in the land of the soviets, 3. osa

It does surprise me now when I think of it, the disregard with which I have treated the Russian language. I've been so careless. I guess I never thought I needed it, and I am still not sure if I do. Actually, I probably don't need to learn it, but, whatever, I have learned some of it along the way.

This may amuse you, as I live in a country where 25 percent of the population considers itself Russian. The reality though is that a significant chunk of that minority gets along just fine in Estonian, so I've never really felt a dire need to know the Russian language. If someone accosted me in Russian on the street, I usually just shrugged and said, "Ma ei tea," which was most often the truth.

I've found the alphabet to be particularly prohibitive to learning Russian. I am an audio learner, not a visual one. I picked up most of my Estonian by ear. People complain about cases, but before I knew anything of cases, I was listening to the radio. I developed a feel for the swing of the language, the music of its sounds. And since Estonian is written quite fortunately in the Latin alphabet, it wasn't that hard for me to match sounds with newspaper headlines and signs.

This is not the case in Russian. I have had no formal introduction to this language and so I have had to learn as I go along. And what fun it is. Welcome to a magical world, where 'S' has become 'C,' 'V' has turned into 'B,' and 'P' is suddenly 'R.' But it doesn't end there. 'Z' is '3,' 'E' is 'Э,''H' is 'N,' and this crazy-looking thing -- д -- is 'D.' I don't know how Russians refer to these letters. I am sure they all have charming diminutives, like Alyosha and Kolya and Maša.

To cope, I have invented my own names. I call и "the backwards N," for instance. It, quite logically, makes an 'I' (ee) sound. Backwards R -- Я -- makes a 'ya' sound. The letter that resembles W -- Ш -- makes a 'sh' sound. Й -- which I have dubbed the 'Christmas present' for the cute little bow on top -- makes a y/j sound. And then there's the matter of this sucker -- Ж -- which sort of looks like an insect, at least to me. Read it quick before it crawls off the page!

Got that all down? Great. Now read Таганско-Краснопресненская through the window of a metro train as it speeds down the tracks. Maybe reading Cyrillic is easy for some people, but it isn't for me. I've always been a little dumb in this regard. When I was a kid, I used to listen to my brother's cassette of Billy Joel's 1987 live album КОНЦЕРТ, which I pronounced as KOHLIEPT ("koh-lee-ept"), and couldn't figure out why my fellow Long Islander would give an album such a stupid name. Later I discovered the Russian alphabet in the series of Encylopedia Britannicas in his room and tried to spell my name, but couldn't find a 'J.' In my visa, they started it with the equivalent of a 'D.'

My wife has accused me of both whining and complaining when it comes to learning the Russian language. But she, like other Estonians of her generation, became acquainted with it as children, when their minds were hungry for new symbols and sounds. My wife remembers the 1980 Olympics when they released the mascot Misha the Bear into the air. (They are still selling Misha merchandise in Moscow, by the way). The trip to Russia for her was like a journey back in time, way back to a place where Kino was still playing on the radio and every shop sold Тархун (Tarkhun), a super sweet green soft drink that is flavored with tarragon. She met a man in the market who used to be stationed in Viljandi 20-something years ago. Those were the days.

Kino was, somewhat ironically, the soundtrack to my trip. Everywhere I went, someone was playing the songs of the late, great Viktor Tsoi who died outside of Riga, of all places, in a car accident in 1990. Tsoi's voice is rough, resigned. The music has a heavy beat, the sparkling math of the guitar runs drags the songs through to the end. It's not pretty, but it grows on you, and it seems to make sense when you are standing in the middle of an urban jungle of 10 million people. As enjoyable as it is, Kino isn't exactly an advertisement for learning Russian. It just makes it seem more impossible. But neither does Singer Vinger make you want to reach out for that T nagu Tallinn book, does it. Maybe post-punk isn't the proper gateway to language learning.

The most comical aspect of learning to read Cyrillic is that the Russian language nowadays contains so many English loan words. And I'm not talking about МакДональдс (McDonalds) or данкин донатс (Dunkin' Donuts), I'm talking about sounding out a sign on a parking garage that looks like this ПАРКИНГ, only to discover that it says "Parking." This reminds me of the time I sat at a railroad crossing in Tartu watching the trains to Russia, trying to decipher the text painted on each carriage as it zoomed by, only to determine in the end that it read "Trans Service."

But now I am back in Estonia, explaining to people where I have been. To some, Moscow sounds very foreign and vaguely threatening. When my wife announced to a little girl that she had visited Russia, the girl reacted, "You went to Moscow? But why? Don't you know that they kill Estonians there!"

Some Estonians of my generation have been to Moscow, though, mostly as children a long, long time ago. They are a little more forgiving.

"So, say something in Russian," said Margit, standing behind the cash register of the local cafe.

"Advin cappuccino, brazauska," I said, drumming my fingers on the counter.

"It's not 'brazauska,'" she said turning toward the cappuccino machine. "It's puzhalsta."

"Oh, I thought it was 'brazauska.' You know, like that Lithuanian guy. Algirdas Brazauskas."

"No, no," she steamed the milk. "Puzh-al-sta. At least, that's what I learned in school."

Some time passed as she finished the cappuccino. Then she placed it on the counter.

"It sounded like Brazauskas to me," I shrugged.

"Damn it, Russian is hard!" Margit said and rubbed her temple, as if a headache was fomenting. "Fucking hard."

I took a sip of the hot drink and smiled, but only a little bit, because at least someone else agreed with me.

"Maybe, you're right," I said. "Maybe it is puzhalsta."

in the land of the soviets, 2. osa

Who can really learn anything about a country over the weekend? I can say that Moscow was not what I expected, and, because of this, I have become more aware of how "mass media" influences our views of other countries and peoples.

How was Moscow not what I expected? First, it is not the boom town it has been made out to be in Western media. The Western narrative since Putin took power is that Moscow is just vibrating with petrodollars, swimming in cash, and everybody is just rolling in it, cappuccinos in the morning, premium vodka at night, wall-to-wall swank.

Hmm. Sure, Moscow has its shiny skyscrapers and enormous shopping centers. I bet it looks a thousand times better than it did 10 years ago. But, coming from Estonia, I'm not tremendously impressed by this. My impressions though may be biased by a) the fact that I spent my time with local journalists, not the most lucrative business to be in; and b) I just managed to avoid these oases of over-consumption. Maybe the journalists who are typically dispatched by big money Western media to cover Moscow are put in touch with local handlers who make sure to show off the city's most tantalizing parts.

Here, I can say I had the same preconceptions about Moscow's people. I expected them all to be fabulously wealthy, dressed in flamboyant colors, sporting designer everything, white iPod headphones hanging from their ears. Maybe I've seen too many music videos, but I don't remember seeing one person listening to music in public. In all honesty, the Muscovites I saw on the trains look tired, wore dark colors, and avoided eye contact. "Why does everyone look so tired here?" I asked my Estonian friend. "Moscow is an exhausting city," he said. "Everyone I know spends every spare minute asleep."

We talked a lot about Estonia. From Moscow, Estonia seems peripheral. It barely manages a blip on the national radar. Moscow is still the imperial capital of the post-Soviet world. It's streets are packed with diverse nationalities: Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Moldovans, not to mention internal minorities from the south and north and east. The Russian border is very long and the country has a very long list of neighbors. Because of this Russians are probably more interested in their place among the world's so-called great powers than any little nation state perched on its northwestern border.

And there are big differences between Moscow and Tallinn. This was another surprise. I expected that Moscow, while having a, how should we say it, different style of administration from Tallinn, would essentially consist of the same mix of crumbling Soviet architecture and glitzy shopping malls. But the key difference is that Estonia has de-Sovietized itself. Perhaps it was easier because Estonia was only under Soviet rule for 50 years versus 70. It's not easy to erase 70 years, especially when the regime was homegrown. Whatever the reason, Lenin is still everywhere in Moscow. He's in the park. He's in the subway. He's on that guy's t-shirt. Lying in that mausoleum. No one did away with that scheming Bolshie. No one knows really what to do with him.

And what should they do? Tear up all the enormous monuments? Paint over the frescoes? Chip away the elaborate mosaics? And then what are you left with? And with whom do you replace him on the pedestals? Yeltsin? Putin? Ronald McDonald? Or bring back Nicholas II? That doesn't seem right either. There is no easy answer here. Still, while the "post-Soviet" nature of Moscow seems indestructible to any mere mortal tourist, the old monuments give off a moldy air. Soviet Communism's been dead for 20 years. The May 9 rallies and the pointy Red Army hats they sell in the kiosks are starting to look like the trappings of American Civil War reenactments. So how do you de-Sovietize Moscow?

It would be like trying to de-Catholicize Rome.

in the land of the soviets

Russia, Russia. A riddle wrapped in an enigma blanketed in blini, soaked in vodka ... and all that jazz. I've been drinking beer religiously since I got here. It was never my intention to drink so much, but it was never really my intention to come to Russia, and it certainly was never my intention to let go of the vast prejudices I have against this country.

My mind is given to fantasy, and like any man I let it drift. Virtually everywhere I go, I conjure up alternate realities. In Edinburgh, I wonder how life would have turned out if I had married some plump, freckled, emotionally damp and dank Scot with beer and mayonaise dripping from her lips -- you know the breed. Married off, living in a glen, eating haggis, sporting a kilt, digging Simple Minds. I can almost see it. But no. Here in Moscow, I haven't caught myself pondering an alternate existence where I "go Russian" at any moment. It is beyond my faculties to imagine such things and I don't know why.

My mind is clouded here. Overcast. Everywhere there is fog and smoke, cigarettes dangling from every mouth. Occasionally, I suspect that Russians do not drink water. They eat sushi or Caucasian or American fast food and then down it with cigarettes and beer. Then, when they are feeling completely hungover, they reinvigorate themselves with some strong coffee. And so it goes, coffee, cigarette, beer, coffee, cigarette, beer, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, like a dehydrated lullaby, until the end of time.

This may account for the cheerful disposition of the militsiya, who still wear the outrageously oversized hats they donned for the filming of Spies Like Us in 1985. And that's the thing about Moscow: it feels like it's still 1985 here. Of course, the Moscow of 2011 is a long way from the one of 1985. But there is something about the cigarette smoke hanging in the air, the haircuts that are frozen in time, the glazed over look in the eyes, that seems a bit off.

Today we saw Lenin. The descent into his eerie crypt was one I will never forget, nor the shriveled fingers of a man who died the year my 87-year-old grandmother was born. His mausoleum has the ambiance of a deserted aquarium, and the biggest fish lies in state, his round, white head illuminated from above, at last at peace. I still don't know how to digest the October Revolution. I cannot deny its significance and yet I cannot tell you exactly why it is significant. It remains indigestible.

History is always at play in Russian-Estonian relations. In recent years the word battles have often descended into the absurd. Surely, the Estonians can afford the Russians the opportunity to grill sausages and drink beer every May 9, if the Russians can look the other way when the Estonians do the same thing on June 23. But a comment by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev shot to the top of the Estonian news media this week for his lamentation at the "underdeveloped political foundations" of the country given its take on the events 70 years past.

I actually don't think Medvedev really knows what he's talking about. But I also don't think that many in Russia care one way or the other. This is a vast country, and Moscow is its locus, where Kyrgyz mix with Armenians to drink and smoke and take in a Duran Duran concert and then maybe have a coffee. And in the shadows of extraterrestrial Soviet monuments, the street vendors are selling Spongebob Squarepants balloons. We pass them on the way to another cafe.

missed america

I've been reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson's memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa. I curl up with the book late at night after the children have gone to sleep and muddle through a few humorous pages before I hear the sound of the book hitting the floor and I drift off into slumber.

Bryson and I have some things in common. He was a kid from Iowa who by some twist of fate wound up as a writer in the UK. And I am just a kid from New York who by some other, more hilarious twist of fate, wound up as a writer in Estonia.

Anyway, I like Bryson and, moreover, I envy him. I envy him because the America he writes about is one I never knew, and yet long for, as does every American a little bit in his or her heart. The 1950s have been skewered for their open racism and intractable gender roles, their dismissal of everything ancient or spiritual for better living through chemistry. But they still sound good after all these years.

Case in point: Chuck Berry. I listen to his songs as I zoom around Viljandi, which might as well be some place in Iowa. "Maybellene" "School Days" "Brown-eyed Handsome Man" "Thirty Days" "Carol" "Memphis, Tennessee" There is so much energy in the music, energy and hopefulness. You get the sense of what it must have felt like when people got their first cars and were suddenly free to go wherever they wanted to, on their own, at any time, if they just had a few nickles and dimes for gas. Over the mountains. Across the desert. Just like that. Free.

Sometimes I imagine myself following suit, hopping in a car and setting out to explore the roads of America, spending the nights in seedy motels, breakfasts at local greasy spoon diners. Intriguing stories, colorful people, bacon at every meal, and all the time the revving guitar licks of Chuck Berry propelling me forward. But then I think that most of America probably doesn't look much like that anymore. These days it's probably "big box" chain stores from sea to shining sea. Starbucks, Lowe's, Home Depot, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Walmart.

I recently told a colleague from Alabama of my desire to see the South, to sip mint juleps on mossy plantations, to encounter the mystical land where the trees sink into the earth at night and the natives speak some twangy, Huckleberry Finn-worthy dialect, to boldly go where it's not unusual to find a reptile in your sink in the morning. He looked at me like I was crazy. "We've got all the same shit you have up North," he said. "Starbucks, Lowe's, Chick-fil-A. Except there's even more of it down South." I don't want to believe him, but I fear he may be right.

Best not to take the family along for the ride then. My eldest daughter doesn't care too much for Chuck Berry anyway. She doesn't understand why he talks that "weird way," and why he has such a "strange name." I thought this was a function of her ambiguous national outlook, but then again, when was the last time you met a seven-year-old boy named Chuck? While the last rays of the "golden days" of America still warm my shoulders, to my daughter they are more like the redshift of some distant, long-dead stars as measured through a high-powered telescope. "How weird." "How strange." "What does it all mean?" Get out those calculators!

I have a hard time comparing my ideas of America to the Estonians' ideas of their own country. Sometimes I get the feeling that I am living through the country's "golden days" though -- a time when everyone suddenly had their own car and the freedom to drive it wherever he or she wanted, to Narva or Pärnu, or even straight to Portugal, stopping at little mom-and-pop cafes along the way.

The current adult generation of Estonia was born into cramped Khruschevka flats and leaning, wooden 19th century ghettos, and now many occupy grand, well-furnished apartments, drive respectable automobiles, spend their summers at their personal cottages, and take off in winter to sunbathe alongside the Britons and Germans and other Western European purveyors of horrible haircuts in places like the Canary Islands, Turkey, and Thailand.

The country has experienced a "big bang" of improved living standards and increased access to material goods. Some of them are still using wood furnaces and dry toilets, but now they have mobile phones and big screen TVs -- whatever they are good for. Of course, the elderly have been screwed in the scramble, but, lest we forget, the elderly were the poorest group in 1950s America too, afforded a spare bedroom in the homes of their more successful children.

I wonder if Estonians of the future will look back on these years as an era of "happy days," but I doubt it. Despite the efforts of the best song smiths, they are still cranking out crappy europop, and there is no Chuck Berry-like savior in sight. And the country seems to carry on a perpetual doomsday mentality, where the silver lining of every cloud is overlooked to focus on its dark and stormy center. "Don't worry, it will get worse." This is the country's graveyard mindset. While their Nordic neighbors profess to be the happiest on earth, the Estonians often proclaim their deep dissatisfaction with each other and everything else.

Even now, as warm summer sets in, people are openly friendly to one another, but probably think the country is heading in the wrong direction. Given that most of them have never had it so good, I wonder why that is.

igal tibil on auto tänapäeval

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

The setting: a parking lot in Tartu, Estonia's second largest city. The parking lot is situated on top of a hill. To the rear stands the university library, across the street is the Vanemuine theater. Both buildings are culturally significant, both are sprawling masses of gray. Neither has any discernible shape. The day is gray and misty. The parking lot accommodates the maximum number of vehicles.

The characters: My daughters, two little girls high on gelato, running around the (mostly) dry fountain in front of the library. A friend named Kristjan, a wiry Estonian man in his mid thirties with deeply set, Finno-Ugric features, and deeply set hatred of neoconservatism. He is dressed in black and seems preoccupied with the state of the world. Me, a Roberto-Benigni-meets-Luciano-Pavarotti colossus of awkward gestures and jerky body movements, dressed in a gray coat and flat cap. I am in dire need of a shave and haircut. Finally, a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, dressed in a white coat with jeans. She is tiny, and perhaps stands as tall as my elbows. The woman has long blond hair that may or may not be genuine, and one of those eyelash jobs that consist of generous helpings of mascara and tiny false pearls.

The young woman approaches me. Kas te saate mind aidata? she asks. Mul on aku tühi. Kas teil krokadiilid on?

My brain is a bit slower than usual, perhaps because I have just consumed a giant glass of melted ice cream. Still, it quickly processes that she needs my help and that her car battery is empty. The last bit, about the crocodile, throws me off. In the distance, my children are running wild in front of a sculpture of the revered semiotician Juri Lotman's profile. Kristjan is watching them with an unsatisfied look on his face that tells me that he is now thinking intensely about global inequality.

I mumble something like, "I'm sorry," to the young woman and walk away. She frets, biting her lip. She looks around for another person to save her. As I walk toward my car, I think about crocodiles. I think about their big jaws. A certain poem by Lewis Carroll comes to mind. I think about how if the woman's car battery is empty, someone will have to jump the car. To do that, would require jumper cables. Then something clicks in my tired, gelato-weary brain. The jumper cables resemble the jaws of a crocodile. Perhaps the animal-obsessed Estonians refer to jumper cables as crocodiles?

I return to the woman a moment later with the cables in hand. I have been saved so many times by other travelers in situations just like this. Now it is my opportunity to return the favor to the universe. The woman shows no sense of relief, and she has no reason to, as my oldest daughter is now tugging at my sleeve. "I need to go pee pee," she says. "I'll be right back," I tell the woman.

Twenty minutes later, my daughter and I emerge from the library, during which time she locked herself in the bathroom, and I stood outside the woman's toilet, unable to rescue her until an inquisitive librarian inquired as to why the strange man was hanging around the woman's toilet and promptly entered and liberated the frustrated child. In the parking lot, the woman is still standing in front of her car. My wife Epp has now appeared, following an afternoon meeting with some witches and conjurers on the edge of town. After some light bickering about what took so long, laughter ensues when I explain the toilet situation. Now, to rescue the woman.

"Every chick has a car these days," Kristjan remarks to me with a grin before I pull my car in front of the young woman's tiny white car. Igal tibil on auto tänapäeval.

I have the cables in hand. I am ready to jump the young woman. But there's one problem. Does red go on the positive or negative? And which to connect first? I am almost 98 percent sure that red goes on positive and black on negative, and positive is connected first. I have done this so many times before. Why can't I remember now? I think about calling my father, but decide against it, as not to embarrass myself again. Epp calls our business partner Tiina who knows everything about cars, as her father is a mechanic, but she does not pick up. Just then, two men and a woman pass by I inquire about the colors and they are eager to help. The men speak Estonian. One is dressed in a red jacket. He has the kind of sturdy figure and round face that make him immediately recognizable as an Estonian. To me, with his short red hair and big cheeks, he looks a bit like the outgoing Virginia Senator Jim Webb, but nobody here knows who that is. His friend is darker and lankier. The woman is dolled up. Long black boots, black dress, blond (from the bottle), miserable makeup job.

While the he helps consult the young woman on letting the battery charge, the dolled up woman complains loudly to the Jim Webb lookalike. He answers her back in Russian. This throws me off completely. Are these guys Estonian Russians? It's possible. Tartu has a sizable Estonian Russian minority (about 16 percent of the population considers itself Russian), but most are well integrated into society and the "us and them" vibe that still pervades to some extent in Tallinn is absent here.

When the young woman's car successfully starts up, I thank the Jim Webb lookalike in Russian. "Sbasibo," I say, awaiting a quick, happy retort in Russian. Instead he looks incredibly confused, as if he doesn't understand the word, or as if I have even insulted him. I say Aitäh instead. Then the two men wave to me and rejoin the Estonian Russian woman, who is still pouting beside the car. I imagine she might have been jealous of the young woman in trouble.

On the way out of Tartu, we try to decipher the ethnopolitics of the parking lot situation. Kristjan hypothesizes that the Jim Webb lookalike was an Estonian guy with an Estonian Russian girlfriend. "Estonian women prefer to partner with foreign guys like you," he says. "That means Estonian guys have to partner with Estonian Russian girls. But then who do the poor Estonian Russian guys hook up with?"

"I don't know," I answer. "Uzbeks?"

"Chinese!" Epp proposes and laughs from the backseat. She might be serious.

We drive on. "Can you believe the Estonians reelected Andrus Ansip?" Kristjan says, glaring out the window at some unfinished suburban housing developments. "This is very Estonian. We have an economic collapse, and we'd rather blame ourselves than a politician. High unemployment? It's my fault. It's all my fault." He taps himself on the shoulder.

"There is a photo of Ansip in that sports club over there," I gesture at a building on the edge of the city. "It's on the wall. It's of him, Siim Kallas, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen. I guess they took a sauna together."

The part of the city we are driving through now is an ugly landscape of gray buildings, power lines, mud, and mist.

"Sure," says Kristjan. "I bet they had a nice little neocon summit in there."

In the backseat, the children are now fast asleep, their sugar highs finally crashed as we head back to Viljandi.

the missionary position

I was reading some of the colorful comments regarding an interview I did with ERR last month. While I decided not to join in the fray, I did come away from it feeling a little more bitter and less satisfied with life.

I actually have little reason to feel bitter today. The weather is gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky. The huge mounds of dirty snow are melting. At lunchtime I went for a walk around Viljandi, took in the lake, the winding old streets, the proud renovated homes that gleam in the sun and the shanty-like dumps that still stand beside them looking as if the Germans only retreated yesterday.

Viljandi. I took a deep breath and tried to accept that winter is really over. In my heart I don't believe it is, but the weather and the calendar say it is so. I had resigned myself to an endless winter. Antarctica until the end. It's been months since I succumbed to the cold. And now it's suddenly mild? And I am just supposed to forget about all that? But I must adjust. I have no control over the weather just as I have no control over the condition of Viljandi's houses or sidewalks. Estonia just is what it is and I strongly suspect that I will be unable to change it in any meaningful way. How could I? I am just one man, and certainly not gifted with the self confidence or spiritual fortitude to join the ranks of Dr. King or Gandhi, both of whom were assassinated, I'll add. No, just a puny individual. Ok, I may be a little taller than most, but so what?

Just as I succumbed to winter and now spring, I have come to accept that I am not going to wean the drunks at the A ja O off the bottle. I am not going to stop your cousin from blowing his salary at this country's myriad casinos. I am not going to make your waitress more perky, or neuter your neighbor's cat so that your property doesn't smell like a club urinal during Spring Break. I am not going to "integrate" the Estonian Russians or tame the vehicular insanity of the Tallinn - Tartu highway. I can barely get my children to put their jackets on. How am I supposed to change Estonia? I can't even vote.

Yet, the impression I get from reading ERR comments, and the reason I stopped reading them on Baltic Business News a while back, is that it seems so many foreigners think that they can somehow change Estonia. That it would be easy, if only everyone listened to them. Not only that, it seems as if they are frustrated that Estonians haven't listened more attentively to their exceptional and brilliant ideas. It is my observation that when so-called Westerners come to Estonia they often fall into the trap of assuming this "missionary position." The perspective includes a) the belief that one has come from a superior culture and b) the same person is therefore entitled to lecture the locals about the "proper" ways to do things to make the inferior culture more like the superior one.

I admit, I have done the very same thing here on this blog, over and over again. It's most likely unavoidable and probably not just a symptom of the imaginary West-East or American-European divide. Estonians who find themselves confronted by the peculiarities of any given Western country also tend to gripe. "What, no free Internet?" "Paper checks? You guys are still using these old-fashioned things?" "You still have a landline?" "This bread is terrible." "What do you mean they don't sell astelpaju siirup at the corner store?"

Still, I doubt that any of these Estonians actually thought that by writing a well-intended blog post or commenting anonymously on an online news story they could change things. It's one thing to opine about paper checks. It's another thing to expect their immediate elimination based on the sharing of one's superior wisdom. There are only 1.3 million Estonians, remember, and they live in 132nd largest country in the world, right between the Dominican Republic and Denmark. Most are aware that changing the financial idiosyncrasies of the United States is beyond their means.

Given this sense of resignation, the sight of Western missionaries nudging into the Estonian melee to point out how things really should be becomes more and more hilarious. "Hey, you, disenfranchised Estonian Russian kid, learn Estonian already. And you, grumpy waitress, be more friendly. Haven't you heard, the customer is always right?" I may have been that very person, I probably still am, but if I am, I don't really expect Estonians to take an American like me very seriously anymore.

Maybe it's because I am an American. Fifty years ago I might have had the cultural firepower to go around bragging about my shining city on a hill, where the plumbers live right next to the doctors, but these days the doctors live beyond tall fences, down long driveways, far removed from the plumbers, who may or may not be citizens. And don't ask me. Ask everyone else. Sixty-three percent of Americans think our country is heading in the wrong direction. It is the majority opinion.

Sadly, rather than just bringing our bright ideas to Estonia, it appears us men of the West have also brought our bitterness and dissatisfaction. And if you read most online comments in Estonia, it's more of the same. Fingerpointing and vitriol. It makes you wonder if we really are so different.

leib, sai, sepik

Kärt, my daughter's classmate, came over to visit the other day. Kärt was hungry and wanted something to eat. The following conversation ensued:

Kärt: Kas teil leiba on? (Do you have any black bread?)

Me: Ei ole. (No.)

Kärt: Aga kas teil saia on? (But do you have any white bread?)

Me: Kahjuks meil ei ole. (Unfortunately we don't.)

Kärt: Aga kas teil siis sepikut on? (But do you have any brown bread?)

Me: Ei. (No.)

Kärt: Aga mida te siis sööte? (Then what do you eat?)

The next day I went to the A ja O and bought a big loaf of sai (white bread) and another of what I thought was sepik (brown bread). When I got home, though, I noticed that my sepik was actually a new invention called saib, which marries sai (white bread) with leib (black bread). I'm still not sure what to do with the mysterious saib.

I am even more at a loss when to comes to describing Estonia's varieties of what we English speakers simply refer to as "bread." Leib, for instance, is not always black. And sepik is often more beige than brown. The words refer as much to consistency as to color. But there is no catch-all word for "bread." Estonians are particular when it comes to their leib, sai, sepik, and saib.

liibüa, liibüa

Liibüa, liibüa. There is something about the Estonian name for this North African country that reminds one of George Herbert Walker Bush vomiting on his Japanese counterpart.

It starts in the front of the mouth with an average-sounding "leeb" and then sort of sloppily falls off the lips at the end with a disgusted "boowaa." Leebboowaa. Leebewah. Leebooa.

How did they come up with such an unsavory rendering as Liibüa? If they cared to, they could easily have copied the British. Libya? How about Liibiia? Or Liibia? Or even Libja? But no. We have a country name that sounds like president throwing up.

Now it seems we all are suffering from an incurable case of Liibüa. NATO has assumed command of the no-fly zone, also known as the "mission to oust Gaddafi, or maybe not, let's just bomb his military and see what happens." I follow the news, quietly siding with the rebels. It's not that I really believe that they will pull off a liberal democracy in the end, it's just that Gaddafi is such a flamboyant dictator that any breathing human with a smidgen of humanism in his veins just can't resist the sight of him going down.

What comes next is just sand: limitless possibilities, more of the same. Who can really control or predict anything? And so we come to the point where seven Estonians were abducted in Liibanon last week, one of whom is the son of someone I know. They were cycling near the Bekaa Valley, having just crossed over from Süüria, at a time when the entire region is convulsing with political demonstrations, seething with unrest.

At first, I couldn't help but think they had fallen prey to their own innate Estonian naivety. Long freed from the bondage of a Soviet visa regime, nationals of this country have traveled to the most unlikely of places to take advantage of the liberties their parents longed to enjoy. Just as Estonians drive like they're in a video game, they travel like 19th century explorers. It's not uncommon to meet slight young Estonian girls who disappeared into the hills of Kashmir and not only emerged unscathed but with caravans of sherpas cheering them on and posing for their digital cameras in moments of global-a-go-go rapture.

The world is made up of the same elements. Rock, sand, stones, trees, bushes, wind, water, sun, and, of course, people. And, no matter where you go, people generally behave the same. The bizarre love triangles, the lust for material goods, the religious pontificating, the uneasy feeling that mankind has been cheated. You'll find it everywhere. As my continent-hopping wife once pointed out: "Do you really feel safe in lower Manhattan?" Or on the Tube in London? Or in coastal Japan? Point taken.

Robbed of all metrics with which to measure the distance between myself and the Libyans rebelling in Liibüa or the Estonians kidnapped in Liibanon, I sit and read the news, listening to The Jam sing "All Around the World," waiting. That's all most of us can do.

järgmine riigikogu

Estonian parliamentary elections were held yesterday. The results were slightly less than the overwhelming triumph some had predicted for the Reform Party, but Reform won the elections just the same.

The party of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip gained just two seats in the 101-member body compared to its preelection share. Reform now has a mandate for 33 seats, and will continue its role as the largest party in parliament.

Despite the victory of euro adoption and the country's return to growth following the economic crash, Reform's performance was only slightly better than in 2007. This year it earned 28.6 percent of the vote. Four years ago, it earned 27.8 percent of the vote.

Edgar Savisaar's Centre Party remains the second largest party in parliament. They secured 26 seats for the next four years, a loss of three seats. Centre did well in Tallinn, where Savisaar is mayor, and in Ida Virumaa county, where the party received more than half of all votes cast. Despite Savisaar's preelection scandal, he was also the greatest vote getter of the election. This is a bit of a dilemma for Centre going forward: on one hand, they have a leader who most other parties refuse to include in a coalition government, on the other hand, he's their most popular figure.

The Mart Laar-led conservatives Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit (translated as the Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica but referred to here as IRL), gained four seats in the Estonian parliament. They now hold 23 seats. This was a good showing for them, as it shows IRL has managed to hang onto voters while being in a coalition with a more popular party with a similar political outlook. To me, this refutes the idea that Estonia is headed to a two-party political system.

The biggest victors of the night were Sven Mikser's Social Democrats, who won 19 seats, nine more than they held from 2007 to 2011. Mikser won the vote in Järva and Viljandi counties, where he topped the list, but the party did well elsewhere. For instance, SDE won 26 percent of the vote in the rural, southern counties of Võru, Valga, and Põlva. They also nearly tied Reform for second place in Ida Viru county, where both captured slightly over 15 percent of the vote.

I saw an interesting article where incoming SDE MP Jevgeni Ossinovski claimed that SDE was the "only political party that represented Estonian Russians' interest." That used to be Savisaar's line. Maybe some Estonian Russians no longer believe it.

Of course, the Estonian Green Party failed to pass the 5 percent threshold to secure seats in parliament. They eked out 3.8 percent of the vote. The Greens were plagued by leadership conflicts over the past few years, and their effort to go after basically every voter doomed them as it put them into competition with everybody. It's one thing to try and steal some votes from SDE or Centre. It's another to try and steal votes from Reform and IRL and SDE and Centre.

The People's Union (Rahvaliit) also didn't make it into parliament, but they were largely moribund after imploding in recent years. Former party leaders Karel Rüütli and Jaak Allik will be in the next parliament though, this time as representatives of SDE.

from student to teacher

I taught a class of Estonian kids today, all aged 11 and 12. The bulk of the lesson focused on presidents and politics.

I started with American presidents. They knew Barack Obama, and were aware there was a president before him, George W. Bush, who was "stupid." They unanimously used this one English word to describe him.

But who came before Bush? No one knew the answer. When I finally named Bill Clinton, a few went, "Oh yeah," but the name meant essentially nothing to them. They were alarmed when I told them that the president before Clinton was also named Bush.

"You mean George W. Bush's father was also president?" they said, astonished. When I said that he served only one term, someone asked, "But what happened to him? Was he shot?" "No," I said. "People blamed him for the poor economy." And so we learned the words "economy" and "economics."

The part of the lesson that covered Estonian presidents was just as fascinating. Everyone knows their president, Toomes Hendrik Ilves. I taught them that Ilves means "lynx" in English, and a few students claimed to have seen wild lynxes in the forests. But who was president before Ilves? No one knew. Finally, I put an 'R' on the board.

"Arnold Rüütel!" someone shouted. Then I translated Rüütel -- "knight." "What's a ka-nig-et?" a girl asked. "No, it's written that way, but it's pronounced differently." "Knight?" a boy said. "You mean like Knight Rider?" "No, you fool, that's Night Rider," another boy interrupted. "No, it's Knight Rider!" And so they went back and forth arguing until I had to weigh in and say it really was Knight Rider, because David Hasselhoff was like a knight riding around in his car.

The president before Rüütel was Lennart Meri, whose family name conveniently translates as "sea." And before Meri? "P Ä T S!" they shouted. All the kids knew of Konstantin Päts, the first leader of Estonia to hold the title of president. And one even knew what his surname means in English: "loaf."

"But who was before Päts?" one student wondered aloud. "Before there were presidents, there were state elders," I said. "The one before Päts was named Tõnisson."

"Tõnisson?" a boy said. "You mean that kid in Kevade was president*?" "No," I answered. "It was a different Tõnisson who served before Päts."

"But who was in charge of Estonia between Päts and Meri?" I asked. After all, it was 52 years between Päts departure and Meri's election. Not one of them knew the names of any Soviet Estonian officials, the most significant of whom was arguably Johannes Käbin, first secretary of the Estonian Communist Party from 1950 to 1978, a good chunk of the Soviet era.

I wondered how many Estonian students have ever heard his name. Or Vaino Väljas' name, or Karl Vaino's or Nikolai Karotamm's. It's as if they never existed. But why should a group of kids who can't remember Bill Clinton care about some dusty old Soviet official? What bearing does it have on their lives? Probably none at all. I thought about this lesson as I walked home from class. Maybe next time, I'll teach them something more important.

* Kevade is a book by Oskar Luts about Estonian students attending a rural school at the turn of the 20th century that was made into a popular movie, now considered a classic, in 1969.

ansip rasmussen vanhanen

The 2011 Estonian parliamentary elections are days away. The Reform Party, led by Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, is poised to win. But rather than wondering how many seats Mr. Ansip will secure for his party in the next parliament, I am wondering how long Ansip intends to stay on Toompea once the new government is sworn in, sometime next month.

Ansip came to power following the demise of Juhan Parts' government in 2005. While the Parts era from 2003 to 2005 was marked by tit-for-tat ministerial sackings and gratuitous genuflecture to promises and values, the Ansip era has been dominated by the former Tartu mayor's teflon persona and a stubbornness that puts him at the George W. Bush level of resolve. This was the man who said famously that he would resign if Estonia didn't adopt the euro in 2007. His estimate was, in the end, four years off, but Ansip's been in power for almost six years, so, who's counting anymore?

Opponents tried to pin Estonia's avalanche of an economic collapse on the Reform Party, who still believe the country will soon be one of the five richest in Europe. Yet, unlike leaders in other liberal-led countries beset by post-2008 catastrophe (Ahem. Iceland), Reform managed to stay in power until economic growth was restored. Officially, they blame the depression of the past few years on others but take personal credit for the restored growth. There is no arguing. When it comes to politics, these guys are professionals.

Ansip's lengthy tenure is paralleled by only one former Estonian statesman, the ill-destined Konstantin Päts, who led a military-backed coup to seize power in 1934 and stayed as the unchallenged father of the nation until he was deported by the Soviets in 1940. He later died in a psychiatric hospital in 1956, claiming to the last of his days to be the president of Estonia. And did you know that Ansip was born in 1956, after Päts died? Do you believe in reincarnation?

But Ansip isn't really a Päts-like demagogue. He has more in common with his cousins in the Baltic. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been cited as one role model. Former Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is another. Rasmussen spent nearly eight years as leader of Denmark before moving on to NATO secretary general. Vanhanen's exit in 2010 was less glorious, but he still spent seven years as PM. In both cases, younger party leaders were selected by the party to take over the reins of government.

Who really will be the next prime minister of Estonia, once Ansip finds some more enchanting career opportunity? Will it be some other Reform minister (Justice Minister Rein Lang? Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi?) or will some Reform Party star rise to the position in a special election held sometime in coming months or years?

In Denmark, they voted for Anders Fogh Rasmussen and wound up with Lars Løkke Rasmussen. In Finland, they voted for Matti Vanhanen an wound up with Mari Kiviniemi. Will those Estonians who vote later this week choose Ansip but really wind up with Keit Pentus in the end? If I could vote in Estonia, I would be asking myself that question.

kirjakoer

These have been days of contrasts. The sun and the cold. I welcome the sun. It has lifted us all up. People seem happier, friendlier. In November, the clerks at the A ja O wouldn't look you in the eye. Now they seem like they actually mean it when they say, Head aega! Strangers waved to us when our car zoomed past them on a country road on Sunday. Can you believe it? And they didn't even want anything.

Each day is longer than the one before by two or three minutes. It used to be dark when I brought my daughter to school. Now it's light out before we leave the house. It's been sunny for days now. I hope it never ends. Light is important. It soothes me, and I need a good soothing, especially since both taps in our office are frozen, as is the toilet, and I've been working from home.

I returned to the office on Monday to discover the heating system had broken. Ice and snow had accumulated around the windows. The Estonians keep track of the weather. They check the reports everyday. But I didn't know what the temperature was on Monday. Could have been -20 C or -30 C. All I know is that I could see my breath in the office and I didn't bother taking off my coat.

The tap in the bathroom was still working then. I managed to fill up a pot and put a bag of frozen gnocchi to boil for an early lunch. I don't know if they've kidnapped some Italians, but they sell fresh gnocchi at the local Rimi supermarket. Really delicious. I stood over the stove as the huge puffs of steam lifted off the boiling water, trying to stay warm. I kept thinking about Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica in 1915; how they got stuck in the ice flows, eating penguin meat and drinking boiled penguin blubber. I imagined I would have no problems drinking the stuff on that day.

That's an odd side effect of the cold. It makes me hungry. After the gnocchi boiled, I fried them in a pan with olive oil, slicing the remnants of a hunk of Synnove parmesan cheese to sizzle among the dumplings. In summer, I would never eat such a heavy meal in the middle of the day. That day I ate the whole bag of gnocchi and sliced parmesan and then ran to the shop downstairs to buy some chocolate.

It was Valentine's Day. In the shop I also picked up the ingredients for an Estonian dessert called kirjukoer, "spotted dog," which actually has nothing to do with dogs. Our recipe called for cookies and cocoa powder and marmelaadid. Cookies? Check. Cocoa powder? check. But marmalade? I later searched three stores looking for marmalade jam, but couldn't find it anywhere. I found apricot jam and cherry jam, but no marmalade. I began to lapse into the foreigner's delirium. How come they don't sell marmalade in this goddamn country?

When I was a child, I watched a program about a British bear named Paddington who loved to eat marmalade sandwiches. That's how I learned about marmalade. But Viljandi is a long way from London. Haven't seen any bears here either. Exasperated, I called my wife to inform her that there was no marmalade to be had in Viljandi. Then she told me that marmelaadid are actually little jelly candies, which I easily managed to locate about 30 seconds later.

To make kirjukoer, you mix melted butter with sugar and cocoa powder and then add in the crumbled cookies and marmelaadid. Roll it up in wax paper and let it set in the refridgerator. When it's ready, long and brown, it does resemble something doglike, but it's still is worth the effort, especially on cold days when the sweeter and more filling the food is, the better.

On Sunday, I went cross-country skiing for the first time. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but there was nobody else on the course. At first I was gliding along with ease, but then, when I had to get up a small knoll, I realized how out of shape I was. I know nothing of cross-country skiing. My old downhill skiing tricks were useless. I tried to wedge coming down a hill and came down hard on my hip. Good thing no one was around to see my embarrassing spill. Only later I was informed that it is against the law to ski when it is that cold out. But I know nothing of Estonian laws or sports. I simply know nothing.

While I was lying on my ass on the course, I considered taking a teacher, but only for a moment. Then I realized that I actually have some prejudices against the Estonians, particularly against the males, who are the inverse of me. While I am glad to admit that I know nothing, they are keen to pretend that they actually know everything. I could imagine the look on my teacher's face. "You mean you're 31 years old? And you still don't know how to cross country ski?" Tsk tsk. But I felt great when I got home, and I've decided to go again. Energy begets energy.

My lack of knowledge of marmelaadid and cross-country skiing is amusing when considering I have now written two books about Estonia. A lot of people enjoyed the first one, but others complained that I wrote too much about my personal life. They wanted some kind of anthropological exploration of this intriguing land. "The natives are known to frequent warm dwellings and whip themselves with branches to repent for their sins. In summer they don colorful striped skirts and worship a deity they called leelo with songs." I got the first review of the second book from a reader today. He's already read it and it's not even in bookstores yet.

"How did you read it already?" I asked. "I don't even have a copy."

"I got it as an e-book," he answered proudly.

"Is it as good as the first?" a woman nearby asked him.

"It was a little different compared to the first one," he said. "But the ending was very moving."

An e-book? Indeed, the book is available online. You can get it digital form in Estonian from Apollo, Rahva Raamat, Krisostomus, and Digikogu.

The English links are here: Apollo, Rahva Raamat, Digikogu.

the vanity of giustino

In the beginning, you just start writing. You write, and you write anything because anything is better than a blank page with its cursor blinking back at you. I started writing the second part of Minu Eesti, My Estonia, that same way — whatever came out, came out, and a lot of it stayed. Only later did the story begin to congeal and I could see it for what it was. But that was later, not at the beginning.

I wrote what became the prologue at Vello Vikerkaar's place in Nõmme. I stayed there for a day or two in December 2009, taking advantage of his hospitality and couch and free books and magazines. His wife Liina made me pasta and told me of how she had once hitchhiked to India. Terrific people, the Vikerkaars. This stay coincided with a photoshoot for Anne ja Stiil. It was just as one would imagine it, with makeup artists and stylists and lighting specialists.

Later I strolled over to the National Library on Tõnismägi to man the Petrone Print table at the Christmas Fair and sign autographs and listen to a recording of a cool jazz version of "Põgene, Vaba Laps" that was being played on repeat at a nearby booth. And while I was sitting there, listening to "Põgene, Vaba Laps," wiping the makeup from my face, I had to ask myself the question, how the hell did this kid from Long Island wind up writing a monthly column for a goddamn Estonian women's magazine?

It's not like it's a bad gig. I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out whatever it is that Estonian women want to read about. But, let's just say that when I was eight years old, lying on the grass outside my home, staring up at the stars, longing, dreaming, yearning, I never thought about being a columnist for an Estonian women's magazine. Not once. So it had to be fate, right? It was my fate to be their columnist. I tried the fate argument with Vikerkaar, but the cantankerous Canadian cuss wouldn't have any of it. He's one of these literary frontiersmen who still refuses to admit that someone else is driving the bus.

And that set the framework of My Estonia 2. It's a debate. Fate versus free will. The dreaming boy in the grass versus the columnist for an Estonian women's magazine. Which side are you on? Since it takes place in 2003, it's a story about a 24-year-old father to be trying to adjust to the realities of his new life in a foreign land and wondering if they are what he longed for. It's why the Estonian title of the book is "What do you want?" -- Mida sa tahad?

The reason there even is a second book is because I never finished the first one. I was hundreds of pages in, closing in on my deadline, and the publishing house hierarchy was asking, "When will it be finished?" And I realized that I was only half done, and if I had kept on like that, I would have wound up writing a 700-page opus about an 18-month period of my life. So there had to be a part two, if only to finish what I started with part one.

This begs the question: Will I write a 350-page book about every year of my life from now on? The answer is no. This is a two-time affair.

***

While I was writing the first part and, especially after I finished it and became alienated from it, as it seems a lot of writers become from their work, I developed a reading habit. I had always read before, but not like this. I was just devouring books. As soon as I finished one, I needed another, and so on. Some stayed with me, others went right through me, leaving little residue.

One that stayed with me was Epp's book, Kas süda on ümmargune? It's translated in English as Around the Heart in Eleven Years, but between us it's just known as "The Heart Book." The reason this book stayed with me is because I read it at least half a dozen times, as I helped to edit the English version. Epp plays with time and memory, the storyline leaps back and forth through the years, and it creates a sense of disorientation, of timelessness. I enjoyed this lack of linearity and wanted to apply some of it to the second part of My Estonia.

Another book that stayed with me is Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. After I wrote the first part, I developed a hunger for ex-pat fiction. So I looked up the regulars. Tried a little Hemingway. Delved into Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. But bull fights and the riviera aren't exactly for me, if you know what I mean. Miller was far closer to my reality, and therefore easier to appreciate. He's known mostly for the obscenity trials. This was the man who carpet bombed his audience in the 1930s with the "c word," cunt that is, but I've never been roped in by a narrator like that. He was foul, at times, but he was also honest. And when you are frequenting the red light district of Paris, you have to be honest.

Plus, it was Miller who introduced me to the concept of the "fictional autobiography." And that is what this book is. It's nearly all true, and yet, it's a work of fiction. It must be, and you'll see why. But I bet that most autobiographies contain an element of fiction. People tend to not remember the same things the same way.

There were other books that served as guideposts: Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, Tristessa by Jack Kerouac, The Father of All Things by Tom Bissell. Even Goldfinger by Ian Fleming. I am sure that if you squint at My Estonia 2, you can find traces of all these authors. I listened to Django Reinhardt while I wrote most of it, and revisited Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and The Virgin Spring. So I had something in mind, but what was it?

***

There are many themes in this new book. Fate is certainly one of them, but the other is alienation, both from the country of origin and the new country. The main character returns to Estonia and tries to fit in there, even though he is deeply foreign, can't speak the language, doesn't get the humor, and can't even remember his new relatives' names. There is also the theme of alienation between people within Estonia, and how the narrator reacts to this different emotional climate.

Another theme is Europe and, especially, Estonia's new place in the pantheon of northern European countries as this limbo land – this gritty kid from the streets, to steal a line from Fletch — that has exited the post-Soviet orbit only to wake up to Scandinavian-style consumer culture. That's why a great number of the settings in this book are banks and office buildings and shopping centers. Those are the places where Estonians spend a lot of their time! When people hear "My Estonia" they think you are going to write a book about some old forest brother sitting in the woods somewhere reading Kalevipoeg. But Selver is just as Estonian as a song festival, isn't it?

There are other ways to look at this book, as a coming of age story, a clash of idealism versus reality, old versus new, past versus the future, America versus Estonia. Oh well. How much can you really write about a book that you wrote? That defeats the point of the book, doesn't it? I finished this book at our kitchen table on the day after Christmas, 2010, slightly over a year after I started it in Vello's living room. It's not easy to write a book when you have a full-time job and a family to look after. But I did it, and for that simple reason, I am satisfied. I hope readers are too. And since this book is due in stores on or around February 24th, it is dedicated to the Estonian people.

Elagu Eesti!

talv on hea

The morning after we got back I went to unearth the car. It was like an archaelogical dig or one of those drilling endeavors in the Arctic. "Judging by these ice cores, an asteroid hit Earth 65 million years ago."

The vehicle was buried under a good foot or more of snow. Because there had been a thaw while we were gone, a layer of ice had formed in between the layers of snow. It took me two hours to get the car clean using a shovel and a brush.

I borrowed the shovel from my neighbor. When he came out, lighting a cigarette, blue circles beneath his eyes, I inquired as to why all the snow in the parking lot had been pushed behind my car.

"You were gone for a long time," he grunted, smoking. "We thought you had emigrated or something." Then he added, "The weather has been wild this winter." Actually, he used the word metsik which translated in my jet-lagged brain to "foresty" as mets means "forest." "The weather has been foresty this winter," he seemed to say.

Then I saw his domestic partner/girlfriend/wife/just friend (who knows in this country) and wished her a very big and boisterous "tere hommikust!" to which she replied with a very anemic "tere hommikust" and looked me in the eye for about a nanosecond. I was afraid I startled her. I felt as if I had been too forthcoming with my "tere hommikust." It occurred to me then that I was back in Estonia.

What to do?

***

When the girls got back, the first thing they did was put on the stereo, which still had a Christmas music disc in it. Estonian children's music. It had some kind of funky organ combo backing a chorus of little kids singing about snow being on the ground and birds going south -- linnud läinud lõunamaale -- and there was something so psychedelic about the recording. The organs. The reverb on the vocals. Music set in the middle of your mind. Estonian children's music is nutty. I haven't heard anything like it in the US or anywhere else. It's a big deal here. Taken very, very seriously.

I attribute this to masochism on the part of the adults. Their way of humiliating the children into obedience is to get them to sing complex, ridiculous songs, wearing silly national costumes. "Now, Krõõt, if you want a cookie, you'll have to sing radiridirallaa, pagane on valla three times and sing it like you mean it!""Joosep, if you want any Christmas presents this year, then repeat after me:

Taba-taba-taba-taba-taba-tabatinna.
Taba-taba-taba-tamm, taba-taa.
Laba-laba-laba-laba-laba-labakinnas
Üks sula, kaks sula, talv on hea.*

Now, Joosep, sing it again and stand on one foot!"

*Talv on hea translates as "winter is good." And isn't it? I was hoping for all the snow to melt, but then I remembered that when the white stuff is gone, that just means it will start raining again. Hmm, snow or rain? What will it be? Maybe snow is good in this regard. Maybe the children's song is right.

***

At night, I shared a cup of coffee with my foreign Estonian friend and commiserated. "How does it seem to you just being back?" the väliseestlane asked. "Estonia, I mean."

"It's so quiet here," I told him. "All I see from my window is the lake and woods."

"I feel it everytime," he said. "Even going from Helsinki to Tallinn. Estonia seems so sleepy."

He's one of the good ones, this foreign Estonian. The Estonians themselves don't know how to regard their exile community. There is the perception that the exiles are stuck in the past. Probably true. Then there is the perception that the exiles, and those who have returned, have a propensity for talking down to the poor Estonians who had to actually live in the USSR. Also probably true. And then there is the perception that the exiles are fanatically conservative. Not sure if they are fanatics, but I would wager that a sizeable portion of the foreign Estonian community in the United States votes for the Republican Party.

I'm personally not a Republican, as every Republican who's ever tried to recruit me into the party has started his sales pitch with a little fear and loathing. Something like, "but would you let your daughter marry an illegal Mexican?" with an arm placed around my shoulders. To which I think silently, "I'd rather she marry an illegal Mexican than a guy like you!" Usually, I just blush and 'aww shucks' myself through these moments, maneuvering away from the uninvited arm. I am conflict averse. Better on paper or on screen than in person.

"I said 'tere hommikust' to my neighbor this morning and I think I frightened her," I confessed to my foreign Estonian friend as we drank coffee. "I forgot that people are a little shy around here."

"Oh, that?" he laughed. "I gave up on that a long time ago," he said, sipping his coffee. "That's why I don't say 'tere hommikust' to anybody anymore."

europe and me

On January 1, 2011, Estonia adopted the euro as its currency. A day or two before, I had been contacted by The Observer, a UK paper, to write a quick on-the-scenes piece about the currency switch, to which I immediately agreed without asking about content, pay, et cetera. "A UK paper wants me to write for them!" I thought. "How neat!"

Fortunately, the editor wrote back and said they had found someone else to write the piece, and I say fortunately because on January 1, 2011, I was nowhere near Estonia. I did have euros in my hands though because I was in Madrid.

I am sure I could have made up a good on-the-scenes piece for The Observer. I would have thrown in an anecdote about how some coins had fallen out of my pocket at the local Alati ja Odavalt and one old Estonian lady (who had just procured a bottle of vodka) had told me that I had dropped some kopeks, even though Estonia hasn't had kopeks for almost two decades. Instead I waited in line at the Madrid airport to check in early for a flight that was overbooked.

The woman behind the desk was thin with thick, chocolate-colored hair. She looked like a middle-aged Penelope Cruz. She had begun to look at my passport when her friend approached her with something. When I peered closer, I saw it was a toy snail, plastic and blue with cartoon-like eyes. The two Spaniards laughed at the toy as I waited and waited. Then they hugged and kissed each other -- twice, once on each cheek -- and then the one with the snail left and the middle-aged Penelope Cruz returned to checking me in, as if it was normal that something like that would happen. Maybe it was normal in Spain, but not in Estonia.

Most things that happened in Madrid didn't seem to have an equivalent in Estonia. When I went to the bakery to get some lechera, I wasn't greeted by that morose "What do you want?" attitude of Estonians who rush every transaction as if it was such a hassle to take my money in return for goods and services. Instead, a line accumulated behind me as the baker, an older woman, tried to convince me to buy a loaf of bread. Of course I said yes, or rather si. In the end, I wound up buying two loaves. And the Spaniards in line behind me didn't seem agitated. They were talking to each other, perfectly happy to wait in line.

How could it be that this country has the same currency as Estonia? I thought to myself as I walked back to the hotel with two loafs of bread under my arm. How the heck did that happen?

The answer to the question of how Tallinn wound up with the same currency as Madrid is perhaps the same as the answer to the question of how this writer wound up living in Europe. The most readily available explanation has always been "a beautiful girl," but I was in Europe before I met the beautiful girl, so that doesn't explain it exactly. We forget these days, now that the eurozone is in crisis, now that the EU economies are enacting austerity policies, now that NATO is mired in Afghanistan and is suffering an identity crisis, that for the better part of the last two decades, the momentum has actually been on Europe's side.

After a nine-year "lull" -- that saw the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia disintegrate and Germany reunite -- the EU began expanding again, to Sweden and Finland in 1995, and then to Estonia and nine others in 2004. Even Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007, and I use the word "even" because I think that most Western Europeans could not have conceived of either country (or Estonia for that matter) in the EU just 10 or 15 years before.

The EU had long had its own flag but by 2002, it had its own money, money that was good from Dublin to Athens. The currency soon became stronger than the dollar, so strong that American rappers and divas were requesting to be paid in euros rather than greenbacks! From an outside perspective, the EU was close to becoming a multilingual superstate where all conflicts were worked out peacefully via football matches and song competitions.

For the first time in decades, if not centuries, Europe seemed as if it was pulling ahead of all the competition. Rather than impoverished or battle-scarred Europeans seeking better lives in America, it was now some underemployed Americans who set their sights on Europe. From Prague to Moscow, they set up bars and newspapers and restaurants. There are so many English-speaking foreigners in Estonia now that they even have their own comedy troupe!

And who could blame them for coming? To foreigners, Europeans seemed freer, healthier, more progressive, better looking. They supposedly cycled to work and took obscenely long vacations. They heated their homes with geothermal power and wind turbines. Europe was becoming what America had once been: a place tantalizingly close to some idea of perfection. And I write all of this in the past tense because, though all of these things are still mostly true, the magic has worn off in recent years. Every other news headline about Europe these days includes the word "crisis," though the ladies at the airport in Madrid didn't seemed to be too concerned about their country's finances.

The centripetal force that had once pulled young idealists and young idealistic countries into its orbit has lessened, if it still exists. Even as Estonia adopts the European currency, people question that currency's future. The idea that a shiny new Europe, crafted with laser-like accuracy by the brightest of bureaucrats, can solve all of the continent's problems, seems risable now. But what other alternatives are there, really, for Europe and me? We may have been lured by the ruse of a better tomorrow, but does it make sense to turn back when you are already halfway there?

firing king kong

Blogger Flasher T of Antyx has an excellent rundown of the latest scandal to hit Edgar Savisaar, mayor of Tallinn and leader of the Centre Party (Keskerakond), the second largest party in the Estonian parliament.

In that post (and in other media) it is strongly hinted that someone within Savisaar's own party might have tipped off the Estonian secret services to Savisaar's attempts to procure money from Russia to finance the party's campaigns in the March 2011 parliamentary elections. Flasher also insinuated that the secret services were pressured to leak to story to the press. Savisaar has denied any wrongdoing, and still looks set to lead his party in March.

That might be good for the Centre Party in the short term -- Savisaar is still their most attractive candidate and biggest vote getter -- but in the long term, it is becoming more obvious that the man needs to go. SDE's departure from the Tallinn city coalition following the scandal did not exactly cause a political earthquake -- their share of the city government was small -- but it was a symbolic move, one that will remind Savisaar of the challenge the Centre Party would have in forming a parliamentary coalition. And the Centre Party cannot rule the Estonian parliament alone. It needs partners.

The inability of Centre to form a coalition ultimately hurts its voters. If the Reform and IRL parties really represent the interests of those who have benefitted most from neoliberal/conservative economic and social policies, then Centre and SDE should represent the losers (and there are a lot of them). In order for the losers to change the current policies, the power in parliament would have to reverse. That would require a center-left coalition, yet such a coalition is impossible as long as Savisaar stays in power. At the same time, it would be hard to get enough votes to form such a coalition without Savisaar's name at the top of the list.

It's likely that no one within the Centre Party wants to tell Savisaar that he has to go. Too many people owe him for their political careers. It would be like firing King Kong. At the same time, they must know that if they ever want to form a coalition in the Estonian parliament, they'll need a new leader.

the mock outrage

Now that the "secret" contingency plans to defend the Baltic countries in the event of an attack have been "leaked" by Wikileaks and splashed across the pages of most global media outlets, a curious exchange of diplomatic doublespeak is underway.

It goes like this. Officially, NATO does not see Russia as a threat. But if the alliance has drawn up new contingency plans in case of a potential Russian attack on its members, then it does see it as a threat. Or maybe not. Here's Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo to explain:

Commenting on the US Tallinn Embassy cables published by Wikileaks, Minister of Defense Jaak Aaviksoo said neither Estonia nor NATO have reason to consider Russia an enemy. Speaking on ERR radio, Aaviksoo said that drafting plans was a natural part of all defense endeavors. (courtesy ERR)

It's just natural to prepare for an possible attack, even if your neighbor officially poses no threat, though they recently held war games on their side of the border simulating the seizure of your country, right? Well, the Russians are naturally offended by the mere idea that there would be plans to defend Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from an attack. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to NATO, said that Moscow "must get some assurances that such plans will be dropped, and that Russia is not an enemy for NATO."

What infuriates me about this is how everyone has to tiptoe around Moscow. "Ok, Baltic States, we'll give you your contingency plans, but you must promise not to talk about it." Best not to offend the Russians. They are nuclear armed and unpredictable. We wouldn't want to actually let on that should Russia attack NATO member states, such actions might compel the alliance to come to their defense!

It appears that Russia still has a bit of a Baltic problem. According to their foreign policy, they have a "privileged interest" in the post-Soviet space. As the Baltic countries were once (unwilling) parts of the Soviet Union, that would seem to consign them to Russia's sphere of influence. However, the Baltic countries have joined the alliances of the West and therefore cannot be considered part of such a privileged sphere. I mean, Estonia will adopt the euro in a matter of weeks. Could it get any more obvious? They have left the "post-Soviet space," which would behoove Moscow to treat them like other European countries in the region, Finland, Sweden, and more recently, Poland.

On many levels, Estonian-Russian relations are just as normal as in those other countries. Russian tourists visit Estonia in droves. Cultural relations are humming along. Business relations tend to be good, when the politicians don't screw things up. But that's just it. The key obstacle to improvements in relations is political. A Russian foreign minister has not visited Estonia in the past 19 years! The Russian elite apparently cannot find the will to normalize relations, and yet they demonstrate mock outrage when "secret" contingency plans to defend the Baltic countries are published.

It's almost as if the Russians prefer to use the Baltics as a stumbling block in their relations with NATO.

early christmas present

British newspaper The Guardian has published this December 2009 US Embassy cable out of Tallinn, noting the Estonians' welcoming of the decision to expand NATO contingency plans to cover Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Paul Teesalu, director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Security Policy Division, is quoted as calling the decision an "early Christmas present."

Global media outlets have already published NATO's "secret plan" to defend the Baltics in case of Russian aggression. To me, this seems like old news. I've known about the contingency planning for months, for so long that I can't even remember where I found out about it. I have no special security clearance.

This article provides some more detailed information that I didn't know before: "Nine Nato divisions – US, British, German, and Polish – have been identified for combat operations in the event of armed aggression against Poland or the three Baltic states. North Polish and German ports have been listed for the receipt of naval assault forces and British and US warships."

Also interesting is from where the resistance to the contingency planning came. There are the usual suspects: "Attempts [in the past] ... to push through defence planning for the Baltic were stymied by German-led opposition in western Europe, anxious to avoid upsetting the Kremlin." The Germans were later assuaged to back the planning to reassure the edgy Baltics, on the condition that the Baltics agreed to the reset with Russia. But the Poles at first were also hesitant to expanding contingency plans to cover the Baltics. "They did not want the Polish plan to be diluted or held hostage in case other allies opposed adding the Baltic states."

leaked

I keep checking WikiLeaks for the horde of secret diplomatic cables out of the US Embassy in Tallinn. "Local demagogue known for shady real estate dealings!" "Wealthy chocolatier may have connections to organized crime!"

No such luck. Just more about Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and Israel. *Yawn* Guess they haven't caught on yet that Estonia is the center of the universe.

This week, the group seeks to release 251,287 leaked US embassy cables, 610 of which are out of Estonia, though they aren't up yet. It's prompted mass media coverage and fiery op-eds about freedom of information in the 21st century. I am sure all journalism majors out there will be writing about this for their senior paper. I personally am neither a friend nor foe of the effort. They got me with this line though:

Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington – the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment.

George Washington? I see we've headed back to the Enlightenment. It confuses my cynical 21st century soul. I keep reading that line over and over again and shaking my head and looking at the photo of WikiLeaks' enigmatic front man Julian Assange wondering if I've slipped into some forgotten episode of The X-Files where Crispin Glover has been cast as an Andy Warhol-lookalike computer hacker.

While I am, like everybody, keen to learn more about US policy, I would also appreciate if WikiLeaks provided more information on other countries. Because of its access to those cables, global interest, plus perhaps the prevalance of English, the bulk of the material seems to be about the US. As an American, I have to say, not fair! An international media organization should provide more content than that. In other words, where are the confidential Russian cables, Julian? We in Estonia await more.

how very european

Been back in Eesti for few weeks, but so busy, busy, busy with finishing my book that I haven't had time to write anything.

Being back in Viljandi, I was struck by how European it is. My first impression was of a cartoon when I saw was younger, where Charlie Brown goes to France and winds up sleeping in an abandoned chateau (and plenty of Viljandi still has that "abandoned chateau" look). And Snoopy, dressed as the World War I Flying Ace, goes to the pub every night and has a root beer.

Here's the film, Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!) (1980) I guess I am dating myself!

In Kuressaare, too, I kept having that itchy, "Where am I? Europe?" feeling. Something about the crooked lanes, colorful facades. This was driven home by the fact that the hotel in which we stayed was largely designed for Russian tourists. I wonder how they even get to Kuressaare. By private plane to Arnold Rüütel International Airport? The first 10 or so channels on the TV were Russian channels, loud boisterous, lots of snappy dance numbers and game shows with flashing lights and masses of people. Very interesting to watch, especially when you stepped outside into the quiet order of Kuressaare in November. Maybe it was the lengthy Danish rule. Dunno.

Besides the Russians, the city is dense with Swedish and Finnish pensioners. In fact, my impression of Russians is now based on sexy pop groups and chaotic game shows, and my impression of Finns and Swedes is now based on old people who enjoy mud treatments. I know it isn't so, but seeing is believing!

Now to the maps. There's been some persistent chatter on this blog and others about to whom Estonians are most related to genetically, as if this has some bearing on politics, preference in soft drink, fondness for repetitive accordion numbers. Here is a review of a study from a year ago. In it you can see that the Finns (and the southern Italians) truly are the genetic weirdos of Europe.

When it comes to relatives in Europe, the Finns' closest cousins really are the Estonians and the Swedes. Enlarge the map above, and you will see the Swedes and Estonians drifting away from the genetic arch of Europe towards the Finnish oddballs. However, they have different starting points. The Estonians starting position is closer to the Russians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles, while the Swedes are closer to the Germans and Austrians. But here you can see that the Estonians are not as closely related to the Baltic and Slavic populations as those populations are to one another. I am not sure why this should interest us. Geneticists make these maps to trace the heritability of human disease, not to make political arguments or comment on emotional disposition. But, anyway, look at all those shapes, blue circles, red triangles. Eye candy!