Protecting the children of Estonia

Hot on the heels of the folk festival for wee ones, Õllesummer, Estonia's answer to Oktoberfest, comes to Tallinn's Song Festival Grounds this Wednesday for five days of beer, food and concerts. It is arguably the most popular festival on the Estonian calendar, drawing people from all over the country, elsewhere in the Baltic States, and beyond. This year's programme is an impressive list of local artists - including, appropriately enough, Tanel Padar, who was caught drink driving by police last weekend. ("I sincerely regret it," he revealed in a heartfelt press statement. Hard to tell whether he means driving under the influence or being caught doing so.)

A glance at the line-up for the final night of the festival is a good indicator of how it's being marketed these days: while most of the other concerts are predominantly rock and alternative, the big guns for the finale are an early evening performance by the country's newly crowned, first ever Pop Idol, and a tribute to ABBA. You see, attempts have been made in recent years to turn Õllesummer into more of a 'fun for all the family' event rather than just a great big piss-up, but this in turn presents its own problems.

Recent studies revealed that the average age at which Estonian children get their first taste of hard liquor is something like 11 or 12, with most claiming to have experienced a hangover or worse from excess consumption of alcohol by 15. Beer in this country is sold in plastic bottles that make it look remarkably like soft drink, and is available in just about every kiosk. Ditto breezers and such. Basically, alcohol is everywhere and kids clearly get their hands on it at absurdly young ages.

But parents who are worried about packing their kiddies off to Õllesummer - the same kids who were only there the other day in their knee socks and knickerbockers - lest they act like every other 12-year-old in Estonia and head straight for the beer tents need fear no more. Tallinn's Vice-Mayor, the tasty Jaanus Mutli (pictured), has reassured the mothers and fathers of the land that while he is in City Hall, no child shall get wiped out on Saku Originaal.

Mutli will be unleashing a herd of inspectors from the Consumer Protection Division of the City Enterprise Department on the festival to carry out raids on unscrupulous vendors. It will be interesting to see whether the Vice-Mayor and his team employ the same tactics as Mutli himself did recently in exposing the underbelly of Tallinn's taxi trade. He and the then Mayor, Jüri Ratas, donned wigs, fake moustaches, fake tan and lots of designer labels in black and pretended to be Italian business men for a couple of days, seeing how many taxi drivers would rip them off. (Answer: most of them.) Amusingly, the pair allowed themselves to be photographed in their disguises, presumably for posterity. They looked like knobs. Proved a point, though.

It just makes me wonder whether the Mutli crew will be employing their underage offspring and neighbours' children to see if they can get away with buying beer without being asked for ID. What a coup it would be.