphere of influence" claim to Estonian soil. From the 13th century through the 20th century, Estonia was under Teutonic cultural influence. And look how little Soviet Russian claims to primacy in the country have manifested themselves. Estonia is part of the European Union and NATO. So much for the importance of former USSR status.

At the same time, I am at a loss at when membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization became such a contentious issue. Russia's greatest issue with Ukraine and Georgia, as it has been argued, is those countries' aspirations to join the alliance.

So what? So the Ukrainians can modernize their army and go hunt the Taliban in Afghanistan? Oh wait, they're already there. Too late, Putin!

The Ukraine-in-NATO lobby though has a one-track mind. Kiev will have a seat at future NATO summits. There can be no alternative. Ukraine will join NATO because ... Ukraine should be in NATO. Even if most Ukrainians don't want to join NATO. Even if the domestic political situation is a mess. The NATO expansion express will continue heading in that direction because the driver said so.

That's what is truly worrying: that we have now gotten to a point that a Ukraine sans NATO membership is viewed as a state without a future by some in the West. How did this come to be? How is it that membership in a security alliance founded in 1949 is seen as the only way a state bordering the Russian Federation can survive? Except Ukraine has existed for 17 years and not been a member of NATO. What happens if NATO ceases to exist at some point in the future as an organization? Does that mean that every state tied to NATO goes down the drain with the command? That's not a very comforting thought.

Meantime, NATO is seen as the archenemy in Russian discourse. And yet, most of Russia's most reliable partners in Europe -- all of them actually -- come from states that are members of NATO. Germany is in NATO, in fact the Baltic countries joined NATO while the one and only Gerhard Schröder held the chancellorship. NATO membership has not stopped the Germans from pursuing the Nord Stream project. NATO members France and Germany did not support the US-led action in Iraq. And this is an "alliance"? Oh really?

Baltic positions on NATO are driven by principles of universality. Any country that speaks the language of democracy, even if it is not yet fluent in that language, should be welcomed, eventually, into the NATO family, say its leaders. But based on this principle, shouldn't Tunisia or Turkmenistan have a "European perspective"? Do the Estonians only really support the Georgians because they are fond of their Christianity, fine wines, and friendly disposition?

The Estonian perspective differs from the Finnish position, which stresses Nordic exceptionalism -- independence from the goings-on in the former tsarist empire. Yet Finnish statesmen, like Martti Ahtisaari, are too glad to lead international conflict resolution missions, so long as they are far from home.

Nordic exceptionalism is another concept that continues to resurface these days. Why should Georgia and Ukraine join NATO when they can just adopt the Finnish model vis a vis Russia? Why should those pesky Estonians continue to poke the Russians in the eye, when they can just be good boys like Pekka up north? "I cannot understand why Estonian politicians believe they are smarter than Finnish politicians who have for decades maintained good relations with Russia," thundered former Estonian PM Tiit Vähi in a recent interview.

Yet, according to Estonian foreign policy thinkers, Finland is not to be emulated. Nordic exceptionalism is just that -- exceptional in the case of Finland, unable to be copied or arranged for Ukraine or Georgia. Is that really the case? Is any of this really the case?

While some in Ukraine and Georgia look west to the "lighthouse" of NATO, I fumble for my own lighthouses when it comes to current international affairs. And so I will continue to read books written by men named Kissinger and McNamara and wind up even more confused at the end than I was at the beginning.

union square

While standing in Union Square in New York City the other day, a Velvet Underground lyric from "Run, Run, Run" popped into my head: "Gonna take a walk down to Union Square/You never know who you're gonna find there."

No, you certainly never know who you are going to find in Union Square. We were among the throngs buying up organic fruits and vegetables at a weekend market. Union Square abuts the campuses of New York University, New School University, and Urban Poseur University, and its leafy ambiance makes it a favorite place for modern-day yuppies and yippies to sip Chai Lattes and buy macho Che Guevara posters from street vendors.

Over there stood a group of folk musicians, over here was a guy with a sign proclaiming -- believe it or not --"Islam is evil" surrounded by a group of fellow street-corner philosophers fishing out juicy, antisocial quotations from the Koran. And everywhere -- everywhere -- were the Obama supporters, selling t-shirts displaying slogans like "Baby Seals for Obama." There was even a small bust of John McCain with a post-it note in his mouth that read, "my friends." According to one count, McCain uttered the phrase "my friends" 24 times during the last presidential debate.

In just a few weeks, Americans will elect a new president to replace George W. Bush, whose approval rating has been mired in the high 20s for the past two years. As little as four years ago, pundits were pronouncing the Republican Party invincible, writing the Democratic Party into the history books. According to polls, though, John McCain is set to replace George McGovern as the candidate who rode his party's platform into the sunset.The presidential race is now tight in states like North Dakota and Indiana. It's only a matter of time before Fargo becomes the new, hip place for trendy IT guys looking to get out of the big city.

It's easy to characterize both of the candidates as empty suits. Everyone is waiting for a political messiah to appear that will tell them everything they want to hear in such a convincing way that they'll actually believe him. But our candidates are Barack Obama and John McCain, and I have personally found the presidential debates to be dull. McCain trots out the same tired rhetoric about tax cuts and how Obama wants to shoot hoops with Ahmadinejad. Obama name drops Main Street and promises health coverage for all.

As a voter, the Republicans wrote me off years ago. A young, college-educated professional from New York who has a preference for Swedish automobiles? In American street vernacular, I'm a communist. In reality, I try to keep American political discourse at arms length for the sake of my own mental health. Topical issues -- gun rights, gay marriage, hockey moms -- swirl around my head on a daily basis, but I have built up some kind of internal self-defense mechanism that filters most of it out. It's just noise.

Interestingly, though, it has been less of McCain's politics that automatically turn me off than his itchy demeanor. When he referred to Obama as "that one" during the most recent debate and then resumed prefacing all his statements with "my friends" I wanted to throw my dinner at the TV set and exclaim, "but John, we're not friends." At that moment of yelling at the television, I was as American as anyone else, even Joe Sixpack who can see Vladimir Putin's dacha from his hockey rink in Alaska. Ooh, I was being sarcastic there. This place is rubbing off on me.

"Next to the Guy ... On the Horse"

New York is a city that is easy to fall in love with, and once you are in love with New York, you can never really let it go. According to some investigative work, slivers of my family have been here since it was Nieuw Amsterdam. And yet, sometimes I really hate New Yorkers.

As I sat under a statue of George Washington in Union Square, I watched the young woman next to me call her friend on her mobile phone and tell him to meet her, "here, next to the guy ... on the horse."

She was genuinely perplexed. I mean, who could that guy with the prominent nose and the pony tail and the 18th century military uniform be? He looked so familiar, I mean, hadn't I seen him on a quarter at some point in time? I know, I know ... Abraham Lincoln.

My inner John Cleese boiled, and I felt like smacking the young woman with our Frommer's New York City with Kids guidebook for failing to recognize our first president, yelling out words like "twit," "dolt," and others less savory.

At a bar in Hoboken, New Jersey -- the home of Frank Sinatra, across the Hudson river -- several nights earlier, I had tried to talk European politics with the blond Hungarian bartender.

"What do you think of Ferenc Gyurcsány?" I asked. "Who?" she replied. One of our Tartu friends is half-Hungarian and half-Estonian, so I know how to say the guy's name correctly. "Ferenc Gyurcsány," I stammered. "Who's that?" she said, as if he might be another Hungarian bartender somewhere in Hoboken. "He's the prime minister of your country!" I said. She gave me a puzzled look, as if I was discussing stamp collection or cricket.

Many of my friends are apolitical. I try to explain to them that politics is the sport that I enjoy, just as they fret about other pastimes like baseball. "Oh no," they might counter. "But baseball is really important." Even my wife, who tells those that wish to hear in Estonia that she supports the Rohelised, has little to say when I wake her with the interesting news that Keskerakond has pulled ahead in the latest polls. I don't think she's particularly happy with the ruling government but ... what can you do?

Like the American media, the Estonian media currently teems with end of days-like stories about the economic crisis. Few people I know believe that much can be done to avert the worst parts of the storm. I am surrounded by fatalists and, in some ways, I have become a fatalist zombie myself. It's like ... whatever, man.

"Trust No One ... Deceive Everyone"

There is, though, a working class, populist sentiment in New York. Everywhere I go -- in coffee shops, on tour buses, on trains -- I hear people talking about how they too could have run Lehman Brothers into the ground for $45 million -- the sum its former CEO Richard Fuld reportedly earned in 2007.

People worry about the future of the economy, but the silver lining, as one acquaintance put it, is that there will be fewer [expletives] in lower Manhattan. People around me have gloated about investment bankers losing their second homes in the Hamptons at least as frequently as John McCain refers to those around him as his "friends."

There was a time, circa 2000 AD, when the Hamptons were the place to be. Jerry Seinfeld would be there, jet skiing with Puff Daddy; the Backstreet Boys would be singing their latest hit; and if you were lucky you might spy someone really important, like Paul McCartney.

Today, the mood on the New York street is foul. When I hear the guy at the bagel shop go off about the $700 billion bailout, I can imagine that, if nudged just a little bit more, he could gladly take part in some tarring and feathering. The core issue is less about the specifics of the crisis than about basic trust in institutions.

Directly following the September 11 attacks, few people openly questioned the government's response. The response to Hurricane Katrina, however, greatly reduced people's faith in the state to do its job. Up until last month, though, the financial sector was still deemed somewhat trustworthy. Now that trust is gone. Who can one trust in such circumstances? Is it just like the giant advertisement for Leonardo DiCaprio's new film, Body of Lies, proclaims above 34th street? "Trust no one; deceive everyone?"

New Yorkers are not alone. In Estonia, citizens must grapple with the choice of sticking with Andrus Ansip or trading him for Edgar Savisaar?!?! Talk about erosion of public trust. Which Estonian politician will guide the country out of its current predicament? Which American politician can show us the way? Should we even bother to listen to them let alone trust them? Or should they be as relevant to us as some guy on a horse?

Come November 4, I will be voting. I'll even stay up late to watch the election results come in. But when I wake up on November 5, I confess, I will have no great expectations. Some people around me think that things are so bad, they can only get better. I hope they are right.

here today, tomorrow, next week?

The global financial crisis has many victims, but over the past 24 hours the name of one small, northern victim has been on many lips, and, no, it's not "Estland"; it's Iceland.

In what has become standard practice during the past few weeks, the Icelandic state nationalized two large banks, Landsbanki and Glitnir, while it attempted to rescue a third, Kaupthing.

Kaupthing has also received Swedish support to the tune of $702 million for its arm in Sverige, which is now looking for a local buyer. Perhaps the most interesting twist is the appeal by Reykjavik for a $5.4 billion loan from Russia. While it isn't a done deal, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said Moscow viewed the request "positively."

In Eesti, the banking system is moaning and groaning, but much of that is coming from Stockholm, home to Swedbank and Ühispank parent SEB. It's not hard to imagine anything at this point, but a Swedish bailout to cover Baltic losses could occur sooner than any spokesperson for the banks is willing to concede.

The second option though, of seeking Russian money to keep the country solvent, would be highly controversial in Eesti, where Russia is seen as still having political goals and meddling in domestic politics. But if the Icelanders have to turn to Moscow to keep their economy afloat, to whom could the Estlanders turn in a similar, hypothetical scenario? If not Stockholm and Helsinki, then who?

eesti maine

Last month's exposure of Herman Simm, former head of the security department at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, as a spy has prompted Estonians to ask themselves important questions, the most primary being, of course: how will this affect our image?

Marko Mihkelson [an IRL member, blogger, and member of the Estonian Golf and Country Club], argued that the exposure of Simm showcases the ability of Estonia to catch those engaged in espionage within its ranks. Therefore, the spy scandal is good for Estonia's image, not bad.

Jaak Aaviksoo [Minister of Defense], reassured his constituents meantime that the spy scandal did not make Estonia a pariah for NATO. Estonia's image as a positive transformer was secure.

There are other questions, though. Aleks from All About Latvia asked me, "how could an Estonian betray his country" by allegedly selling secrets, including classified NATO information, to Russia?

Margus Hanson, the former Minister of Defense, who was sacked over a lost briefcase containing classified information in 2004, first asked himself, "Did Herman Simm [or his wife, Heete, also arrested] steal my briefcase?" and then perhaps asked himself, very quietly so that nobody could hear, "Could this help me get back into national politics?"

I personally wondered why Herman Simm, should he be guilty, would trade classified information that affected the security of the nation in which he and his family lived to a historically aggressive country for ... more land in Estonia.

According to media reports, Simm spent the proceeds from his espionage on buying up properties all over Estonia; properties that have now been seized by state authorities. A farm in Ida-Virumaa here, a cottage in Harjumaa there. It was prime real estate for saunaing and root vegetable cultivation, but little else.

These options, though, are available to most Estonians, poor and rich. So, why did he do it? Greed is probably one factor; but the thrill of just doing it may be another. As Bill Clinton said about the Lewinsky scandal: "I did it because I could."

But what of Estonia's reputation? Well, I think that Estonia's reputation overall is good. That's because Estonia benefits what I would call the likability factor. In spite of their national aloofness, people think the Estonians are cute and their culture is worthy of perpetuation. They visit Estonia and when they return to their homes, they tell great stories about its old city or its islands or its university town.

But in terms of the current Estonian government, I am not sure if Estonia has the greatest reputation. A deeper analysis of the reasons for that perception are for another blog post, however.

hetk viljandis

My wife was born 34 years ago in the city of Viljandi in south Estonia -- at least, that's how her mom and dad remembered it. According to the Estonian state, though, she's a child of Tallinn.

Her parents were both registered as students in Tallinn at that time, and so the infant Epp was "born" in Tallinn. To this day, she perpetuates this myth for the sake of bureaucratic continuity. But we know the truth, and the truth is that she is from Viljandi.

For this reason, and others, Viljandi is part of our lives. We go there often, but until recently I had few opportunities to stretch my legs and see the sights. In the past, a trip to Viljandi typically entailed a visit to a hardware store or stopping to get gas. The castle ruins could always wait, there were things to do, places to be on time.

This time was different. Epp was invited to speak to a gathering of librarians from Viljandi county. Young and old, introvert and extrovert, they filled the conference room of the very modern Viljandi library to talk about books. My duty was to do anything I wanted with our daughter Anna for an hour and a half. The director of the library recommended the children's area of the library, but I had something else in mind. I wanted to see the castle ruins.

It was a gorgeous fall morning in Viljandi as Anna and I made our way towards St. John's Church. The streets were alive with people; Viljandi residents are well dressed yet exude normalcy, unlike the dressed-for-success Tallinners. Their goals are quite sane -- visit the post office, go to the bank, meet a friend for coffee. There are few well-heeled parliamentarians to be found in Viljandi and the local academies specialize in folk music and theater. Not a bad place to be.

The first time I visited Viljandi was in the winter of 2003. It was cold and the sidewalks were thick with black ice. I remember seeing a poster for the film Nimed Marmortahvlil -- Names in Marble -- about the Estonian War of Independence. Some teenage thespian had drawn a heart around one of the soldiers on the poster and written "So beautiful" in Estonian on his face. It seemed so normal. I remember feeling that I was in the heart of Estonia; that the foreign world could never intrude on this place; that everything here was as it was supposed to be.

In recent years my brother-in-law Priit, also born in Viljandi (though I am unsure of his "official" place of birth), found himself back in the city of his birth. Of all the people I know, Priit has held the most cool-sounding jobs. At one point, he worked in a pillow company, packing boxes of pillows.

He later moved on to a matchbox company, putting matches in boxes. I could imagine these jobs getting really boring, but there is something about them that reminds me of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. I can imagine poor Priit going to bed after a trip to the pub in Viljandi, haunted by images of pillows.

For some time, Priit lived in one of those rambling wooden apartment houses {see above} that still exist in Viljandi, where the interior looks like something out of a surrealist painting. The staircases were crooked, as were the floors. One had the feeling that should a bird land on the wrong side of the house the whole thing could come crumbling down. But it's still there. That's Estonian craftsmanship for you!

These memories and more flashed before my eyes as I passed the Jaani Kirik, an inviting Lutheran church, towards the first stop on the trail that would take me to the castle ruins -- a monument to General Johan Laidoner. Laidoner was commander-in-chief of the Estonian armed forces during the war of independence and also during the rule of President Konstantin Päts from 1934 to 1940.

The Estonians I know have mixed feelings about Laidoner because of his role in Päts' 1934 coup as well as some of the non-transparent foreign policy decisions that were taken in 1939 and 1940. Following the Soviet takeover, Laidoner was deported to the USSR. He died in a psychiatric hospital in Vladimir oblast in 1953, in the same region where former PACE President Rene van der Linden is rumored to have real estate investments, coincidentally. I wonder how I will ever manage to explain all this to my children. I guess they'll learn about it the same way I did.

Moving ahead, we finally came to the castle ruins.

Three hills feature the ruins of Viljandi Castle which was constructed in the 13th century and destroyed in the 17th century during conflicts between Poland and Sweden. I thought the ruins would be a fun-for-the-whole-family kind of place, where little one-year-old girls could run wild. That is not the case. The stoney paths lead around the crest of three steep hills overlooking Lake Viljandi. The scenery is stunning, especially in autumn, with the shimmering lake and forests of oranges and yellows and greens swaying in the wind below. One does not get views like this in Estonia often.

I passed by polite Viljandi residents who sat on benches chatting and admiring the view. If I lived in Viljandi, I would eat lunch up there every day. The signs that curate the ruins were available in three languages -- Estonian, English, and German. Of all Estonian cities, Viljandi is among the more "German-feeling" and I have encountered several German tourists here in the past, perhaps in town to visit the local kondiitriäri and relive their former glory.

I was almost certain that one of Epp's ancestors had stood on these very castle walls in the past, ready to dump a vat of boiling oil down on an army of fierce intruders. I could sense the sheer horror that the walls of Viljandi fortress must have witnessed. I was very glad that I was visiting the ruins in the present day with my trusty mobile phone at my side to call the librarians of Viljandi county to come to our defense if we needed it.

There are a number of bridges connecting the hills of the castle ruins, and I had to strap Anna into her stroller so that she didn't accidentally careen off one of the larger bridge's sides. In my direction came a horde of school children. Knowing the Estonian language really has its benefits. You can understand all the mean things the kids are saying to one another. The sole female teacher impressively herded the children along, and even had some of them go back onto the bridge so she could take a picture of them with her digital camera.

On the way back to town, I stopped in the Jaani Kirik. I like Lutheran churches. They are plain and peaceful, and I think the church in Viljandi is among the better lit. Inside, I passed a blond woman and child who made eye contact with us to an extent that is unusual in Estonia. I ignored her and took Anna around the church while the woman convinced the caretaker to take a photo of her and her daughter with the altar in the background. For some reason, I thought churches were off limits for photography, but when it comes to photography in Estonia, nothing is off limits.

After they had their portrait taken the stranger approached me and asked how old my daughter was. The mathematical wheels creaked slowly in my brain. What month was it? September. She was born when? In July. 12 months plus two months is what? Ok, 14 months. This inspired some confidence. "14 months," I replied in Estonian. She smiled and told me that her daughter Sofia was 13 months. This was really weird; an Estonian stranger approaching me to talk about her child? It must have been the positive vibrations of Viljandi's Jaani Kirik.

On the way out of the church, I was so overcome by good feelings that I even said a prayer and, after concentrating really hard, I had a warm shiver of positivity, as if the prayer had been heard, the letter had been received, or the blog post published successfully.

Back at the library, the directors presented us with as much as we could eat and drink. Then one presented Anna with a little wooden toy -- a figurine in traditional Viljandi clothing -- a long black coat and hat -- holding a tiny wooden oar. "It's the Viljandi boat man," she said. I held it out in front of Anna: "This," I said, "Is your great-great-great-great-great grandfather." The library director laughed and poured herself another cup of coffee.

bad vibes

The other night I was convinced by my ailing wife to make a 4 am trek to the apteek on Tõnismägi to buy some over-the-counter medicine for the common cold.

As I made my way up past the Latvian embassy towards the national library, Tõnismägi park lurked in the immediate distance. I saw the dark trees and suddenly was overwhelmed by a feeling of badness.

It was here where the infamous soldier of bronze once stood, where all eyes were fixed for several days in late April 2007 when Tallinn reopened the gushing wound of its Soviet past. I have to say, I still don't feel comfortable there. I don't want to walk through that park. I did not especially care for walking through it in the past, trampling over the mortal remains of a dozen individuals.

Tõnismägi has bad vibes, and I am a bit surprised that Finnish "scholar" Johan Bäckman has decided to stick his nose in that business. Like some voodoo curse, after insulting just about everything that is sacred to Estonians by predicting the end of their state in his new book, Bäckman found himself the subject of a campaign to disrupt his academic career.

Finns and Estonians of some reputation sought to have the University of Helsinki discipline their reckless scholar Bäckman, equating his denial of Soviet occupation in Estonia with Holocaust denial. The university, though, supported Bäckman, arguing that academics are free to tango with the past, especially the Estonian past, in whatever ways they see fit.

In a way, I guess the university is right. Without the career path of academic vanity, fellows like Bäckman might pursue a less savory, unabomber-like way to contribute to society. Remember, universities are at their core institutions, are they not? Finnish scholars are supposed to recreate the world as they see fit, then publish books that garner wanton media attention in Estonia, right?

Though he is unlikely to be washing plates at a Helsinki cafe anytime soon, Bäckman, like Andrus Ansip and Dmitri Klenski, among others, has chosen to play with the most unpleasant of topics, and must now issue statements in English defending his reputation to cling to any sense of normalcy he may have once enjoyed.

He has fallen prey to the curse of the bronze soldier, where logic is turned upside down and poorly concocted, World War II-influenced metaphors rein supreme. Sadly, for Bäckman, there is no known cure.

say what?

In the impatient world of Estonian politics, voters are getting sick of looking at Prime Minister Andrus Ansip. Estonians are not used to having the same leader for more than two years in a row.

This morning, I drank my morning coffee and read an op-ed by Gunnar Kobin, head of AS Ülemiste City, who passionately explained his reasons for wanting a new government.

In Kobin's world, no current Estonian politicians would hold positions in this "dream team" government of specialists. Banker Indrek Neivelt would be prime minister. Bankers Märten Ross {Eesti Pank} or Erkki Raasuke {Swedbank} could be finance minister. Railroad engineer Raivo Varet would be economic affairs and communications minister, while entrepreneurs Hannes Tamjärv or Enn Saar would find new work at the ministry of education. Actually, qualified candidates could be found for any ministry, Kobin writes.

Kobin didn't name a foreign minister for his new government, but Äripäev editor-in-chief Meelis Mandel wrote recently that Feodor Berman, CEO of BLRT Group, would be the best Estonian-Russian to soothe things over with the eastern neighbor. Both Mandel and Kobin's advice to Estonia? Emulate the Finns. No Bronze Soldiers. No Saakashvili support. Just mo' money, mo' money, mo' money. [Damon Wayans for minister of culture? He's not a citizen, but ...]

Unfortunately, unless Neivelt and Raasuke form the "Bankers' Party" and and defeat the other "banker's party" -- the Reform Party -- in the next elections, forming a new government with Saar's "IT Party," we'll be stuck with the government we have. Most Estonians still hold Reform Party in the highest regard, though I haven't seen any polls with Ansip's personal approval ratings.

There are really only three options for Estonians when it comes to their government.

Option one: continuity. Ansip stays in place until the next parliamentary elections 2011. I find this scenario unlikely, but ... who knows.

Option two: decapitation. Ansip is ousted by internal Reformierakond opposition and replaced by someone more palatable; or he runs in the European parliament elections (against Edgar Savisaar and perhaps Mart Laar) to get out of Dodge City next year, bequeathing the job to a handpicked successor.

Option three: new government. This would be another hodgepodge of political philosophies, pairing Isamaaliit with the Social Democrats and Center Party. I've seen speculation that good old Juhan Parts, the 42-year old former prime minister and embodiment of Estonianness {see above}, could lead such a government.

I wouldn't withhold support for a Parts government, even though he advises that Estonian children be given traditional names, such as "Juhan." But I think many people in the business community are frustrated with their options, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more of them switch over into politics in coming years to work things from the other side. Given some of the thin resumes of the current slate of ministers, having a banker as finance minister might not actually be a bad idea.

haapsalus

If you look at old maps of Estonia, you will only find a few place names that have survived the ages. Tartu was "Dorpat", Tallinn was "Reval", Kuressaare was "Arensburg"*, Rakvere was "Wesenberg", and Viljandi was "Fellin". But even back in the 17th century, Narva was "Narva" and Haapsalu was, well, "Hapsal" ... close enough.

For a long time now, I have wanted to visit Haapsalu. It's a small city of around 12,000 people, located on the northwest coast of Estonia and known for its medieval castle and ornate tsarist-era train station. I cannot explain why it caught my eye, but I had a deep yearning to go. The trouble is that it's never been on any itinerary. There was never a reason to go, so we never went, and when we did go recently it was already mid-September, several weeks past the end of the summer season. Haapsalu is known mostly as a summer place.

Having grown up on the east coast of the United States, I can imagine that summer in Haapsalu is filled with all kinds of pleasant debauchery. Drunken midnight strolls; bittersweet summer romances between store clerks; the simple joys of being human.

But I have to say I was predicting the city to be a disappointment. Most Estonian cities were at least partially destroyed during the Second World War. Either by bombs or guns, Main Street Estonia was decimated and often replaced by ugly Soviet apartment blocks or architectural monstrosities. The eclectic nature of these cities lacks coherence, negating the feeling of being enveloped by a place. It is, in some ways, why Tallinn and Tartu are so popular. They have Old Towns where one can walk and feel as if they are somewhere.

I was expecting Haapsalu to be similarly eclectic, with hints of what it once was but could never be again. Fortunately, I was wrong. As our car turned down Tallinna maantee and headed into Haapsalu, I noticed beautiful house after beautiful house, most of them recently painted with attractive, warm colors. It was like visual candy; I couldn't get enough.

We road straight into the center of town, past the monument of the Swedish boy with a fish in his hands. Up until 1944, Haapsalu was the "capital" of the Estonian Swedes, an ethnic group that lived side by side with the Estonians, yet preserved an ancient Swedish dialect. They are thought to have first migrated to Estonia in the 13th century from southern Finland. In 1944, most of them 'repatriated' to Sweden ahead of the Soviet advance.

Those who remained behind became Estonians until 1988, when they were allowed to form their own cultural associations again. Today there is a modest group of Estonian Swedes, led by a state-recognized cultural council that organizes events for the community. They, of course, receive ample help from the local Swedish business community and embassy.

To understand the odd blending, though, between the Estonians and Swedes, it is best to visit the Ilon Wikland museum. Ilon Wikland was born Mari-Ilon Pääbo in Tartu in 1930, but she spent her summers at her grandparents' home in Haapsalu during the 1930s. She was one of the many refugees to Sweden in 1944, and in the 1950s she began illustrating the books of Astrid Lindgren, including Karlsson on the Roof and the Children of Noisy Village.

Much of her artwork is inspired by her childhood in Haapsalu, and you can literally match the buildings in her drawings with those in Haapsalu. Moreover, Wikland's artwork has now come to be seen as quintessentially Swedish. In this way, Swedes who come to Haapsalu find a village that almost seems more Scandinavian than the ones they know at home.

Wikland's artwork is on display at the gallery*, along with photos describing her childhood in the 1930s. While known to few, one of my favorite of Wikland's books is called The Long, Long Journey. It details her escape from Estonia to Sweden in 1944. Every time I see the images of the little girl packing her bags, I want to cry. I can't help it. I don't cry often, but when I see the helpless child and the shades of blue, it's just ... meh. I've got to choke them back.


Turning down the street from the Wikland museum, we sauntered towards the water until we came to an inviting, wooden house where it was said that Peter I of Russia stayed while he was surveying his newly acquired Baltic provinces during the Great Northern War in 1715. The Russian influence in Haapsalu is mostly sensed in plaques like these that remind us of the restless spirits of that large country that would travel to Haapsalu and feel as if they were at the ends of the earth.

Down the neck of Haapsalu that sticks out into the sea, there is also Peter Tchaikovsky's Bench, where the great composer would spend his summers watching the sunsets and dreaming up musical landscapes of his own creation. They just don't make them like Tchaikovsky anymore, do they. I could see why he preferred Haapsalu. It indeed has a timeless quality; there is a narcotic-like peacefulness that flows through the air.

Haapsalu really started to come into its own during the 19th century as a summer destination, and there is a flavor of the last secure days of the tsars to the place. In 1825, the first sanatoriums began offering mud treatments. The idea is to use the natural properties of warm, Baltic mud to cure people's aches and pains. I haven't tried it, so I'll decline to mock it.

Beyond the Tchaikovsky Bench, we made our way to the Aibolands Museum, the museum of the Estonian Swedes. It was unfortunately closed, and we called up the operators, listed in our tourist brochure {which had said it was open} but, alas, they had returned to their homes across the bay in Noarootsi Parish.

Noarootsi is the last bastion of the Estonian Swedes. Thanks to Estonia's restitution laws, hundreds of the assimilated Swedes in that country found themselves suddenly owners of property in Estonia again in the early 1990s. A few older people have returned, but most have decided to turn their family homes into summer houses, and in summertime the shops in Birkas and Österby are said to brim with "Tack så mycket" and "Hej Där."


Like most great summer places, Haapsalu is home to a plethora of galleries, with an emphasis on painters and weavers. Viewing their work, I again felt the all encompassing air of Haapsalu descend on my being. It was if the multicolored shawls on sale went with the pleasant-colored shop and the stone streets with the castle behind. Some mystical art director was behind it all.

At that moment, I wanted to remake all of Estonia in Haapsalu's image; to make all the old dilapidated buildings shine the way that Haapsalu shined. Even the people in Haapsalu seemed more attractive than on average. I was quite obviously losing my bearings. If I had seen any more gingerbread lattice work or tow-headed women, I might have gone mad.

The last stop on our trek was the castle itself, the Haapsalu piiskopilinnus. The castle was the stronghold of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, a medieval theological microstate that ruled over most of modern Lääne, Hiiu, and Saare counties -- present-day Estonia's west coast. From 1228 to 1572, the area was subject to cold, hard Teutonic bishops with names like Hartung, Konrad, and Winrich. During the Great Northern War, the castle, already damaged by centuries of warfare, was finally laid ruin. Today, it is a gigantic open-air museum.

At some point while walking amongst the ruins of the castle, I became immensely jealous of the people of Haapsalu, the haapsalulased. They did not appear to lead rough lives. Instead, their city park was a sprawling medieval castle. Their front yard was a tranquil arm of the Baltic Sea. Their environment was colored by neat, adorable houses fit for Swedish postage stamps.

As I watched a group of children spin themselves around on a fun-inviting, bishopric-sized playground at the foot of the castle, I came to the conclusion that I, like Tchaikovsky before me, had just come face to face with one of my favorite places.

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