EVS in Estonia

Last Weekend, The Vabaohumuseum, which is an open Air museum near Tallinn, was celebrating it’s 5Oth anniversary and had invited artists and craftsmen to come for a market, with foods, music, dances, the eternal swing, and many people in costumes from all over Estoniia. We even saw some Setu people which is a minority living in the very south of Estonia and have a peculiar dress, with a silver plate and necklaces in front. These people are still very attached to traditions and have managed to keep their dialect, and style of life.
We had hardly found our way to this place, in the middle of the woods, that I was pulled by the hand and encouraged to dance. Hopefully, we had practiced our dancing in Joelahtme before !

We wandered around the different stalls and couldn’t resist bying ourselves some delicious foods (see picture) :
- some honey from a lady who had a very small production
- some smoked salmon
- smoked Herring Filets
- Finally ! a good looking farm made cheese (with taste, at last !)
- last but not least, a very long ………………. MOOSE dried sausage. strange idea, but very tasty !

Then we had to go check out an exibit about our reserve (yes yes !) SOme people had taken pictures of our unique landscapes and portraits of the local inhabitants. The exibit was pretty well done and we thought we might try to borrow it from them once it was over… (you can see it in the video).

This past week, the Old town of Tallinn has been having all kinds of shows, music conserts, dances… we were able to see some of the begining of the festivities which started by a school dancing contest. Though some of the dances had ridiculous music, it didn’t seem easy to do all the moves the children were doing. We couldn’t help filming it so we could share it with you. have fun !

Here is a little account of a beautiful day we spent in Vormsi, an island (one of the largest in size in estonia, but only 16km long) not too far from haapsalu. We had a nice journey and shared some homemade chocolate cake we had brought, with the other volunteers.
Once landed on Vormsi, we rented some bikes and decided to do one loop around half of the island (the only roads are in the shape of an 8 ) there’s hardly anybody living on Vormsi and you an se signs with “the hairdresser truck will pass through the village at 3pm on tuesday 12th” all the people get their hair cut on the same day ! that must be something.

We had hardly started cycling that we noticed two deer grazing in the distance. in just a few hours, we saw about 7 of them ! there were many more plants and wildlife than anywhere else and the houses were still like they used to be in estonia in the olden days. It was as if time had stopped and everything had stayed intact. A great feeling.

We enjoyed being together and could share some conversations as we rode our bikes, only disturbed by a few mosquitos. We saw a chapel dedicated to St Olaf (very popular saint around here) and some round crosses, similar to the celtic ones.

In the evening, we were treated to a local cafeteria, where they served some regional food in an oldy atmosphere.
A great day, which was ended by our return trip and some irish tin whistle playing on the boat… very appreciated by the
passengers !

Haapsalu : a peaceful city on the west coast of estonia, with calm waters, lagoons, where swans float by as if they were lakes. We loved to discover this city during our on-arrival training. We walked along the “promenaad” and saw all the coloured houses, the medieval castle, the harbour as well as the railroad museum. You’ll see in the video a nice sunset as well, which lasted for hours because of the light difference up north, perfect for pictures (except for mosquitos which are coming out now).

Hope you will like the video as well, have a nice visit !

We’ve just come back from four wonderful days spent in Haapsalu, on the west coast of Estonia. It was an on-arrival training, to discuss and share ideas, points of views about the European Volunteering Service, but also discover a new part of Estonia and make new friends. All these objectives were met we think, and we have a little better idea on “how big is your EVS ?” the first question we had to answer.
There were only 5 of us, a very small group for a training, but which was a great opportunity to get to know each other quickly and better than if there had been 20 of us. Appart from Amelie and I from France, there was an Latvian girl, and an Italian and Georgian guy. Our two trainers were “authentic” Estonians and very good embassadors of their country (as well as for the values of the EVS)
We had a great time and met a German volunteer who lives and works at present in Haapsalu. We had a wondeful meal in a restaurant all together and she then showed us around town…

We’ll tell you more about it in other articles, especially about an Island Called Vormsi which we also discovered during these 4 days.
So keep checking the blog, there’s more to come soon !

Sometimes, when walking by a river or in a forest, one might find these locks on bridges, or around trees. This tradition is still followed by many young couples who put these in places they like and throw the key. The symbol is nice, so we wanted to share it with you… so here are two pictures we took of these locks, on a suspended bridge in Rebala Heritage Reserve.

It all started out with a rainy sunday… not much to do except maybe walk around Tallinn and find ourselves a nice little cafe. That was until Margit called us to suggest we come with her and her children, to Lahemaa National Park. It’s not that far from where we live, but it’s not very easy to discover it without a car, so this was the perfect opportunity.

We tried to escape the rain by getting nearer to the coast, where a clear blue sky still shone. We got a little lost in the forest, but ended unexpectedly near the largest boulder in Estonia. It was as tall as a house, and when you think these granit stones were brought from finland by glaciers of the Ice Age, one can imagine how imposing the glaciers were.

We had a little picknic and then headed to a river with small waterfalls and a cute trail following the river. At one point there was an older man getting water from a metal tube hanging over the river and coming from a clift on the opposite shore. There was a source of drinkable water there, and this man got his water from there.

At the end of our hike, the weather was getting grey again, almost time to go, but we had to try the swing, with Margit’s children this time. We went a little further than on our last try, but we’re still far from going all the way around ! (actually you can’t with the group swings…)

It ended up being a pretty full and agreable day after all !

On Thursday 10th, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Rebala Heritage Reserve at Lastekangrud, an archeological site (in the middle of nowhere) which was excavated a few years ago and where they discovered remains dating back to the bronze age.
We go up early and helped for the preparations, putting up a huge tent to welcome about 40-50 people, fixing coffee for everyone and installing all the equipment for the different presentations which were to take place on that day.

Previously, we had built a stone wall to mark the entrance of the site, and we also had helped make the invitations which were sent out. The guests came as planned. Specialists, archeologist, or just local people came to listen to the different lectures given about what was achieved since the reserve was created during the soviet times up to now.

We served food and drinks and attended to small problems when they occured (like the generator stoping in the middle of a presentation, because it ran out of gas). Overall, everything went pretty smoothly, but we returned home a little tired.

We haven’t told you much about it, but you might remember our previous attempts about learning estonian. Well, we’re still working at it and now have a new course we can attend, which is in a local school in Loo (where we gave our tourism course) . We go there twice a wek to meet Erika, who usually teaches english to younger children, but accepted to help us out to learn estonian. Actually, we’re doing good, progressing as we can and doing our exercises like good students. We are learning basic things, such as learning how to present ourselves, parts of the body, reading the time, naming objects and food or building very simple sentences. These get us around and help us in our everyday life, an extra motivation for us to listen and try to understand.
We come back with the school bus, which is quite a fun experience. The bus goes through all the small villages nearby and drops each person in front of his or her house. We’re always last to get off and the driver looked surprised the first time he saw us stopping at the museum, for he didn’t know anybody lived in it !

We’re so close to the coast, but there are very few places or roads leading to the sea. most of the beaches around are still wild, and are basically a muddy swamp mixing with sea water. That’s why migratory birds love it so much ! To fight this frustration of not seeing the baltic sea, we tried to take an early bus (which didn’t com) and were droped off by a friend of ours to the small fisherman’s village of Neeme.

This village is on no tourist guide, for it is very small and there isn’t much to see, but a tip of land going into the sea, with a few houses in the trees. For us however, it was perfect, for we could take a litle walk on the pristine, untouched beach, with a beatiful sun shining and hardly any wind. The sea was as flat as a mirror and it was very peaceful to just sit in the sand listening to birds and writing in our travel notebook. I built a small boat with a few branches and left it floating on the calm water.

We went to the tip of the peninsula, to admire the view and see a small abandoned lighthouse. We could see in the distance, some islands which we might go visit sometime this summer.

The other day, there was a kayak competition going on near the Jagala falls. Since we had cleaned up the place from all the trash, we wanted to see what it looked like when people were there and see the kayak competition.
The goal was to go down the river as quick as possible, going through “gates” (green or red) . the green ones mean they can go strait through, but the red ones mean they have to go around and go through the gate paddling against the current. It was nice to see and I was near the start as well as some of the first gates. I therefore got some nice shots of the kayak-men in action.

We just wanted to show you this : everytime we go to Loo, for our estonian course, we see these very long trains, probably filled with oil from Russia. We quit trying to count how many wagons they pulled, but it sure is impressive, especially as they go very slow… had you ever seen a train so long ?

At our local “culture house” there is always something going on : from dancing to theater, or a dog contest… but what we went to see was the “witches night” a german tradition, which estonians adopted way back when they were under german power. It was a pagan ritual, to celebrate the earth and the arrival of spring. As in other places, a great bonfire was lit for the occasion and split logs were set on fire on stones sticking out of the river : a great effect !

We were lucky enough to have our own witch in Jõelahtme all dressed up and preparing a potion. she did a little magic and shared the drink with the children and the people around. we were gladly surprised to taste warm apple juice with cinnamon…
Then we all gathered inside and played some games before dancing to the music of a local band.
It sure was a lot of fun and we felt we were well intergrated in the local life.

The EURO 26 youth card is available to all young people aged under 26. You don’t have to be a student, you don’t even have to be a European citizen to benefit from hundreds and thousands of discounts !
We had already used this card on a trip to Spain, it had proven itself very useful, for it enabled us to do more things while travelling on a small budget. This time, we renewed our cards in Estonia, where there are less discounts for the moment, but they’re working on it. It’s always nice to know you can get a discount even when you’re not a student anymore.
Here are some of the fields it covers :
- Culture theatres, cinemas, concerts, museums, festivals, events
- Transport buses, trains, ferries, air travel
- Travel accommodation, holiday-trips, language courses
- Shops CD’s, books, fashion, sports gear… and lots more!
- Services insurance, travel assistance, helplines, press subscriptions, pre-booking of tickets to cultural events..

One month ! We’ve spent that much time here and it’s gone by so fast…
Today we celebrated with what was left of a delicious Carrot-cake I’d made (though it was not nearly as good as my grandmothers !) But as you can see on the picture, it was very much appreciated by our two colleagues, who had never tasted such a thing before. I’ll pass on the recipe.

I’ll take advantage of this article, to thank you who are reading this blog, for your support which makes us feel close to you, though we are far from everything. We hope we will keep on giving you new stories and enable you to discover as much as possible Estonia.