EVS in Estonia

Yesterday, after work, we went to the village fair of Vandjala, a small village located in our reserve. We were to meet two French photographers there, who had asked us where to meet “real” estonian people. It was the perfect occasion : a very small local fair where everybody met each other to spend some nice time together. There were among others : traditionnal games, dances, songs, election of the chief of the village (not really like a mayor but just to represent the inhabitants during the meetings of the community district), cakes, home made beer (very sweet), false russian champagne and very good mood !

We met some very nice people there, very welcoming, as if we were part of the village. We almost managed to make a whole conversation in estonian with a kind lady. We even received the official tee-shirt of the village.

It was also the occasion to learn more about local stories and traditions, very interesting !

Finally, at the end of the day, we made a small tour of our reserve to Cyril and Julien, the two French photographers, and share with them a good meal.

Remember our weekend on Kihnu island… This report was realised during these few days between volunteers, thanks to the estonian association called Maailmakodanik , which mixes previous estonian volunteers who came back in their country after their EVS abroad, and some actual foreigners volunteers in Estonia, like both of us for example. This association regularly organizes some meetings and helps us to discover some places in Estonia hard to find by ourselves, everytime in a good mood.

Here are some interviews from different volunteers got together in this small report. Unfortunately we had to shorten it a little bit, to put it online. But we really hope that we will use the integral version to talk about the EVS program when we come back to France, in schools or youth organizations.

What seems to be very banal to us in France, becomes here an adventure…

For example, last weekend, we both decided to go to the haridresser (juuksur in estonian). We both were a little anxious trying to explain our haircut to an estonian hairdresser, but as we are courageous we finally got an apointment.

The woman who took care of us, spoke a little english and was very nice. Quite brusque in her movements, we sometimes got the impression that she was pulling our head out instead of our hairs, but she told the story of her country so passionately and she seemed to be really fond of her job, that we forgot her.

Finally we got out of there with a quite nice haircut, a little shorter than expected from Jonathan’s point of view, but it was a risk to take. At least, we won’t be too hot this summer.

As French citizens, we received an invitation to the French Ambassy reception on the 14th of July in the Kadriorg gardens, in Tallinn. We tried to dress as best as we could with our volunteer clothes, but many people wore very fancy dresses. It was very agreable afternoon and the white tables decorated with blue white and red flowers (colour of the French flag but the blue flower used was the estonian national flower) were very good looking in these Versailles-looking gardens.

I shook the hands of a few people thinking they might be the embassador before finally meeting him and his wife. It was the first time I have seen an ambassador be so natural and speaking to people on the same level. During that evening we enjoyed a good 15 minute conversation with him, listening to his interesting stories and telling him a little more about our volunteering. He seemed glad to see two young French people volunteering, and said he might stop by on his way maybe some time this summer. A prestigeous visitor to our museum !

Unfortunately they had not planned to have so many people at their reception and most of them had not called before. Therefore, the four cheese plates disapeared in an instant with all those French people craving for good cheese ! We enjoyed the company at our table and the band singing a few French classics.

Tallinn’s zoo is one of estonian’s favourite weekend day trip, especially for families. It’s perfect on a sunny day. Ours was pouring with rain. The reason why we absolutely wanted to go was that we had promised to one of our estonian friends which we had met during our archeological work.

She was helping in a protection program trying to preserve the european mink from the spread of the american specie which is larger and more ferocious. It is hard to believe when you see these small creatures but Mari, our friend, describe them as “evil” though she still liked them a lot. These minks are now only found on the island of Hiumaa, on the west part of Estonia. The project had originally been supported by the European Union, but after some time, the subsidies ended and they are now trying to continue this program with much less financial support.

Though it was our first time in the zoo, we ended up helping our friend taking care of the minks, filling the tanks with water. We hoped some of them would come and play with the water hose as Mari told us they might, but it was too cold for them outside I guess. We only saw one playing in its water tank and it was incredible how much it seemed at ease in this element.

We spent a nice time with Mari talking, and she showed us around the zoo.

The sunday after our kayak trip, we were called by our new friend : André and his wife, to accompany them on a hike to a place where we would have not been able to go without a car. It was a strange trail for it went through marshlands on a board-walk. It was a completely different environment than what we can see arround our place in Jõelähtme. The only similarity was that it was hardly populated. You could see swamps to the horizon. The only dry place was on these boards which they set in the winter when the marshes are frozen. To get a better point of view, some watch-towers were placed along the way and revealed great landscapes.

Towards the end of our hike, we got to a little hill with a set of lakes on top. We walked through the forest, eating our way through, with strawberries, blueberries, as well as “murakas” which are a strange looking berry, a bit like a raspberry except it turns yellow when it’s ripe and is pink when it’s not. The last scenery which we saw was a tundra-like landscape on a site where the Soviets had bombed the area before leaving. The vegetation was very low and similar to what I had seen in Alaska (though this one was not natural).

A good work out, in nice company, to continue this very sportive weekend !

On the 6th of July, we went on a kayaking trip. It had been offered to us by the city of Jõelahtme, to thank us for the work we had done at the Jägala waterfalls.

It started from the beach of Valkla, a small village about 20km from our place. We had to take the one and only bus that went there in the afternoon and then walk 2km through the woods to get to the beach. Oh, I forgot to mention… it was very grey and rainy. But we didn’t think about that yet, for we enjoyed the wild strawberies and blueberries which grew all over the place.

We got there a little early and sat on a log on the beach, watching courageous kite-surfers (yes, since there are hardly any waves, one has to be pulled by a kite to surf) testing their sails and surfing these very cold waters.

Our turn finally came and we were shown to our kayaks. There were about 6 or 8 of us in double kayaks. Amelie got in front and was our “motor” and I was in back steering (and helping the “motor” when it died) The begining of the excursion was a bit hard, for you are not used to the equipment yet and that’s exactly where it is the hardest to paddle, for the little waves that there are come splashing right into your face and bring you back to the beach. We finally got coordinated in our movements and the sea was more gentle, which made it easier to tour a nearby Island (named Peter Island) which is still pretty well preserved and is not inhabited permanently (only a cabin you can rent). We had a few stops to recover and enjoyed a wonderful sunset. The grey sky just cleared up for us and became all orange, the perfect light to paddle back to the mainland (see picture). We had very soar muscles and were tired (it was about 11pm when the sun set) but we loved it anyway.

We also met a very nice guy who brought us back home (thankfully) and whom you will hear about in a next article…

It’s been a while since we did this presentation in order to promote the Rebala Heritage Reserve, where we are doing our european volunteering service.

Now it is time to share it with you… Here is the result of our work, we are quite proud of it.

It will enable you to discover more and more our reserve. Have a nice visit !

We learned the sad news by receiving Leelo’s text message “not cow, not milk”. We understood that the only cow of our village was dead. Leelo was felt miserable, we probably will try to cheer her up in the next days.

Unfortunately, we will not have good cow milk anymore. Leelo was very anxious, she thought that we won’t ever come to see her. But we reassured her, the milk was only a good excuse to have a nice time with her, talking, half in estonian, the other half in english.

An other funny thing when we are walking in the streets of Tallinn, is trying to understand the advertising pannels. We manage quite well this exercice, and we really love the humour and creativity of estonian campaigns. The estonians seem to be very good graphists. They even make publicity for strawberries ! The road signs are sometimes amazing, and make us laugh a lot. It is fun also to see the movies posters, translated in estonian, like “Shrek kolmas” or “oceani kolmteist”

Here is a small composition on the trams of Tallinn. There are a lot of them, different from one to another. They probably create regularly some new ones. We have our favorites, but all are very nice as they are colourfull and bring life to the capital city.

The tickets are also coloured, they cost 8,50 kroon by 10 ( a little more if you buy them directly to the driver). You have to obliterate them in old machines, which make some holes in them, depending of the line you take. For the moment, not all the trams have the automatic system working.

Here is a little article about one of our numerous gastronomical discoveries…
These pelmeenid, as we call them here, are very similar to ravioli. It is made with pasta filled with small pieces of meat. As our estonian teacher told us, the students are crazy about them, because it is really easy to cook, you just have to heat them up in a pan. “Head isu !” (Enjoy your meal, bon appétit!)

Recently, Margit gave us one of our summer missions : we are working at the Lastekangrud site so that it can be more attractive for visitors. For that, we have to refix the tombs, stone after stone.

This task is quite physical, but we can do it when ever we want, especially when the weather is fine. In addition, the place is very nice, and full of wild strawberries, perfect for little breaks !

We hope that we will manage to finish this work before the end of the summer, but it takes us quite a long time, as there are only two of us.

This time, the video is a small presentation to show you more better our work.

The day before the Singing festival, the same thing, for dancing takes place. This event also brings thousands of young people together to dance in costume to traditional tunes or others written for the occasion. The Tantsupidu is classified by the UNESCO as a world imaterial heritage. How could it not be ? It’s simple, there’s nothing like it anywhere.

It looked a bit like what certain bands do while playing. Crossing and making shapes on the field, except this was done with real dancing movements and thousands of people at once. The visual effect it produced was incredible.
Though I’ve always liked traditional dancing, I never would have thought that I’d ever have tears in my eyes watching people dance in costume… Pictures can’t really show how it felt. You couldn’t even see all at once through the camera !

If the spectators were singing along and enjoying the show, the dancers themselves, mostly children, were seemingly enjoying themselves as well ! they were laughing and smiling and it all looked like a lot of fun. One could see in older people’s eyes that they were proud of their youth. They could be !

Last Weekend we assisted to this fabulous event called “Laulupidu”. A song festival where 18500 people came together from all over the countryin traditional dresses to sing songs about love, nature, unity…. Estonia is a singing country, since it gained its independence through singign, in what was called “the singing revolution”. Since then it has kept its traditions. Everybody wore a traditional dress, which was amysing how many different costumes they could come up with for such a small country !

here are a few facts about it :
- 831 choirs with more than 26 000 singers in all
- 47 orchestras with more than 1600 young orchestrants
- alltogether almost 100 000 people, that counts for apprx 8% of Estonian population.
- Estonians (though it’s a very small country) have the biggest song festival in the world !

For us it was just amaysing to see all of this hapening. How can we have never heared about it before though it is in Europe ! These thousands of children and young people getting together to sing ! about being together, peace, love … I don’t kow that many places in the world which have that. And the worst is that this was supposed to be the “small” one. There is a much larger event, with 30000 people (adults) every 5 years. We were at least lucky we could see it when we were in Estonia.

We’re so grateful Margit and Merle gave us these tickets for my birthday, it probably will be one of the highlights of our stay here.