True blue ambassadors

MP Marko Mihkelson has been blogging about his trip to Australia as part of a delegation led by Riigikogu chair Ene Ergma. It has convinced him that the Estonian government should seriously consider opening an embassy in Canberra (yes, it's the capital). Here is what he says.

Here and there in Estonia you hear dissenting voices saying: why should we bother building an embassy that far away and waste the state's money? It's obvious that the country's options are pretty limited when it comes to new embassies, so every decision to do so needs to be weighed up very carefully.

But if we are to establish embassies anywhere [other than the new ones planned for Egypt, Israel and India over the next couple of years], our first choice should be Australia. There are a number of reasons for this. For a start, Australia is one of our closest allies. Secondly, it is home to the fifth-largest Estonian population in the world and the only community of its size not to be represented by an embassy. Thirdly, Australia is the perfect gateway to south-east Asia and the Pacific. Fourthly, there is huge growth potential in bilateral trade of goods and knowledge. And fifthly, of the 27 member states of the European Union, 23 have embassies in Canberra. Those that don't are Luxembourg and the three Baltic States. Which says a lot.

Other factors which Mihkelson mentions, albeit not necessarily as part of his argument for setting up an embassy, are the fact that Estonia's ambassador to Australia is currently based in Japan (and I thought having to get my passport renewed through Stockholm was a pain in the arse!) and the revelation that the first Estonians in fact reached Terra Australis as long ago as 1696 - as part of the crew of a Dutch expedition led by Willem de Vlamingh. (I should probably point out to Sandy Casar, who pondered about this amazing discovery on Mihkelson's blog, that the likelihood of the three men in question 'staying on to live in Australia' is not very high.)

Mihkelson, Ergma and a few other MPs are ostensibly in Australia on an official visit to Sydney and Canberra, meeting parliamentary delegates, federal representatives and local Estonian residents and associations, but undoubtedly also living it up if our Marko's blog is anything to go by.

PS Can I work in the Australian embassy if one is ever opened here in Tallinn?

http://markomihkelson.blogspot.com/

Take a break, pack your things, walk away

If anyone was wondering - indeed, if anybody is still reading this blog apart from me - the relative dearth of posts in the run-up to the festive season is due to the fact that I am very busy getting things done before I go back to Australia for Christmas and New Year. That nothing much is happening that's worth reporting on is another factor, too. In any case, normal service is likely to resume in January. Häid jõule ja head uut aastat!

Putting the 'tour' back in 'tourism'

Postimees has reported the results of the Country Brand Index 2007, unveiled yesterday at the opening ceremony of the World Travel Market in London, the world's biggest travel trade fair. Taking top place once again as the most popular destination among tourists and travel professionals was Australia. Estonia failed to make the grade in any of the Index's 22 categories.

This is perhaps not very surprising for a country whose tourist industry, such as it is, is geared almost exclusively towards Tallinn's Old Town and omnipresent spa services. Considering the great majority of tourists to the country though are here for a day or two at best (as well as how beautiful the Old Town is), this is perhaps the way it should be.

Of course, the argument works the other way: if there were well-established, wide-ranging tourist services that gave visitors the opportunity to see more of the country - and let's face it, nowhere is more than a daytrip away - they might just stay longer, with their experience of Estonia not limited to a stroll on Town Hall Square, a meal at Olde Hansa and a quick facial.

To any budding entrepreneurs out there thinking of coming to Estonia and wondering what kind of business might be worth starting: there is a gaping hole in the market here for organised tours, and so much more to show people in Estonia than 99% of them ever see.

http://www.countrybrandindex.com/

There's no such thing as a free (school) lunch

A story with an actual Australian-Estonian connection made it into the press earlier in the week (yes, I know I'm playing catch-up here) with the news that Estonia may consider adopting the Australian system of higher education payments.

For those who aren't aware of how this works, and assuming nothing has changed since I went to uni - any Australians reading this feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - the system, called HECS or the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, basically means you don't have to pay for your university studies until you can afford to. Which is to say you still have to pay for some of your fees, but the majority is covered by the government until such a time as you can afford to pay it back.

There is one great benefit to this system for someone like me, who pretty much left Australia as soon as I graduated with my degree: having never since worked in the country for long enough to earn more than the however-many-thousands-of-dollar limit requiring you to start repaying your HECS debt, I have not to date had to pay a cent for my education. Presumably though for other ordinary people still living and working in Australia it all works quite conveniently and much like any other kind of loan repayment.

The call for change in Estonia has come about [not only because the increased level of affluence means that more people can probably afford to pay for their own educations anyway but also] because currently there is a perceived inequality in the fact that some students pay nothing for higher education while others do. But the arguments for and against are many, and much the same as those raised in Australia prior to the introduction of HECS.

Former Dean of the University of Tartu, one-time candidate for Estonian President and current Minister of Defence Jaak Aaviksoo warns that despite the generally positive reactions to the potential introduction of the Australian system, any such change would be a hugely sensitive political issue. He also spoke for many in pointing out that "Anyone who doesn't have to pay for their education at the moment is hardly likely to want to in future".

Tõnis Lukas, Minister for Education, while not necessarily against the plan, sees things differently. He says that in a country like Estonia, which hardly has the biggest population in the world and where the number of university students is steadily dropping (due to decreases in birth rates and such, not because they can't be arsed) (presumably), it is equally possible that the government will end up paying everyone's fees rather than demanding that everyone pay them themselves.

Which, I have been told, is what they do in Finland. (Any Finns reading this feel free to correct me blah blah.) It would be nice to see Estonia transform into an educational utopia, but in the meantime it is just as nice to see that something pioneered in Australia has become the model that up-and-at-'em nations are looking to adopt.

Cheap at half the price

The Australian Embassy in Berlin (seemingly the only one left on the continent that issues visas) announced on the quiet more than a week ago that citizens of Estonia - and indeed the rest of the EU - no longer need to pay for the issue of an electronic visa to enter Australia for up to three months. Who knew?

On a whim and a prayer

I met up with a guy yesterday who is about to embark on a year-long trip to Australia and was seeking a bit of advice. He'd heard from some Estonian acquaintances in Brisbane that Australia wasn't all it was cracked up to be*, so I imagine he was also seeking some reassurance. I championed my homeland to the best of my abilities, which are pretty limited, since he kept asking questions that ended in the words "these days", and since I haven't lived there permanently for the best part of seven years, I really have no idea. He nevertheless seemed buoyed by what I had to say, so the spin I put on it must have been positive enough.

The course of our conversation inevitably led to him asking me why I had come to Estonia, which is still a question I don't have a satisfying response to. You'd think I would seven years after first getting here, but I don't. I admire this guy - Jarkko is his name - for the preparation he is putting in to ensure that everything works out for him, at least in terms of getting himself set up, but it made me realise again how random my decision to come to Estonia was, and how lucky you can sometimes be when a whim pans out.

I've always been a firm believer that things will tend to work out the way you want them to, or at least that things will go as they go and there's not much you can do about it, apart from engineer them. That probably sounds paradoxical and naive by turns, but I don't know how else to express it. When I decided to leave Italy I could have ended up anywhere, but I chose Estonia. I wouldn't go so far as to say it chose me, but whatever the reasons were that I had for coming here - and I honestly can't remember what they were now; a vague interest in the language and a job offer, more or less - it certainly ended up being the right choice.

It could very easily have been the wrong one, I suppose, and in my first month here I did wonder if I'd selected too hastily. But you make your own luck, I think, and from the moment I consciously decided to invest myself in the place I haven't looked back. In that sense I suppose the outlook is good for Jarkko - he's been investing himself in his trip to Australia for quite some time already, and he's not even there yet. He's also very level-headed about the whole thing and not going into it with the bar raised too high, which his friends seem to have done. He'll just take things as they come, rather like I did. I sincerely hope things works out as well for him as they have for me.

*They were shocked that you can't get by on just a T-shirt at night in the middle of winter, even in Australia.

The ideas some people have

A box-out in the Kohver ('Suitcase') insert of this week's edition of Eesti Ekspress sees Sirle Seemen - who is or was at some point the chairwoman of the Estonian Society in Brisbane - relating the shocking events of a shooting that took place in Melbourne recently from the point of view of someone living at the other end of the country. In the article she paints a rather rosy picture of life in sunny Queensland. I quote verbatim (and shall provide a translation thereunder):

"Austraalia turvalisuse tase on väga kõrge, ütleksin, et üks kõrgeimad nende riikide seast, kus kunagi viibinud olen. Siin ei lukustata uksi, garaažid on ööpäev läbi avatud ja samuti autode uksed tänavatel. Röövimised on ennekuulmatud – kui mõni siiski juhtub, on see nädal aega tabloidide esikaanel! Ja öösel mööda pimedaid tänavaid jalutades ei teki kordagi ohutunnet, sest inimesed, kes sulle vastu tulevad, tervitavad ja naeratavad – võõraga pimedal tänaval silmside loomine julgustab.

Just selle kõige tõttu on Queenslandi osariigi inimestel raske mõista, mis toimub Victorias. Melbourne’i peetakse ju üldiselt üheks rahulikumaks ja romantilisemaks linnaks, kuhu noored nädalavahetust veetma sõidavad."

__________

"Australia is a very safe country – one of the safest of any I've been to. People here don't lock their front doors. Petrol stations are open 24 hours. They even leave their cars unlocked out on the streets. Robberies are unheard of – and if one does occur, it's headline news in the tabloids for a week! Walking the streets after dark never feels unsafe, because everyone you walk past smiles and says hi – and making eye contact with strangers on dark streets gives you confidence.

It's because of all this that the people of Queensland are having trouble comprehending what's been going on in Victoria. People think of Melbourne as being one of the most peaceful and romantic cities in the country – somewhere young people go to spend a fun weekend."

What, from Brisbane? Bit of a hike. And I know I haven't been to Brisbane in a long time, and have never lived there, but is it really such an idyll that even in 2007 no one locks anything? If Ms Seemen was based in Toowoomba or somewhere it might sound more plausible, but even then I doubt it. Does that make me a cynic?

http://www.ekspress.ee/viewdoc/4268981B7302AA2BC22573020040A4C8

One thing living away from Australia has shown me is that in many ways it is the Lucky Country, but there aren't half some daft things presented about the place as fact in the Estonian media, usually by people purporting to live there or to have travelled there extensively. The following is a good example. It's from an article entitled Even bananas raise eyebrows with Australian Customs that appeared in Estonia's leading business daily Äripäev. Edited highlights this time + translation:

"Lisaks keeletestile meeldib austraallastel proovida ränduri teadmisi maateaduses. Loodan geograafiaõpetajale mitte häbi teha, määrates lõunasuunda päikese järgi. Aga lõunapoolkeral tõuseb ju päike läänest ning lõunatunnil sirab põhjas. Loomulikult keerleb ka vesi teisipidi, autod sõidavad paremal teepoolel. Lapsepõlve veendumusele, et tegu on pea peal kõndijatega, ma siiski kinnitust ei leia."

__________

"It's not only your language skills Australians love to test: they'll also test your geography. I hope not to bring shame on my old geography teacher by using the sun to establish which way's south, but of course in the southern hemisphere the sun rises in the west and blazes at midday to the north. The water goes down the drain the other way too, and the cars drive on the right. But I find no evidence to confirm my childhood belief that people here walk on their heads."

Spot the mistakes? Answers on the back of a postcard to the usual address. The thing is, the rest of the article suggests that the author, Ave Adoberg, must have been on the package tour that is always advertised in the travel section of the Estonian papers, involving a lot of bus travel up and down the country. Can she really have failed to notice they were driving on the left the whole time? Maybe the bus did a lot of overtaking. Or maybe she was too busy trying to figure out which way was south, and confusing east with west.

http://www.aripaev.ee/3470/rpp_turism_347001.html

Blame the Dutch

And the Americans. It's really only in response to things that a couple of friends of mine* said about blogs never being worth reading that I thought I would start my own. Take that as you will.

Not sure who I expect to read it. Next to no one, presumably, given I've lived here for almost seven years and that any cultural references I make are likely to mean very little to anyone who is just planning to visit Estonia. And the readership who it might mean something to are probably the same people who'll hear me spouting off about such things anyway. Hmmm.

Bit of a potted history then: Australian, 29, lived in Estonia since 2000, having moved here with a teaching degree from Italy. Studied languages at university, with a triple major in Japanese, Latin and Italian, none of which have proven to be of any use to me other than in perhaps picking up languages generally more quickly. Spent roughly the first five years of my life here in Tallinn teaching English before making the switch to translating, having taught myself Estonian in the meantime. I've also authored and co-authored a couple of textbooks since I've been here, and worked as the Production Team Supervisor on the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002.

Most people ask me "why Estonia?" and my answer is always the same: vague. I don't really know. It was largely whim that brought me here in the first place, and I'm glad it did. Sometimes you just find yourself somewhere and think: this is right. I don't love my adopted country unreservedly; I'm too much of a realist, and too opinionated, and lucky to have been brought up in a country that never faced the struggles Estonia has.

I admire its pluck, but deplore its smugness. I love the fact that it is a quiet achiever, but hate it when that self-sufficiency is redressed, as nothing more than a means to an end, as vulnerability. I respect the people for their unwavering determination and unwillingness to submit to other people's values, but detest the hipocrisy and intolerance that this engenders.

Estonia is a complex place, ever-changing, and yet somehow always the same. And perhaps it's that very balance, odd though it may be, that I remain drawn to.

*you guessed it, one Dutch and the other American