Is Estonia truly the land of zipping, ubiquitous wireless Internet connections, pay-by-phone parking, online banking, e-voting, young and savvy entrepreneurs, not to mention Skype? If you only read The Economist, you would think it so (and be very grateful to Mart Laar's angelic first government, who set everything in motion decades ago). And it is all of these things. But it is not only all of these things. I have seen life in the countryside that would make even the most open-minded undergraduate hold his nose.
Meh. The countryside. Land of "dry" toilets (or, as I call them, in-house outhouses), land of do-it-yourself fire hazard electric wiring jobs, land of unemployed, alcoholic uncles. When we celebrated a relative's 50th birthday last year, he took us on a tour of the graveyard to visit some old high school friends whose birth years were in the '60s and death years were in the '90s and '00s. I remember the September light on the stones, the moss on the trees, the wind in my hair. "But how did they all die?" I asked as a particularly cool breeze picked up. "Alcohol," came the deep-voiced and eerie response.
So, next time you read The Economist, remember that e-voting and pay-by-phone parking are wonderful, wondrous things. But so are professionally installed wiring, modern plumbing, and sober, employed relatives.
kolmapäev, juuli 31, 2013
pühapäev, juuli 21, 2013
chart land
Forbes contributor Mark Adomanis has written some interesting pieces about the Baltics recently, from a perspective that is familiar in its insularity and origin. While bemoaning the use of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as ideal economies by conservative analysts in the US, Adomanis has decided to look at other numbers to prove them wrong.
So continues American analysts' adventures in chart land, where one finds hard data to back his or her assertions about austerity and enterprise, and the other refuting those points by discussing mass emigration and declining population figures in the region, as Adomanis has done most recently. These actual, physical countries rarely penetrate 'chart land' because in 'chart land,' real countries don't exist; only charts.
I cannot speak to Latvia or Lithuania, as I have been to Latvia three times, Lithuania once, and, unlike my American countrymen, I don't feel justified in using them in contests of political ideologies by digging out a graph here or tossing up a chart there.
As for the Estonian population, I've said it before and will say it again -- nobody really knows what the population of Estonia should be. In 1934, there were about 1.13 million people in the country, roughly 19,000 more than in 1922. During the Second World War, the population decreased by a fifth, due to Soviet mass deportations, refugees fleeing West, and war-related deaths. The rebound of the 1950s and '60s that led to impressive and sustained population "growth" was based largely on migration from outside Estonia but within the USSR, and on the development of industries and regions that had been, until that time, nonexistent and sparsely populated.
For example, the village of Sillamäe in northeastern Estonia had a population of about 2,600 in 1940. In 1989, there were 20,500 people enumerated. Today, there are 15,800 people living there. Based on data alone, people over there in 'chart land' might be able to draw some interesting conclusions about people 'voting with their feet.'
But if you had actually been to Sillamäe and were familiar with the place, you might realize that Sillamäe was a 100-percent planned Soviet city. As it was planned, its population growth was not organic, either. Since the Soviet-supported economy collapsed decades ago, many people have left, either to Tallinn, or farther west, to London, or even Los Angeles. Why have they left? Some ask. Here's another question, Why should they have stayed? You are dealing with a city of people who emigrated from other places -- Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan. They left those places behind, too. The view of the Gulf of Finland from Sillamäe at sunset can be gorgeous, but it's not stunning enough to keep people bent on a better deal from moving on to better opportunities when they arise.
So now, in 2013, 22 years after 1991, 73 years after Sillamäe experienced its last organic growth, we are left to wonder -- what population can Sillamäe, the former planned Soviet city, naturally support?
As someone who has been to Sillamäe, and has been in Estonia on and off again for more than a decade, I can say that the quality of life in Sillamäe is undoubtedly better today that when it was at the end of Soviet rule. It's a prettier town, many parts of it cleaned up, hazardous environmental dumping waste sites capped and remediated. People working in Soviet factories like those in Sillamäe had low life expectancies, in part because of the rampant pollution both in the workplace and the city itself. Knowing that, seeing remnant traces of that skeletal Soviet life, if you were to walk into the slick, ultramodern offices of the rare metals producer Silmet today, you would certainly feel like clicking your heels together because life in Sillamäe has improved. And that's perhaps what gets people so hopeful about that Skype office in Tallinn, you keep hearing about. Because they are familiar, personally, with the starting point.
These are subtle nuances that are lost on the denizens of chart land. We are not talking about props in your theoretical contests, we are talking about real countries inhabited by people with complex histories that cannot be summed up in a line graph.
The New York Times, Forbes, and other media that continue to rely on Russia-based or focused analysts to cover Estonia are doing their readers a disservice. Regional branding aside, Estonia is part of the Nordic economy, and many of the policies enacted by the Estonian government are done with the implications of relations with the 'mother' economies of Sweden and Finland in mind. Euro adoption and austerity were both measures favored by Swedish banking interests, which dominate Estonia.
So continues American analysts' adventures in chart land, where one finds hard data to back his or her assertions about austerity and enterprise, and the other refuting those points by discussing mass emigration and declining population figures in the region, as Adomanis has done most recently. These actual, physical countries rarely penetrate 'chart land' because in 'chart land,' real countries don't exist; only charts.
I cannot speak to Latvia or Lithuania, as I have been to Latvia three times, Lithuania once, and, unlike my American countrymen, I don't feel justified in using them in contests of political ideologies by digging out a graph here or tossing up a chart there.
As for the Estonian population, I've said it before and will say it again -- nobody really knows what the population of Estonia should be. In 1934, there were about 1.13 million people in the country, roughly 19,000 more than in 1922. During the Second World War, the population decreased by a fifth, due to Soviet mass deportations, refugees fleeing West, and war-related deaths. The rebound of the 1950s and '60s that led to impressive and sustained population "growth" was based largely on migration from outside Estonia but within the USSR, and on the development of industries and regions that had been, until that time, nonexistent and sparsely populated.
For example, the village of Sillamäe in northeastern Estonia had a population of about 2,600 in 1940. In 1989, there were 20,500 people enumerated. Today, there are 15,800 people living there. Based on data alone, people over there in 'chart land' might be able to draw some interesting conclusions about people 'voting with their feet.'
But if you had actually been to Sillamäe and were familiar with the place, you might realize that Sillamäe was a 100-percent planned Soviet city. As it was planned, its population growth was not organic, either. Since the Soviet-supported economy collapsed decades ago, many people have left, either to Tallinn, or farther west, to London, or even Los Angeles. Why have they left? Some ask. Here's another question, Why should they have stayed? You are dealing with a city of people who emigrated from other places -- Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan. They left those places behind, too. The view of the Gulf of Finland from Sillamäe at sunset can be gorgeous, but it's not stunning enough to keep people bent on a better deal from moving on to better opportunities when they arise.
So now, in 2013, 22 years after 1991, 73 years after Sillamäe experienced its last organic growth, we are left to wonder -- what population can Sillamäe, the former planned Soviet city, naturally support?
As someone who has been to Sillamäe, and has been in Estonia on and off again for more than a decade, I can say that the quality of life in Sillamäe is undoubtedly better today that when it was at the end of Soviet rule. It's a prettier town, many parts of it cleaned up, hazardous environmental dumping waste sites capped and remediated. People working in Soviet factories like those in Sillamäe had low life expectancies, in part because of the rampant pollution both in the workplace and the city itself. Knowing that, seeing remnant traces of that skeletal Soviet life, if you were to walk into the slick, ultramodern offices of the rare metals producer Silmet today, you would certainly feel like clicking your heels together because life in Sillamäe has improved. And that's perhaps what gets people so hopeful about that Skype office in Tallinn, you keep hearing about. Because they are familiar, personally, with the starting point.
These are subtle nuances that are lost on the denizens of chart land. We are not talking about props in your theoretical contests, we are talking about real countries inhabited by people with complex histories that cannot be summed up in a line graph.
The New York Times, Forbes, and other media that continue to rely on Russia-based or focused analysts to cover Estonia are doing their readers a disservice. Regional branding aside, Estonia is part of the Nordic economy, and many of the policies enacted by the Estonian government are done with the implications of relations with the 'mother' economies of Sweden and Finland in mind. Euro adoption and austerity were both measures favored by Swedish banking interests, which dominate Estonia.
kolmapäev, juuli 17, 2013
how it works
"I feel so bad for Kalle. He told me yesterday that his wife left him."
"He did? When?"
"While he was working here in the kitchen."
"But don't they have children?"
A sullen nod. "He has a week to find a new place and move out."
"What do you mean move out? She left him! Shouldn't she be packing her bags, slamming the door?"
"That's not how it works."
"Oh, I get it. The woman stays in the house with the children and the man leaves."
Another sullen nod.
"And the man finds himself some shitty, one-room apartment somewhere and gives her all of his money."
"Exactly."
"He did? When?"
"While he was working here in the kitchen."
"But don't they have children?"
A sullen nod. "He has a week to find a new place and move out."
"What do you mean move out? She left him! Shouldn't she be packing her bags, slamming the door?"
"That's not how it works."
"Oh, I get it. The woman stays in the house with the children and the man leaves."
Another sullen nod.
"And the man finds himself some shitty, one-room apartment somewhere and gives her all of his money."
"Exactly."
pühapäev, juuli 14, 2013
that smell
Ah, summer in Viljandi. Blue skies, clothing lines, everywhere charm & crumble. Awake at some reasonable hour, boil the water for the coffee, mix it up, take a sip, open up the door to the yard to enjoy the fresh breeze. But there was something different in the air this morning. A different smell.
"Something stinks outside," said the abikaasa/spouse. "I was going to drink my coffee in the yard but I changed my mind." What was the stink? Curious nostrils wanted to know. A familiar smell, they sniffed, the stench of manure. "They probably decided to clean the pig factory," I said. She agreed.
The pig factory. Also known as the new-wave-band-name-sounding Experimental Pork Manufacturing Plant. Also known as "Ekseko." A multistory building stands across the river in Viiratsi Parish. What goes on inside, I haven't seen, but it involves pigs en route to becoming beer snacks who apparently defecate enough to stink up all the air within a certain radius.
Or it could just be some other random environmental affect. Ekseko on its website claims to be one of the good guys, satisfying ISO standards and helping out local farmers by buying their grain to feed their pigs whose shit is shipped back to the farmers to fertilize more grain. That smell is probably just bog gas or sulfur from some nearby undiscovered geothermal spring. Yeah, that must be it ...
"Something stinks outside," said the abikaasa/spouse. "I was going to drink my coffee in the yard but I changed my mind." What was the stink? Curious nostrils wanted to know. A familiar smell, they sniffed, the stench of manure. "They probably decided to clean the pig factory," I said. She agreed.
The pig factory. Also known as the new-wave-band-name-sounding Experimental Pork Manufacturing Plant. Also known as "Ekseko." A multistory building stands across the river in Viiratsi Parish. What goes on inside, I haven't seen, but it involves pigs en route to becoming beer snacks who apparently defecate enough to stink up all the air within a certain radius.
Or it could just be some other random environmental affect. Ekseko on its website claims to be one of the good guys, satisfying ISO standards and helping out local farmers by buying their grain to feed their pigs whose shit is shipped back to the farmers to fertilize more grain. That smell is probably just bog gas or sulfur from some nearby undiscovered geothermal spring. Yeah, that must be it ...
reede, juuli 12, 2013
about mission estonia
Here's something I wrote about my new book. An Estonian version of this text previously appeared here.
Estonia is blessed with expatriate writers. Abdul Turay, Vello Vikerkaar, João Lopes Marques... Sometimes it seems we landed our gigs as columnists on the basis of our foreignness alone. Our editors tell us to write about the foreign experience in Estonia because Estonians want to know what we think of them. At the same time, I believe we feel compelled as emissaries who have come from Western lands to make suggestions on how Estonia can transform even more positively than it has ever transformed before.
This is our position in this society: the missionary position. Like Jesuits of old, we have arrived by sea, and air and land to Estonia so that we can point out the locals' flaws, save their souls, and guide them all the way to the promised land.
We missionaries come not only as writers. In any facet of daily life, you will find travelers from Western lands spreading their lifestyles. A Californian friend now teaches transcendental meditation in Tartu. In recent years, American and Australian friends of mine in Comedy Estonia together with Estonian collaborators have introduced stand up comedy to this country. From these tiny foreign seeds, we all believe, many Estonian flowers will blossom.
For years, I trudged along in my capacity as a missionary, writing columns and books for the Estonian audience. But something changed in my heart, recently, and I can only attribute this about face to living in this land and living in Viljandi.
It's easy to play the role of the preacher in Tallinn and Tartu, where a foreigner can still feel as if he is at the center of life. It's easier to believe you can make a difference when the parliament or the country's most prestigious university is just a quick walk away. It's harder when you are standing behind the local alcoholics at the bottle return in Viljandi.
In these desperate moments I have come to embrace a new reality, that the best I can do to change Estonia is paint my house, plant my garden, mow my lawn, and make sure my children's teeth are brushed. From this new-found fatalism is born these columns in this new book. I write to you now not only as a foreigner, but as one of you, just an average guy from Viljandi.
A significant chunk of this material has appeared in abbreviated form in the magazines Anne ja Stiil and Eesti Naine. Other columns are based on posts I have written on my blog, Itching for Eestimaa. But a lot of the material is new. When I first held the book in my hands, I couldn't believe how much I had written, and it happened almost effortlessly, just for the fun of it.
My hope in all of these endeavors has been to write honestly, to the point of embarrassing myself and, let's face it, a lot of this material will make you blush. But you've got to embarrass yourself if you want anybody to listen to you, to really listen to you, to take you into their hearts.
In these moments, I think of those ancient missionaries with their silly robes and crucifixes, looking like a bunch of girly boys, fanning out into the wilderness in the name of faith. A missionary's life has never been easy. And the only way to manage with it, I believe, is to actually believe in what you do.
So consider this book, Mission Estonia, as a chronicle of all the embarrassments and hardships I've faced along my way. I still have faith that things will change for the better. I still believe in Estonia.
Estonia is blessed with expatriate writers. Abdul Turay, Vello Vikerkaar, João Lopes Marques... Sometimes it seems we landed our gigs as columnists on the basis of our foreignness alone. Our editors tell us to write about the foreign experience in Estonia because Estonians want to know what we think of them. At the same time, I believe we feel compelled as emissaries who have come from Western lands to make suggestions on how Estonia can transform even more positively than it has ever transformed before.
This is our position in this society: the missionary position. Like Jesuits of old, we have arrived by sea, and air and land to Estonia so that we can point out the locals' flaws, save their souls, and guide them all the way to the promised land.
We missionaries come not only as writers. In any facet of daily life, you will find travelers from Western lands spreading their lifestyles. A Californian friend now teaches transcendental meditation in Tartu. In recent years, American and Australian friends of mine in Comedy Estonia together with Estonian collaborators have introduced stand up comedy to this country. From these tiny foreign seeds, we all believe, many Estonian flowers will blossom.
For years, I trudged along in my capacity as a missionary, writing columns and books for the Estonian audience. But something changed in my heart, recently, and I can only attribute this about face to living in this land and living in Viljandi.
It's easy to play the role of the preacher in Tallinn and Tartu, where a foreigner can still feel as if he is at the center of life. It's easier to believe you can make a difference when the parliament or the country's most prestigious university is just a quick walk away. It's harder when you are standing behind the local alcoholics at the bottle return in Viljandi.
In these desperate moments I have come to embrace a new reality, that the best I can do to change Estonia is paint my house, plant my garden, mow my lawn, and make sure my children's teeth are brushed. From this new-found fatalism is born these columns in this new book. I write to you now not only as a foreigner, but as one of you, just an average guy from Viljandi.
A significant chunk of this material has appeared in abbreviated form in the magazines Anne ja Stiil and Eesti Naine. Other columns are based on posts I have written on my blog, Itching for Eestimaa. But a lot of the material is new. When I first held the book in my hands, I couldn't believe how much I had written, and it happened almost effortlessly, just for the fun of it.
My hope in all of these endeavors has been to write honestly, to the point of embarrassing myself and, let's face it, a lot of this material will make you blush. But you've got to embarrass yourself if you want anybody to listen to you, to really listen to you, to take you into their hearts.
In these moments, I think of those ancient missionaries with their silly robes and crucifixes, looking like a bunch of girly boys, fanning out into the wilderness in the name of faith. A missionary's life has never been easy. And the only way to manage with it, I believe, is to actually believe in what you do.
So consider this book, Mission Estonia, as a chronicle of all the embarrassments and hardships I've faced along my way. I still have faith that things will change for the better. I still believe in Estonia.
kolmapäev, juuli 10, 2013
cosmic things
On our second or third night in Viljandi, we went to visit two friends of ours, a musician and a poet, who live around the corner. The musician plays homemade instruments, including a large wooden phallus stuck with nails that he saws at with a violin bow in order to produce an industrial, maritime vibe, while crooning like a humpback whale in high and low pitches over the metallic droning. The poet's poems are thick with references to nature -- animals, plants, phenomena. She talks about flora and fauna for which I'm not even sure there are English words. Does she really know these plants and animals, or does she just have botany and zoology books on her desk, to select random terms from when she gets tired of expressing her feelings?
The funny aspect, is that by Viljandi standards, these two individuals are normal. That same night, we were visited by a man with a long billy goat's beard who is known locally as "Beard," and "Beard" (or its Estonian equivalent) just might be his real name. When he entered, he gave me a hug. Beard was talking to us about Yin and Yang energy, and he was serious. "You mean like on the flag of South Korea?" I asked, puzzled. "Yes, for example," Beard gestured in a mystical teacher kind of way. As I recall, the world is divided up into masculine and feminine energies. Lakes have one kind, rivers have another. "You'll notice that when you are standing beside a lake, it's quite a different feeling from when you are standing beside a river," Beard went on ... All eyes were on him.
I thought my Swedish friend Erland was exempt from Viljandi's far out worldview, but the other day while grilling in the yard, he began staring into the wisps of the clouds and talking about aliens. "And you know what they say, that the aliens are actually us, that we are coming back in time to study ourselves ..." I could see the white fluffy 11 pm clouds in his eyes. "Oh," he rubbed them. "I had a dream about this the other night. It was such a cool, cool dream. I told Lea all about it ...Goddamn flies, it's like the second you put some grilled fish out, they're all over it." "Where is Lea?" "Don't worry, she's coming, she's coming, Oh, go away stupid flies, go away ...{he waves them away} ... Now what was I saying about the aliens?"
The funny aspect, is that by Viljandi standards, these two individuals are normal. That same night, we were visited by a man with a long billy goat's beard who is known locally as "Beard," and "Beard" (or its Estonian equivalent) just might be his real name. When he entered, he gave me a hug. Beard was talking to us about Yin and Yang energy, and he was serious. "You mean like on the flag of South Korea?" I asked, puzzled. "Yes, for example," Beard gestured in a mystical teacher kind of way. As I recall, the world is divided up into masculine and feminine energies. Lakes have one kind, rivers have another. "You'll notice that when you are standing beside a lake, it's quite a different feeling from when you are standing beside a river," Beard went on ... All eyes were on him.
I thought my Swedish friend Erland was exempt from Viljandi's far out worldview, but the other day while grilling in the yard, he began staring into the wisps of the clouds and talking about aliens. "And you know what they say, that the aliens are actually us, that we are coming back in time to study ourselves ..." I could see the white fluffy 11 pm clouds in his eyes. "Oh," he rubbed them. "I had a dream about this the other night. It was such a cool, cool dream. I told Lea all about it ...Goddamn flies, it's like the second you put some grilled fish out, they're all over it." "Where is Lea?" "Don't worry, she's coming, she's coming, Oh, go away stupid flies, go away ...{he waves them away} ... Now what was I saying about the aliens?"
neljapäev, juuli 04, 2013
expats
Expats piss off homeland Americans. They rile the, defile them. An expat to a homeland American is a betrayer, a traitor. And why? Because the expat called their "Love it or leave it" bluff. "Love it or leave it!" That patriotic phrase. The sayer thinks he has you up against the wall, because who would have the guff to actually leave the homeland?! But the expat does. Watch him turn and go. That smug wannabe Hemingway bastard with his parental renumeration and his black turtleneck and knowledge of other tongues! That almost-as-bad-as-a-Frenchman Yankee with his softness for socialism and his friends with funny names and his ability to pronounce Tallinn the correct way (and it doesn't rhyme with baleen, Ishmael). But you know, from the bottom of my heart -- I haven't rejected America. I have embraced my own weird, meandering life. It led here. Doors opened, drawbridges materialized. And I see nothing wrong with drinking Saku and alternating between Estonian and English with a Swede in Viljandi on the Fourth of July. That's just how it went for me. My story. Love it or leave it. Lõpp.
-aale, -oome
"Täna lähme Hiiumaale, siis homme lähme Saaremaale, siis ülehomme lähme Pärnumaale" --
This was the first comprehensible Estonian sentence I heard uttered when I stepped off the plane in Tallinn. It was a cheerful, spry youngish woman who said the words, a fine, upstanding, big-blue-eyed completely un-lecherous-thought-provoking flaxen-haired, blade-of-grass-like woman. And what the woman's words said to me, was that it is summer in Eesti-land. Summer is the time for -aale, whether it be Hiiumaale (to Hiiumaa) or Saaremaale (to Saaremaa). One other traveler threw in an -oome for added suvi summery spice, Aga meie lähme homme Soome ...
Summer brings with it White Nights Etiquette ... So Epp explained to me ... With "White Nights Etiquette" one is free to call on friends at 11 pm, because it's still day out, technically, supposedly ... We have been all waiting a long time for warm weather. It came.
Meantime, Edward Snowden is still in the john at the airport and Moscow, and Putin is making himself look like Mr. Freedom Champion by allowing him to chat with his buddies Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange from the back stall, unmolested. Mohammed Morsi is no longer president of Egypt, or so it seems {and all Estonian sunworshippers who head to Shark el-Sheim in winter will have extra explaining to do to concerned relatives -- "Oh, no, everything's fine down there, no troubles at all, you'll see" ...
Makes one happy for a peaceful, bucolic, lazy, pastoral, straw-in-the-hair, mating-in-the-haystack kind of baltoscandinavian summer ... Like extras in a Ingmar Bergman film ... With lots of bonfires and site visits ... -aale today, -oome tomorrow.
This was the first comprehensible Estonian sentence I heard uttered when I stepped off the plane in Tallinn. It was a cheerful, spry youngish woman who said the words, a fine, upstanding, big-blue-eyed completely un-lecherous-thought-provoking flaxen-haired, blade-of-grass-like woman. And what the woman's words said to me, was that it is summer in Eesti-land. Summer is the time for -aale, whether it be Hiiumaale (to Hiiumaa) or Saaremaale (to Saaremaa). One other traveler threw in an -oome for added suvi summery spice, Aga meie lähme homme Soome ...
Summer brings with it White Nights Etiquette ... So Epp explained to me ... With "White Nights Etiquette" one is free to call on friends at 11 pm, because it's still day out, technically, supposedly ... We have been all waiting a long time for warm weather. It came.
Meantime, Edward Snowden is still in the john at the airport and Moscow, and Putin is making himself look like Mr. Freedom Champion by allowing him to chat with his buddies Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange from the back stall, unmolested. Mohammed Morsi is no longer president of Egypt, or so it seems {and all Estonian sunworshippers who head to Shark el-Sheim in winter will have extra explaining to do to concerned relatives -- "Oh, no, everything's fine down there, no troubles at all, you'll see" ...
Makes one happy for a peaceful, bucolic, lazy, pastoral, straw-in-the-hair, mating-in-the-haystack kind of baltoscandinavian summer ... Like extras in a Ingmar Bergman film ... With lots of bonfires and site visits ... -aale today, -oome tomorrow.
teisipäev, juuni 25, 2013
whistleblower
Wouldn't it be an interesting plot twist if Edward Snowden wasn't in Moscow, but instead was already safely in Havana, or Reykjavik, or some other city that disregards the wishes of the US State Department? What I find interesting here in the US, where I am at the moment, is the deep ambivalence most average people seem to feel about Snowden's actions. It's not that they really see Snowden as a champion of transparency {I think most of us thought that the government was collecting such information}. It's that they can't find it within themselves to cheer on the same institutions that are spying on them. No way. At least today, you won't hear a mouth say, 'Go NSA!'
reede, juuni 21, 2013
dual
We have eight passports in our kitchen drawer -- one for me, one for Epp, and two for Marta, two for Anna, and two for Mannu Leenu. Uncle Sam doesn't mind how many passports we have, but according to a 1995 Estonian law, M, A, and ML have to give up their Estonian or American passports upon turning 18. All of us with multinational children in Estonia hope that the government will at last come to its good senses and repeal this law, or at least amend it to allow children born with two nationalities to maintain them. Foreign Minister Paet is in favor of that. So are the Social Democrats and the Centrists. But the conservatives see things differently. When it comes to loving one's country, Interior Minister "Kõva Käe" (Heavy Handed) Ken-Martti Vaher is an ardent monogamist."A quality bond between a person and the state is only possible with one country," says Kõva Käe Ken. "Loyalty conflicts, especially concerning public service and military service, could arise."
satw
I just happened across an ongoing online cartoon strip - Scandinavia and the World - that peddles in the same cheesy jokes about Scandinavians that one can hear on any night of the week in the student clubs in Denmark - "We're like this, they're like that," etc. - Sweden is prudish and Denmark is more laid back and Norway, he just loves nature - Finland is brooding and has a knife, and Iceland is very silly - Estonia has featured in four comic strips since SATW debuted in '09 - in each one, she is portrayed as wanting to get into the club, but being denied - "Oh, no, left out again!" - She has social aspirations, that one - The truth is that most of the Scandinavians are toffs, Dansk, Norsk, Svensk - they think the sun shines from their buttocks - the Light of Lego, the Illumination of Ikea, the Radiance of Rimi ...
teisipäev, juuni 18, 2013
party 'til you puke
When President Ilves called the heads of Estonia's four major parties to Kadriorg for a chat about how their vote rigging and assorted antics were having a deleterious affect on the health of the nation's democracy, one had a glimpse at a stagnant political system dominated by the same revolving cast of musical chairs personalities: Ansip, Savisaar, Reinsalu, Mikser ... The latter two are "newcomers," or at least fresher faces, but those are relative terms when Savikas has been playing the game since the game began, and Unzip's been prime minister since Juhan Parts' government bit the dust eight years ago (it seems like forever ago). Now Ojuland's been booted from Reform, and Reform has recruited Vilja Savisaar (the better looking, more sympathetic Savisaar) to run against her ex-husband for Tallinn mayor, and Laar is flirting with leaving the coalition (but not really, for what could the other government constellation be?) You have to ask, what do any of these people stand for (and did they ever stand for anything other than themselves?) Yes, Ilves is right to counsel the party leaders, but he cannot change the party leaders, or their other candidates, or the parties themselves.
pühapäev, juuni 09, 2013
rapprochement
Remember the woeful tale of the border treaty with Russia? FM Paet flew out to Moscow in '05, came back waving the magic paper to fix the line between the two lands, told newspapers it was a "done deal," but then pesky parliamentarians added a preamble that made reference to another law that referenced the 1920 treaty that established Estonian statehood. Then Putin got wind of it in the Kremlin and he had FM Lavrov bring him the treaty on a platter so that he could retract Russia's signature, using liquid paper I presume (that was before he crumpled it, stomped on it, blew his nose on it, judo chopped it, and threw it in the fireplace). Now the signing of the new treaty is set to occur again (this time, they say, in Tallinn in July), and it seems like there will be no troubling preambles, and Putin can keep his trusty bottle of liquid paper in his desk's top drawer. Lavrov, meantime, can fly in and ride past the inspiring supermarkets that line the road from the airport to the city center and look out on the glorious Hanseatic skyline from the precipice of the Foreign Ministry on Iceland Square and feel deep and bone-aching sorrow for not getting to be the FM of such an awesome country.
kolmapäev, juuni 05, 2013
multikulti
Has it occurred to any of the hijackers or knifers or hackers or exploding backpackers that the number one killing entity of Muslims worldwide is probably other Muslims? Or do they think it's their exclusive job to kill themselves? How many car bombs have been set off in Iraq's sectarian civil war, hundreds of dead, the perpetrators -- OTHER MUSLIMS. And yet the fists are shaken at drones and stray bullets and Americans and Britons and French, because these legacy colonial administrators have obviously not taken their mandates seriously! There is this tendency among the Left to feel, deep down in the inner lining of their entrails, that while "terrorism" is abhorrent, it is somehow justified (or at least explainable) because of our neocolonial policies. Yet the unenlightened child minds of these exotic lands continue to murder one another, to even eat each other's hearts. Perhaps the schism is not religious or political, therefore, but merely human stupidity, the cancer of all existence, period.
I honestly don't know where I sit in all of this, other than being a bemused nihilistic rambler man. No, Mr. Cameron, your little task force isn't going to solve a thing. Task forces, roundtables. I've got an idea, boys, let's tie it all up in red tape. Stick the failure of multikulti in committee and kill it. As if it was a law! That's what you get when you let lawyers run countries. O, Britain, incubator of sectarian violence. Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons, Romans and Celts, Catholics and Protestants. Everyone's got his own justifying almighty. Here I recall an Estonian newspaperman lamenting EU accession many years ago. "If they let the Muslims in, we're done for," said sad-eyed he. But, Estonian newspaper man, don't you see ... we're already done for.
I honestly don't know where I sit in all of this, other than being a bemused nihilistic rambler man. No, Mr. Cameron, your little task force isn't going to solve a thing. Task forces, roundtables. I've got an idea, boys, let's tie it all up in red tape. Stick the failure of multikulti in committee and kill it. As if it was a law! That's what you get when you let lawyers run countries. O, Britain, incubator of sectarian violence. Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons, Romans and Celts, Catholics and Protestants. Everyone's got his own justifying almighty. Here I recall an Estonian newspaperman lamenting EU accession many years ago. "If they let the Muslims in, we're done for," said sad-eyed he. But, Estonian newspaper man, don't you see ... we're already done for.
esmaspäev, mai 27, 2013
von trapp
"All the people from this country should be removed and replaced with Brazilians." This was my Latin American friend's response to the question, "So how are you getting along in Estonia?"
Sometimes it feels that way. As much as we care about Estonia and it's people, they can get annoying. We are equally as annoying for them, or at least amusing. Example. I am a father, and yet am not an Estonian father. I yell at my naughty children in shops, WHAT THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? They tend to ignore my spontaneous outbursts. An Estonian father though is austere and firm. All he has to do is mutter a few lines under his breath, and his children fall back in line. Good Estonian fathers are like The Sound of Music's Captain von Trapp before he started sleeping with Fraulein Maria.
That severity in character, respect for discipline, order, silence ... it can drive a non-Estonian to the edge. It builds up over time. My little daughter Maria, aged 20 months, greeted every passerby in Haapsalu over the weekend with, "Tere!" I would estimate that 20 percent of those greeted bothered to look at her or respond. The others winced and scurried by, as if they felt as if they had been found out by the friendly toddler. Why so reticent? I wondered. Did they think they were invisible?
Sometimes it feels that way. As much as we care about Estonia and it's people, they can get annoying. We are equally as annoying for them, or at least amusing. Example. I am a father, and yet am not an Estonian father. I yell at my naughty children in shops, WHAT THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? They tend to ignore my spontaneous outbursts. An Estonian father though is austere and firm. All he has to do is mutter a few lines under his breath, and his children fall back in line. Good Estonian fathers are like The Sound of Music's Captain von Trapp before he started sleeping with Fraulein Maria.
That severity in character, respect for discipline, order, silence ... it can drive a non-Estonian to the edge. It builds up over time. My little daughter Maria, aged 20 months, greeted every passerby in Haapsalu over the weekend with, "Tere!" I would estimate that 20 percent of those greeted bothered to look at her or respond. The others winced and scurried by, as if they felt as if they had been found out by the friendly toddler. Why so reticent? I wondered. Did they think they were invisible?
teisipäev, mai 21, 2013
statistical condom
Interesting to see the Russian question pop up from time to time, along with statistics ... "X percent THIS, therefore THIS ..." Statistics are important because they are used in the transmission of halftruths, lies, propaganda, so always wear a statistical condom! One discussion that caught my ear revolved around the translation of Estonian law into the Russian language, a suggestion made by a Social Democrat named Ossinovski. Society comes unglued at the very mention of such ideas, with statistics tossed around like rice at a wedding, "X percent THIS, therefore THIS!" I scratch my own itchy head ... Yeah, why not translate the laws?
I have always been opposed to making Russian a second-state language, not just because I like Estonian so much because I think it's so cute with all of that ä ü õ ö, but also because I feel it is unnecessary. I am of the opinion that forced legal inclusiveness is, in two words, complete bullshit. "Oh, look, the official languages of Kosovo are Kosovar Albanian AND Serbian." That'll get them to stop hating each other, sure ... Or, "Just look at Finland, just look at Canada!" -- the linguistic minorities there are bitching round the clock. The Quebecois complain about not having their own state, the Anglophones in Quebec complain about living in the Francosphere. And so, as you already knew, NOBODY IS EVER HAPPY.
Then I start thinking about the multilingual origins of the Estonian state with its Danish and German merchants and border Russians and deposed Polish counts, and I recall that during the 1920s and '30s, Estonian politicians used to go to Narva or Petseri and give addresses ... in Russian. So what exactly are we restoring the state to, if that's how it was in the earlier period of independence? What is the default for which we yearn? Are we going back in time, or involved in a completely new state-building project? Stuff to consider.
But, back to the question: Estonian laws in Russian? ... Why not? Why not in English, too? Hell, let's add Swedish. The Swedes are still a tiny minority, but, unlike the Russian minority, they are actually growing. If you model it out over the next 500,000 years, at current growth rates, the Swedish minority will surpass the Russian minority in 253,000 years. So, that's my advice. Think ahead. Be the future.
I have always been opposed to making Russian a second-state language, not just because I like Estonian so much because I think it's so cute with all of that ä ü õ ö, but also because I feel it is unnecessary. I am of the opinion that forced legal inclusiveness is, in two words, complete bullshit. "Oh, look, the official languages of Kosovo are Kosovar Albanian AND Serbian." That'll get them to stop hating each other, sure ... Or, "Just look at Finland, just look at Canada!" -- the linguistic minorities there are bitching round the clock. The Quebecois complain about not having their own state, the Anglophones in Quebec complain about living in the Francosphere. And so, as you already knew, NOBODY IS EVER HAPPY.
Then I start thinking about the multilingual origins of the Estonian state with its Danish and German merchants and border Russians and deposed Polish counts, and I recall that during the 1920s and '30s, Estonian politicians used to go to Narva or Petseri and give addresses ... in Russian. So what exactly are we restoring the state to, if that's how it was in the earlier period of independence? What is the default for which we yearn? Are we going back in time, or involved in a completely new state-building project? Stuff to consider.
But, back to the question: Estonian laws in Russian? ... Why not? Why not in English, too? Hell, let's add Swedish. The Swedes are still a tiny minority, but, unlike the Russian minority, they are actually growing. If you model it out over the next 500,000 years, at current growth rates, the Swedish minority will surpass the Russian minority in 253,000 years. So, that's my advice. Think ahead. Be the future.
pühapäev, mai 19, 2013
zooropa
The Estonians do it, too, but the British are the worst ... £69 to Europe!" says the airline advertisement in Victoria Station ... Terrific, but aren't we in Europe, already? Is this some kind of scam? £69 to remain standing in place? ... How can the British look at themselves in the mirror and believe that they are somehow less European than the Swedes or the Danes or the Dutch, or any other Northern European kingdom ruled by inbred monarchies from dank castles? And this at a time when PM Cameron's eurosceptic tory backbenchers are in revolt ... I've heard the Estonians tell odd tales of travels to "Europe," which in the local imagination combines the canals of Venice with the banking streets of Switzerland and other assorted landmarks (La Tour Eiffel, British Houses of Parliament, Spanish Bullfighting) ... too bad that they don't realize that Estonia is a lot like East Anglia... EUROPE ... Look at the map, it starts over here and runs to over here, you're it, and there's no escaping it ...
teisipäev, mai 14, 2013
matsid
Yesterday watched three local citizens parade down the street -- a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter -- all of them smoking. Then the word came to me, "matsid." I am not sure who the poor, ill-mannered country bumpkin was that gave the Estonians this term, but his name was Mats ... To be called Mats (or even worse, Mats Hobusega ("Mats with Horse")) is to have one's poor, dirty, country roots put on display for all to see ... Drinking, smoking, TV game shows, the habits of the lower classes (yes, string me up now, oh would-be French Revolutionaries, elitist second estate snob that I am) ... I've seen locals drinking and smoking in the morning on the streets in town ... cigarettes, beer, breakfast cereals ... these are the things that go together in their mindset [but hush, do not criticize the matsid's habits, nor even suggest {aloud} that they are matsid, or that matsid even exist!] ... And yet, when they walk by on parade, even the Estonian who is but one rung above this bottom-rung untouchable class is known to look over his/her monied, educated shoulder and sneer and spit ...
"Once a mats, {ptui!} always a mats ..."
"Once a mats, {ptui!} always a mats ..."
reede, mai 10, 2013
little wooden town
Tartu, that's a Little Wooden Town! From the lips of a Tallinner, the words are derisive, little and wooden meaning small and inadequate, not metropolitan, cosmopolitan, urbane ... Yet people in a little wooden town are also quite little {as small as they are anywhere} and in this context, this Little Wooden Town impresses. Like John and Paul and George and Ringo sang, Tartu is getting better all the time, blocks of postwar wooden shanties cleaned up and made new, yellow and orange and other creamy mild colors, so that when you are walking along at night under all of those Big Wooden Windows and Wooden Gingerbread and Architectural Curiosity, the Warm Electric Lamp Glows, under the Eaves of the Big Wooden Houses and the Eavesdropping on Goodlooking Young People's Conversations, well ... you DO feel like you are in the middle of something, even if it is just a puny, pathetic, backwater, upstream, remote joke of a Little Wooden Town ...
reede, mai 03, 2013
high and holy
It's always a big come down being back, I don't mean an emotional come down though Estonia can be pretty boring and lonely, but, you know everywhere with me is boring and lonely at least some of the time ... I once sat on the steps of the New York Public Library on a Saturday afternoon watching the automobiles fling by, my God, never been lonelier, but wait! The come down, yes ... I love the way the Finnish air bathes me on the bus from the airport to the plane, it's cool, mild, relaxing, like peppermint astringent, that refreshing, you know, a nice, cool, longdrink of a refreshment, spiced with clarity, purity, holiness, saintliness ...
... Lots of religious thoughts these days (not me, no, no conversion for me, never) They asked me what my faith was in Bali, I told them Catholic, not that I am one, but I once was one, and to-date, it's been my most enduring exposure to faith, which is why I feel I must tell SOMEBODY about EVERY bad deed I've ever done, because Confession is in my nature, though I still cannot figure Christianity out {HE LOVES US, but WE MUST FEAR HIM???} I'm sure I just got it all wrong the first time and it all makes sense. Maybe Pope Emeritus Benedict 16's book contains some clues, helpful hints ...
... The Balinese are Hindus with a tiny Muslim minority and though everybody's good pals, officially, you can tell that they don't take the Muslims very seriously, or that they see them as ridiculous, with their evening prayers and non-pork eating [this in a land of daily flower and incense and fruit offerings to the many Hindu Gods, where cows roam free, swinging their tails at flies] Can't say "on sul hästi hästi" to the Muslims, they must be addressed with Selamat Tinggal. I kept thinking of Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam and Kätlin Mrabte, author of Minu Maroko, Gentile converts to Muhammedism and the thought that I was thinking was, "What, the hell were they thinking?" But here I am purchasing my copy of the Ramayana, so who am I to speak? Our taxi driver had what appeared to be large grains of salt pasted to his forehead. Must have been another high holy Hindu day ...
The Estonians claim to not be religious ... pure bunk, bullshit, jama. Explain to me all of your holy days then, my post-Soviet atheist friends ... Where were we? Oh, yes ...
So, next time an Estonian tries to tell you he's not religious, don't question his lack of faith. Simply cross your arms and put one foot in front of the other and sing, "Kaerajaan, kaerajaan." See if he doesn't join you.
... Lots of religious thoughts these days (not me, no, no conversion for me, never) They asked me what my faith was in Bali, I told them Catholic, not that I am one, but I once was one, and to-date, it's been my most enduring exposure to faith, which is why I feel I must tell SOMEBODY about EVERY bad deed I've ever done, because Confession is in my nature, though I still cannot figure Christianity out {HE LOVES US, but WE MUST FEAR HIM???} I'm sure I just got it all wrong the first time and it all makes sense. Maybe Pope Emeritus Benedict 16's book contains some clues, helpful hints ...
... The Balinese are Hindus with a tiny Muslim minority and though everybody's good pals, officially, you can tell that they don't take the Muslims very seriously, or that they see them as ridiculous, with their evening prayers and non-pork eating [this in a land of daily flower and incense and fruit offerings to the many Hindu Gods, where cows roam free, swinging their tails at flies] Can't say "on sul hästi hästi" to the Muslims, they must be addressed with Selamat Tinggal. I kept thinking of Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam and Kätlin Mrabte, author of Minu Maroko, Gentile converts to Muhammedism and the thought that I was thinking was, "What, the hell were they thinking?" But here I am purchasing my copy of the Ramayana, so who am I to speak? Our taxi driver had what appeared to be large grains of salt pasted to his forehead. Must have been another high holy Hindu day ...
The Estonians claim to not be religious ... pure bunk, bullshit, jama. Explain to me all of your holy days then, my post-Soviet atheist friends ... Where were we? Oh, yes ...
- Vastlapäev (Shrove Tuesday, celebrated by sledding, eating rolls filled with whipped cream)
- Jüripäev (Saint George's Day, April 23, celebrated by burning manor houses, killing landlords)
- Jaanipäev (the big one, Saint John's Day, June 24, celebrating by eating grilled meats, leaping over bonfires)
- Hingedepäev (All Souls' Day, Nov. 2, celebrated by lighting candles)
- Mardipäev (Saint Martin's Day, Nov. 11, celebrated by cross dressing)
- Kadripäev (Saint Catherine's Day, Nov. 25, also celebrated by cross dressing)
- Luutsipäev (Saint Lucy's Day, Dec. 13, also celebrated by lighting candles)
So, next time an Estonian tries to tell you he's not religious, don't question his lack of faith. Simply cross your arms and put one foot in front of the other and sing, "Kaerajaan, kaerajaan." See if he doesn't join you.
Tellimine:
Postitused (Atom)