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!

Can you even feel your heartbeat in this senseless city, babe?

In news everyone needed to know, SL Õhtuleht reports that pop tart Charlene has been telling celebrity trash mag Just! that she is so obsessed by high heels that she is never without a pair of stilettos, even at home.

"I know it's not normal, but the first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning is slip on a pair of stilettos with 10 cm heels and straight away I feel fantastic," revealed the one-time Eurolaul singer, in an article charmingly titled MTV reporter wears fuck-me heels around the house. "People have even said to me I don't know how to walk in anything less!"

Underscoring the wild side of the starlet's nature, and her love of 'extreme experiences', the piece - whose accompanying photo reveals she has as much fashion sense as ever - goes on to talk about Charlene's adventures in the Far East, where she once let an elephant sit on her. "Oh, that was cool! Such an amazing massage. And I didn't break a single rib!"

To witness one of Charlene's (and the nation's) most extreme experiences - her two minutes and fifty-eight seconds of fame during the 2004 national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest - visit https://www.etvpluss.ee/saated.aspx?id=791. Mind, you'll have to pay 6 kroons for the privilege.

Revolting

Edgar Savisaar is to face a mass demonstration outside City Hall on Friday in protest at his proposed 150% hike on land tax. Which is not to say he will address them, but rather that if he happens to be there and looks out the window, he'll see a rather large crowd of people calling for his resignation.

Gunnar Stahl, the organiser of the rally, has been behind a letter-box drop urging residents of Tallinn to rise up against their mayor, albeit in a very calm and dignified way in which their displeasure is expressed through their presence and their placards - which are sure to reflect the general opinion that the plan stinks more than the city's sewers, which any revenue generated through the rate rise would be designed to improve.

Though espousing a peaceful protest, Stahl is using fighting words. "Our demonstration will go ahead as scheduled unless Savisaar scraps the plan by 13 December at the latest - and apologises to the nation on the 9 o'clock news that night for the mistakes he has made!" Here here.

She works hard for the money

In yet another Eurostat report, Estonia has ended up on the podium once again - albeit this time for a good reason. It has taken the bronze in the race to see which member state employs the most women.

Only beaten to the top spot by Sweden and Slovenia, Estonia registered unemployment among 'working-age' women (aged 25-54 for the purposes of this survey) in 2006 of just 14.3%, almost 10% lower than the EU average. The country scored even better in the 55-64 range, coming second.

Unfortunately, on the back of this good-for-equal-opportunities news comes the revelation in a different report of the stark contrast that remains between the amount women in Estonia are paid for what they do and the amount men are paid for doing the same thing: on average, female workers receive 28% less.

Add to this the findings of another report again (this one from Eurofound) that simply working in Estonia doubles your risk of occupational health problems compared to other EU countries and perhaps the country doesn't have all that much to crow about: they might have more than the average number of women in work, but they are likely to receive a third less pay for what they do than the men folk and twice as likely to do themselves an injury in the process.

Borderline

Latvian president Valdis Zatlers and Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves will come together to mark the two countries' accession to the Schengen zone on 21 December at the Valga/Valka border crossing, where they will perform the ceremonial removal of the barrier dividing the two cities and countries.

"Taking into account the shared history of our cities (dating back 720 years - Ed.) and the partnership we share today, removing the physical barrier between them bears enormous significance for the future," said Valga mayor Ivar Unt. "With the border gone, the opportunities for our two countries to interact and work together will be even greater."

Alo vanishing on 21 December will be surly border guards in their boxes at Terminals A through D in the Port of Tallinn for ferries leaving for and arriving from Finland and Sweden (and any other Schengen countries, which in this case is to say Germany). Perhaps they'll all be packed off to the eastern front, where border crossings with Russia are, conversely, to be reinforced.

The Estonian jet-set will have to exercise a little more patience, however, as Schengen passport-free fun times for all at Tallinn (and, er, Kuressaare) Airport are not scheduled to be introduced until March - giving new members much needed extra time to complete the required terminal renovations.

Depressing realisation

SL Õhtuleht today has an interview with Finnish historian Martti Turtola, who claims that the view of Estonia as poor cousin in his country has disappeared almost entirely without trace.

"There may well have been people who looked down their noses at Estonia before, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but not any more. It has come on so rapidly that everyone ought to be green with envy."

The historian says that the Finns have in fact learnt a thing or two from their southern neighbours. "Mostly to do with their lifestyle," he explains. "Finns are a very serious bunch. I lived in Estonia for four years and I realised that while our histories are similar, for some reason Estonians are much happier."

If that's the case, what does it say about Finns?

http://www.sloleht.ee/index.aspx?id=257431

Who's stitching up who?

The Northern Estonian Regional Hospital has complained to Eesti Päevaleht Online that the foreigners who scarper before paying for the medical services they have to keep giving them are causing them headaches of their own.

“The problem with Johnny Foreigner,” says hospital board member Eve Karmo, “is that he's generally shipped to our door by ambulance with nothing on him to tell us who he is and in no fit state to tell us himself.”

Karmo singles out a very particular kind of foreigner as being of the troublesome variety: “These English lads who come here, waste all of their money on goodness knows what kind of 'entertainment', fall arse over tit and get sent to us. We stitch them up, they disappear and the only thing we can put on the unpaid bill is 'foreigner', or at best 'British citizen'.”

Karmo says that even if they do manage to make out a name, very few visitors from abroad who are brought to the hospital have their EU health insurance card on them or anything else indicating that they are insured, assuming they are in the first place. In the case of the other major problem group for the hospital - Estonia's eastern neighbours - they are unlikely to have any, as they are often paid in brown paper envelopes.

While praising embassies for the help they provide in identifying these shameless stealers of health services, Karmo would much rather the assistance wasn't required in the first place. She advises all Estonian travellers (presumably including those planning on spending all of their time getting pissed and ending up in hospital) to stock up on health insurance whenever they go abroad, even if it is within the EU.

“Your health insurance card will cover first aid, but not much else. If you're halfway up a mountain skiing somewhere and take a tumble and have to be airlifted to Estonia flat on your back, things could get quite expensive.”

http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/410335

Please note: translations of direct quotes in this article may be slightly more colourful than the originals.

Haute cuisine

A survey ordered by the Ministry of Agriculture has revealed that the two things tourists associate most closely with Estonian cuisine are meat and beer.

The survey showed that tourists remain pleasantly surprised by their encounters with the nation's food and drink, describing it as "good, tasty and fresh". Daytrippers and weekend getaway visitors are also better informed than they have ever been about - and increasingly interested in - the country's national dishes.

When asked to nominate what they thought most characteristics of Estonian dinner tables, 46% of tourists nominated meat, 22% said fish, and 10% each posited potatoes, cakes and the like (including "it's not cheesecake but we'll call it that anyway" kohupiimakook) and cabbage. Beer was most frequently seen to be the national drink, with the full list almost entirely comprising different types of alcohol.

Many tourists expressed disappointment that traditional Estonian food was so hard to come by on their visits, highlighting the small number of restaurants that offer it. When they found them, though, they clearly spent big: an average of 1457 kroons per person per day on food and drink, almost twice the amount spent in 2006. Mind you, this figure also included money spent on stuff they were able to take home with them as comestible souvenirs; chocolate proved most popular, although one in five also stuck some black bread in their suitcases.

The other four clearly already had them stuffed full of Viru Vodka and Gin Long Drink.

Don't talk to strangers

Postimees has reported on the results of a recent Eurobarometer study which reveal that Estonians are the most parcohial in the European Union when it comes to mixing with people of other nationalities or religions.

Those surveyed were asked whether they had had any contact in the preceding seven days with anyone of a different nationality or religion, from another EU member state or from a country outside of the EU. Out of the 27 countries covered by the study, Estonia scored lowest, with just 43% saying they had.

On the plus side, and bolstering its reputation as 'E-stonia', the country topped the list of the EU 27 for contact made with foreigners via the Internet. Of course, this could also be seen as a bit of an indictment in the sense of Estonians requiring the "look but don't touch" safety of a computer screen for them to make contact in the first place.

Coming full circle, Estonia again came bottom of the pile in another aspect of the survey: designed to gauge how clued-up Europe's citizens are ahead of 2008, the EU's Year of Intercultural Dialogue, it showed that Estonians were one of only two groups in the union to the majority of whom the term 'intercultural dialogue' meant nothing at all.

Perhaps the extra attention that is paid to such issues as migration, minorities and multilingualism in the new year will see them fare a little better in time for Tallinn's adoption of the European Capital of Culture title in 2011.

http://www.postimees.ee/041207/lisad/euro/299510.php?eesti-inimesed-on-elis-teiste-rahvuste-suhtes-koige-pelglikumad

A ladybird never changes its spots

National mobile operator EMT has dropped plans to change from a second-based to a minute-based rate on calls following a media backlash and word of their biggest corporate clients - their core market as things stand these days, in terms of profit - deserting them in droves.

The plan was announced in an understandably not very high profile way with the promise that since the average phone call in the EMT network lasts 58 seconds, the changes would mean very little to the purse strings of Joe Blogs. This little subterfuge backfired on the company though when journalists began filling column inches with their own calculations based on old bills - revealing that Joe Blogs would in fact end up paying upwards of 50% more every month for the same amount (or fewer) calls.

Its unpopularity compounded by big business threatening to walk over the issue, the plan was sunk, and EMT today announced that they had scrapped it. "We listened to what our clients had to say and came to the conclusion that the market is not ready to move on from second-based call rates," said the company's chairman, who thanked EMT's customer's for their [vocal] feedback.

However, the company has not ruled out introducing the system in future, and will be ushering it in through the back door from the 1st of January with competitively priced packages operating on the minute-based system. An anonymous editorial in Postimees today views the inflated costs that such a system would bring with it as inevitable, pointing out that EMT and other operators have reached a point where the market is so saturated with low-priced deals that they will have no choice but to start charging more.

There are 116 active SIM cards in Estonia per 100 people.

Movie magic comes to town!

It was announced at the European Film Awards in Berlin last night that Tallinn has been given the honour of hosting the event in 2010. The city's hotels and night spots will undoubetedly ooze with glitz the likes of which they have never seen before as the cream of European cinema descends upon them in their thousands. The grey of early December will never have seemed so colourful. Etcetera.

PÖFF director and European Film Academy member Tiina Lokk says that winning the right to host the awards is fantastic news. "The event will give Estonia's film lovers the chance to get up close and personal with the film stars of Europe and will bring with it all the glamour of such a gala," she said, or words to that effect, tapping into one of the most virulent commercial obsessions in the country at the moment. (Absolutely everything is 'glamorous'.)

On the practical side, the 'European Oscars' are sure to attract a great number of influential people from the industry to Tallinn as well as hundreds of international press, which if nothing else will see the city and country mentioned in the media for something other than its alcohol and health problems and strained relations with Russia for a change. The awards are also broadcast in more than 60 countries, which will presumably raise Estonia's profile in a way that hasn't been seen since it hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002.

The organising committee will undoubtedly be keen to 'exchange experiences' - which they bang on about here all the time - with 2006 and 2008 hosts Warsaw and Copenhagen in order to make the most of the chance being the organisers of the away game offers them (Berlin hosts the event every other year). Given that it will take place less than a month before Tallinn adopts the title of European Capital of Culture, it is, I suppose, rather a big deal.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I guess I should give myself a pat on the back for the fact that Tallinn was successful in its bid: it was yours truly who translated the "please pick us for the following reasons" letters sent to the European Film Academy by City Hall and whoever else. Maybe they'll give me a free pass to the gala ceremony?

Smart [cl]asses

A three-year OECD study has revealed that Estonia teenagers are the fifth smartest bunch of kids in the world.

According to Postimees, the results of the international PISA test, carried out among 15 year olds in 57 countries, show that the knowledge and skills of Year 9 students from Estonia outclassed those of all of their peers bar those from Finland, Hong Kong, Canada and Taiwan, and equalling those of Japan. Fellow neighbours Sweden, Latvia and Russia languished outside of the top twenty.

"To paraphrase the prime minister, we've become one of the top five best educated countries in the world, and that's something we should be proud of," said Minister for Education Tõnis Lukas, referring to Andrus Ansip's election pledge to see Estonia as one of the five richest countries in Europe within 15 years. "It's arguably much more important than being one of the world's five wealthiest nations," he added.

http://www.postimees.ee/301107/esileht/siseuudised/298749.php

Things just got a hole lot better

In a series of moves indicative of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, City Hall has announced that just about every tax and fee imaginable in the city is set to skyrocket in the new year.

The Centre Party-dominated city government (or council, whichever one it is that makes these decisions), led by their supremo, mayor Edgar Savisaar, first revealed that land tax in the city would more than double from the 1st of January. This discouraging move would be in line with their vision of having everyone relocate to the city centre from the outskirts if it weren't for the fact that they're also putting up downtown parking fees. Shooting up by as much as 50% in the Old Town, the new prices - in the rest of the city at least - have been defended by Vice Mayor Jaanus Mutli as 'still being cheaper than in Helsinki'.

This in turn could be in line with City Hall's policy on roadworks: the 2008 budget has seen spending on the city's pot-holes-and-no-gutters infrastructure slashed. Perhaps the idea is that if people are stubborn enough to live on their own property in the suburbs and still drive into the city, they will have to put up with bad roads and high parking prices when they get there.

On the other hand, if they idea is to clear the roads of cars and get people onto public transport (which will still be travelling on the terrible roads they won't be spending nearly as much money on) it seems strange that the other major announcement was that ticket prices for buses, trams and trolleybuses would also be going up (yet again) in 2008, by as much as 20%.

Never missing an opportunity to pass the buck and/or take a swipe at the government, our Jaanus explained this away as being the result of rising fuel prices and the state's decision to increase excise duties. He also added that drivers are demanding pay rises and that the city has to fund the purchase of new vehicles without any of the help that other towns and counties receive from the central government.

However, in news that would have brought sweet relief to about three people in the country, Mutli revealed that the list of people who can travel on public transport for free will be expanded from New Year's Day - to include those Estonians who were involved in the clean-up operations following the Chernobyl disaster. Won't they be sitting pretty... providing they're in good health, living in the city centre, don't own their own property and don't have a car they need to park on the street.

No more art for you

The Ministry of Education has announced that it will be discontinuing the project developed by former minister Mailis Reps which would have seen every Year 7, 8 and 9 student in every school in Estonia sent on all-expenses paid excursions to the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the Louvre in Paris out of taxpayers' pockets to get a closer look at the works of art they would only ever otherwise have seen in their textbooks and probably weren't interested in anyway.

A lucky 14 busloads of students and teachers managed to make it to Russia's greatest gallery on field trips costing the state (and by extension you and me our share of) 85,000 kroons each before the ministry decided to axe the programme on the grounds that continuing it would be a waste of money and serve very little point.

Devastated 13, 14 and 15 year olds up and down the country will have to content themselves with Estonia's premier art gallery, Kumu, even if they (or their parents) do have to shoulder the cost of admission. Luckily for them, it's fabulous.

Tongue-tied

A German guy called Berthold Forssman has had an essay published on Delfi debunking the myth that Estonian is a difficult language to learn.

After waffling on a bit - recounting situations I have found myself in, highlighting some of the trickier areas of grammar and vocabulary and, not unfoundedly, accusing the Estonians themselves of being part of the problem in how they deal with foreigners trying to speak their language - he makes this pertinent [paraphrased] point:

What is the use in promoting your own language as being horrendously difficult? Estonians are proud of their language and love it, and this has kept them from dying out and helped to maintain the independence of their country. I'm as happy about this as they are. But overegg the mystification and, to others, the language becomes completely intangible and unattainable, sapping them of any motivation to learn it.

The way I see it, there are no such things as 'easy' and 'difficult' languages. Learning a language is always hard work, and when you're starting out, some simply seem harder to get a handle on. That's where motivation is so important, and it's something everyone has to find within themselves. So if someone was to ask me today whether Estonian is really as difficult as it is made out to be, I'd say: "No - what's difficult are the conditions we have to learn Estonian in."

Ironically, the article is concluded with the mysterious abbreviation "Tlk V. K." - referring to the fact, I assume, that the language still presents enough difficulties for Berthold that he had to have it translated into Estonian for publication. Pointing this out would be churlish of me if I didn't know quite so well how he feels.

http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/arvamus/article.php?id=17561801

Value for Money 2: How to Win Friends and Influence People

In the aftermath (for want of a less melodramatic term) of the rush on euros for fear of a devaluation of the kroon, Minister for Justice Rein Lang has been doing his best to win round the Russian-speaking population almost exclusively affected by the scam and who already feel a sense of injustice at the treatment they receive from the government.

"If people are stupid enough to fall for [such things], I don't see how it's the government's fault," he said at a press conference yesterday. "The very purposefully directed misinformation that has been spread about in recent months in Russian-language publications in Estonia is a big problem. It incites hostility. I hope the state security services are looking into it."

So speaks a man so sensible and tactful that he chose a Hitler/Nazi theme for his 50th birthday party and contributed to the recent celebrations marking the anniversary of the Estonian constitution by suggesting that a new beer should be named in its honour. ("It will make people more interested in it," he said.)

A clear case of plagiarism

In an article entitled Scots Copying Estonians? Delfi reports on a Times of London report that the Scottish government has spent six months and hundreds of thousands of pounds coming up with its new national tourism slogan... 'Welcome to Scotland'.

Clearly in a move to distinguish the Scottish version from its Estonian forerunner, the placards bearing the slogan also feature it in the local lingo - “Fàilte gu Alba” - which is something Estonia's can't be accused of. However, in an eerily familiar and yet ironic criticism of the new campaign (considering who it's coming from), the designer of the logo for the 2012 London Olympics has said that it lacks emotion and feels “governmental, corporate and static”.

You be the judge.

Value for money

Foreign exchanges the breadth of Estonia, if not the length, have seen a rush on euros as the Russian-speaking population trip over one another in their hurry to offload their Estonian kroons in response to false reports that the currency was set to be devalued.

The reports - which stated that the Bank of Estonia and the Monetary Committee had agreed upon an imminent and unannounced devaluation of the kroon from its current rate of 15.6 to the euro to 24.6 to the euro - first appeared on the website of the Night Watch (an allegedly Russian-backed group linked to the rioting and looting that took place in Tallinn in April) and quickly did the rounds among the Russian-speaking communities of Tallinn and north-eastern Estonia. As a result, foreign exchanges saw queues of people cashing in their life savings for euros, pounds and any other 'dependable' currency they could get their hands on.

The Bank of Estonia has quashed all suggestions of devaluation, and the police have said they may launch an official investigation into the incident, which is being viewed as yet another attempt [by Russia] to destabilise the country.

Shake it

Bringing together two of the locals' favourite pastimes - drinking and gambling - Estonia and Olympic Casino have claimed top spot at the World Bartending Championships in Taiwan. Krista Meri out-cocktailed competitors from Italy and Latvia, producing a superlative Gold Autumn to be crowned the world's best bartender. Congratulations! Yet another alcohol-related titled Estonia can add to its tally.

Wheeling and dealing

ETV's Sunday night current affairs programme Aeg Luubis has reported on the results of a sociological survey asking respondents which politicians, if any, they would trust enough to buy a used car from.

The short answer is that most people wouldn't trust any of them. The clear favourite among Russian-speaking Estonians was Centre Party leader Edgar Savisaar (surprise!), while least favoured of all recipients was former People's Union leader and Minister of the Environment Villu Reiljan - people presumably worried that if they bought something from him it would become embroiled in a dodgy swap scandal. Most trustworthy of the bunch overall was deemed to be president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, although the same number who said they would buy an old jalopy from him also said they didn't know how to respond to the question.

And arguably rightly so: it's a daft one and entirely moot. Sociologists claim that the results of the survey reveal interesting things about the mindset of people towards politicians these days: for example, that support for certain parties may be high, but not for their leaders (prime minister Andrus Ansip being a prime example); and that generally the trend is to favour politic[ian]s that follow a social-democratic line. But since this isn't really reflected in how people vote - Ansip received the greatest number of single votes in electoral history at the last parliamentary elections, while the Social Democrats failed to make much of a mark at all (sadly) - I fail to see the relevance myself.

The only substantive point the survey makes is that Russian speakers will support Edgar Savisaar and Keskerakond whatever it is that's being peddled, and we knew that already.

http://www.etv24.ee/index.php?0597355

Christmas comes to Tallinn

Putting the jõu back into jõulud, next Monday will see the erection on Town Hall Square of Tallinn's premier Christmas tree. At a neck-craning 20 metres tall, this year's tree is being trucked in from the 'Kadrina commune' (as they refer to themselves on the English version of their website: http://www.kadrina.ee/atp/?id=799) in Lääne-Viru county. For those interested in following its progress, here is a timeline of events:

- Monday 26/11/07

*08.00: Felling of the tree to commence in Ülo Kais' garden in Kadrina.

*11.00: Cavalcade to set off for Tallinn.

*13.00-14.00: Tree to arrive at Town Hall Square and erection to commence.

- Wednesday 28/11/07

*Decoration of tree with lights to be completed.

- Sunday 02/12/07

*14.00: Lights to be switched on and advent candles to be lit.

The Kadrina tree was selected to represent the city from among ten entries received in a public competition. The tree alone set City Hall (or whoever paid for it) back 14,160 kroons, while transport, installation and decoration work will cost a further 53,100 kroons and eventual disassembly and chopping up for fire wood or whatever another 33,040 kroons. Total: 100,300 kroons.

And it will be worth every cent. There's something truly magical about wandering around the stalls of the Christmas market on Town Hall Square amid the falling snow with the tree all lit up and the smell of mulled wine and gingerbread in the air. Much as I love our traditional lazy poolside Boxing Days of cold champagne and turkey sandwiches in Australia, nowhere does Christmas quite like northern Europe.

Seal of disapproval

Hülged ahju! In an article on Delfi today entitled Estonia's seals are disloyal to their country it has been revealed that the nation's favourite frollicking sea creatures show absolutely no fidelity to their fatherland.

Studies of six tagged grey seals sighted in Estonian waters off the coast of Saaremaa have shown that the great distances the animals can cover in a day means they're anyone's. Researchers have tracked their movements from Latvia to Finland and back again, taking in the Åland Islands and the Swedish outpost of Gotland on the way.

“The fact that they put themselves about a bit we've known for a long time, but not where exactly and how regularly,” explained researcher Ivar Jüssi, confirming that the brazen creatures recognise no borders. “There's no such thing as 'our' seals or Finnish seals or Swedish seals. There's just the Baltic Sea and the seals that live in it. It could even be the case that the ones we managed to stick receivers on were in our waters by pure chance.”

That the seals show no particular allegiance to Estonia is obvious to researchers from the fact that five of the six they are studying have rarely been seen again hereabouts since they were tagged. Just one, an elderly female, remains true to the country - most likely, the scientists say, because she has formed something of an attachment to her breeding grounds, which is characteristic of all grey seals. Random as the choice is.

http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/eesti/article.php?id=17505066

A man with a vision

Tallinn City Council Chairman Toomas Vitsut has proposed that English be adopted as the second official language of the City of Tallinn.

In widely reported news on yesterday's 'vision conference', featuring a star-studded array of the capital's mayors past and present, Vitsut is quoted as suggesting that adopting English as an official language in municipal authorities would make the city more attractive to foreign companies, thus cushioning the impact when the currently super-inflated economic bubble bursts and filling in the gaps left by Russian firms who packed their bags after the unrest that shook the city earlier this year.

None of the other presenters had anything much to say about Vitsut's idea, as they were too busy banging heads with their own. There were conflicting views about the future of the city, with some saying that Tallinn should spread out even further in a wave of [sub]urbanisation, while others felt that the population should be encouraged to move downtown en masse, with the inner city becoming a jungle of concrete, glass and steel - the idea behind this being that it would improve the dire traffic situation in the capital.

Former mayor Ivi Eenmaa put in her own two cents' worth, stating that more needs to be done to improve Tallinn and Estonia's position within Europe lest they become provincialised and pigeon-holed. She pointed out the results of a recent study, which showed that in none of the stories about Tallinn in the foreign press of late has the city been painted in a good light.

Whether or not presenting such conferences in English - as presumably they would if it were adopted as an official language of the city - would help put Tallinn in the headlines for the right reasons is another matter. Have you heard the likes of Edgar Savisaar and Kaia Jäppinen delivering speeches in English?

Towering inferno

Tallinn's television tower, home to the tallest viewing platform of its kind anywhere in the Nordic countries, is to close its doors to the public this Monday for good*.

The teletorn, as it is known locally, no longer meets the stringent safety requirements that would see it not going up in smoke and frying tourists left, right and centre in the event of a major fire. The one and only emergency exit route - a staircase a whole 66 centimetres wide - just doesn't cut the mustard.

All is not lost, however, as the company charged with the responsibility of looking after the tower are busy looking for ways to open it again as soon as possible. This would require a major facelift (which it needs; have you seen inside the thing? It's as daggy as all get out) costing a lot of money no one has and taking a lot of time. City Hall have expressed their sincerest condolences on its passing, while at the same time pointing out that they are in no position to help.

*Nevertheless, there is hope that with the good will of all involved and the deep pockets of yet-to-be-found financiers, people may soon once again be up on the platform squinting out across the gulf in search of Finland. (I've only ever seen it once.) There is a great affection for the thing and it is, after all, one of the city's true landmarks and tourist drawcards.

Good with their hands

I forgot to mention that I spent a mad time running round Mardilaat or the St Martin's Day Fair at Saku Suurhall on Sunday. Considering it ran for four days, I thought one hour before the whole thing closed would be a good time to start doing my Christmas shopping there.

For those not in the know, Mardilaat is an annual handicrafts fair that brings people from far and wide throughout the country to Tallinn to show off their wares. Needless to say what I saw cemented my respect for Estonian handicraft skills and tradition - the stuff they do with fabric and glass being particularly impressive - and I even managed to pick up some unique and yet actually still useful Xmas presents.

Since it's over for another year it's a bit late to recommend you go and see what it's about, but I wouldn't hesitate to otherwise. Not only do you get to admire (and indeed buy) the handiwork of a lot of talented people, but you also get more of a feeling for the country and its culture. Plus you get to try free samples of stuff like smoked elk and wild boar sausage. And what else do you need on a cold, grey November afternoon?

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/

Less a rant, more a matter of principle

It's funny how many people in Estonia seem to think they know more about my mother tongue than I do. It's something I first noticed with intractable students arguing the toss about matters in which they had absolutely no ground to stand on, but which has become much more marked since I took up translating full-time two and a half years ago. I had yet another run-in with self-styled 'English experts' yesterday.

At the risk of sounding as conceited as the people I am complaining about, let me just tell all these 'experts' something: as a native speaker of English, former teacher, occasional author, long-time proofreader and editor and full-time translator, I do in fact know more than them about my mother tongue. And it's not even the ones who require specific (technical/medical/scientific/legal et al) terminology who are the whingers and know-it-alls; they're usually the most amenable. It's people who say "oh, I would translate it myself, but I just don't have time". It's people who think that studying English philology for a few years means they know the language as if it were their own. It's people who try to pass off their impoverished writing skills as the fault of the translator. And so on.

If you give me a text specifically because you feel it requires the skills a native speaker translator can bring to it - one who understands Estonian well enough to be able to work in all of the nuances - and then take the finished article - which has been translated, proofread, edited and reviewed - and decide you know better, introducing 'improvements' that in fact constitute blatant errors of grammar, word choice, sentence structure and punctuation, why bother to come to me in the first place?

Of course, the text is yours to do with as you please. But the service I provide is a professional one like any other; you wouldn't undergo brain surgery and then come home and start fiddling with it yourself, would you, even if you were in your final year of medicine. Why should the principle be any different when it comes to translation?

It'll all come out in the wash

Interior Minister Jüri Pihl as quoted in Delfi reporting on Postimees reporting on Võsa Reporter reporting on a story that emerged this week about new Estonian passports being made from leftovers from Cameroon and potentially unravelling under the wrong conditions:

"I am of the belief that an Estonian citizen's passport is one of the most important travel documents, and indeed one of the most important documents, that connects us with being Estonian and citizens of Estonia, and it is for this reason that I advise all of you here [in the parliament - Ed.] and everyone else: do not put them in the washing machine."

Pain in the arse

Probing the deepest recesses of male health, Estonian men are being invited to take part in a pilot project of screening tests for prostate cancer.

The project is the first of its kind in the country, with such tests to date having been aimed exclusively at women to combat breast and cervical cancer. However, the prostate has now overtaken the lungs in the race to claim the number one cancer title in men in Estonia, as is the case elsewhere in Europe, and medical professionals are pushing early diagnosis and prevention - because unlike the rest of Europe, Estonia holds a dubious record when it comes to the disease.

“Estonia has the highest rate of deaths from prostate cancer of any country in the world,” revealed men's doctor Margus Punab. “Those who are being diagnosed are being diagnosed too late.” Punab says that a diagnosis must be made within ten years of the cancer developing to ensure the possibility of successful treatment.

Punab says that unlike in countries such as the United States where screening programmes are in place and as little as 1% of men are diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, 99% of whom in turn beat the disease, the figures in Estonia remain unnecessarily high (and low, as applicable). He calls on men the length and breadth of the country to get tested.

Mati Kuusemäe from the University of Tartu Hospital's men's clinic advocates screening for older men in particular. He says the while the clinic is mostly approached by men between 25 and 30 with prostate infections, its doctors are inviting older men to take part in the project as around 80% of 80-year-old men typically suffer from prostate cancer.

“The average Estonian male simply won't go to see his doctor,” Kuusemäe said. “He just tells himself that the pain will go away. But all men should be paying us a visit. Get over the idea that it's something to be ashamed of!”

That, however, may be easier said than done. A vox populi conducted by Eesti Päevaleht revealed that even those men in the high risk group who have experienced other serious illnesses are unlikely to heed the doctors' calls.

“Nothing wrong with my health,” said Väino, 74. “I had a heart attack, and an operation, but I get by, and what else can you do. I go to the doctor twice and a year and he checks my heart, but it's not like I have anything else wrong with me.” When asked whether he would take part in the prostate cancer screening pilot programme, Väino said: “I shouldn't think so. I doubt I've got anything like that. Everything seems to be working alright, what's down there.”

http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/406873

Predsjednik Mesić u Estoniji

Utorak, 06.11.2007., 06:00

ZAGREB/TALLIN - Predsjednik Stipe Mesić putuje u službeni dvodnevni posjet Estoniji gdje će ga primiti njegov kolega, estonski predsjednik Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

Or in other words, Croatian president Stjepan Mesić has been in Estonia on an official visit to fellow president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, as reported in today's Postimees Online.

The Estonian president praised his counterpart on Croatia's stability, openness, democracy and rapid development as it heads towards membership of NATO and the European Union, declaring it a role model for the rest of the Balkans.

Mesić then met with Estonian prime minister Andrus Ansip, who reiterated the country's support for Croatia's bid to join the EU and NATO, describing the steps the former Yugoslav state has taken towards membership as greatly impressive.

Following up on comments from Ilves, Ansip then addressed what Croatia truly represents to the man in the street in Tallinn: a cheap[ish] option for summer holidays. "It's an attractive tourist destination for us Estonians," he said, encouraging closer economic ties between the two countries, and turning both of the stories reporting Mesić's visit into free ads for Estonian Air flights to Dubrovnik.

And why not? It's bloody beautiful. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Apparently there are quite a few more Croatians making the trip to Estonia too nowadays. Coming from a country that statistically enjoys the most sunshine in the Adriatic or Mediterranean or wherever, Estonia must be popular among those in search of danker, greyer climes.

Eggstreme measures

Seems Alfred Hitchcock and his fellow Estonian ovophobes have had their revenge, with the announcement that all of Tallegg's egg-laying hens will have to be destroyed due to an outbreak of Newcastle disease.

Postimees reports that all production and sales of eggs from the company will cease immediately, only being restored to full capacity by summer next year. Even at 50% production by March or April, Tallegg are likely to miss out on the annual Easter egg frenzy, and considering they produce 80 million eggs a year - representing almost 20% of their output - it's gotta hurt. (The chickens, at the very least.)

Could be boom time for Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish eggs, all of which will undergo strict checks* upon import, although people appear not to be terribly fazed at the prospect of a lack of local eggs on supermarket shelves or about Newcastle disease itself (which, it should be pointed out, poses no threat to humans): a mere knee-jerking 11% have said they will cut eggs and chicken out of their diet completely, while as many as two thirds say the sorry fate of the birds will not influence their lives in the slightest.

http://www.postimees.ee/061107/esileht/siseuudised/293616.php?newcastle-i-haiguse-tottu-lahevad-koik-talleggi-munakanad-hukkamisele

*and presumably price rises

Europe loves bedwetters

Estonian band The Bedwetters took home the New Sounds of Europe title at last night's MTV European Music Awards in Munich. I have never heard anything they have done, but it's good news for Estonia I suppose, and their careers.

Impotence, poverty, broken homes, brain death

Wielding the might of moral righteousness, three paper pushers from City Hall are championing sobriety in the capital with a plan to advertise against alcohol. The fact that they are from the Centre Party - which at the state level is out in the cold in opposition to the current coalition - and that their campaign takes a direct pop at the government's inaction regarding alcohol-related problems in the country is neither here nor there.

Under the plan, reported in today's Linnaleht, off-licences will be plastered with catchy slogans such as "Alcohol destroys your brain cells!", "Alcohol makes you impotent!", "Alcohol tears families apart!" and "Alcohol is a waste of your money!" in order to steer people away from the demon drink. And if the troika behind the campaign had their way, at least a few of the half a million kroons they intend to spend would see the slogans slapped on the bottles themselves, a la the warnings on cigarette packets.

And in fact I tend to agree with their views. I would back them all the way if I wasn't convinced they were just out for political gain rather than actually concerned about the health of the populace. Nevertheless, they have a point: the prime minister and his cohorts claim that putting the price of a bottle of beer up by about 50 cents is a giant step towards the eradication of the drink problem in the country, when it is clearly nothing of the sort, and seem not to be at all concerned that alcohol is responsible for many of the issues they tell us they are otherwise 'addressing'.

In that sense, City Hall's slogans are perfectly targeted, if they are designed to have a shot at the government. They constantly bang on about knowledge-based economies, upping the birth rate, keeping families together and making more money, and our triumvirate of public servants has pointed out - quite rightly, if not altogether comprehensively - that alcohol continues to play a part in scuppering all of them.

Reflect yourself

With the clocks having been wound back to winter time and night once falling up before the afternoon can get much of a look in, the police have reminded pedestrians in Estonia that they are required, by law, to wear reflectors when out and about after dark.

"We can issue fines of up to 600 kroons to anyone not wearing one," said a policeman from a police station somewhere in Tallinn. "But normally we just hand out reflectors, ha ha!" Well, he didn't put it quite like that, but you get the idea.

He also made the proposal that car drivers who see anyone walking in the dark without a reflector should alert the police to their location, or better yet go and chide them themselves. This is risible for a number of reasons - if they're not wearing a reflector, drivers are less likely to see them in the first place; they should not be making phone calls whilst behind the wheel in any case; and the police must surely have better things to do than chase down non-reflector-wearing pedestrians - but is nice in theory.

I was recently given a spiffy new one that looks a bit like a snowflake-shaped disco ball. And since I don't want to add to the 280 statistics killed or injured last year in accidents involving them not wearing reflectors, I shall attach it to my outerwear at once.

Tits out for the trash mags

Mari-Leen, the original 'Disturbed Cinderella', is staring out at us from front-end displays once again as she graces (for want of a better word) the cover of the latest issue of Kroonika. Things have been sexed up though since the photo shoot for the equally intellectual Just! in July made her beau, Sietse Bakker - Dutch former supremo of the Eurovision website esctoday.com and current online something-or-other for the EBU - look like a total dork.

According to Kroonika, the "extraordinarily successful" singer has, at the age of 19, finally found true love - which in this case clearly involves a jeans fetish and penchant for bondage. But then, our Ms Kaselaan has never shied away from talking about her sex life. Earlier in the year she made front page news in the highbrow tabloid SL Õhtuleht, with a headline revealing what we all needed to know in that the "rock chick" lost her virginity at the age of 16: a perfectly reasonable age to do so, in her own words.

It's good to know that young girls, the aspiring glitterati of Estonia, have someone of their own to look up to as a role model for natural beauty and the truly important things in life - like how to fit a chihuahua into a Gucci clutchbag.

Trams, planes and automobiles

It's been talked about for ages, but finally City Hall has come out and laid their plans on the table. Two new tramlines are being planned to run from the city centre: one to the concrete jungle of Lasnamäe, and the other - good news for travellers to Tallinn - between the city's main railway station and the airport.

It seems that the other proposed new lines and extensions (to Mustamäe and Pirita) will have to wait: these new additions alone will take up to six years to complete and cost the city as much as four billion kroons, a large chunk of which it hopes to beg, steal or borrow from the EU.

The end result is nevertheless likely to significantly ease the burden on existing public transport and make the wait more than worthwhile.

Labouring the point

An article in today's Postimees claims that the rules thought up by public servants from the Ministry of Social Affairs governing what children can and can't do in schools and orphanages are so removed from real life that they are turning them into lazy, cheeky little arseholes incapable of looking after themselves.

Or words to that effect. The article, which turned out to be something of a political vox populi and took two whole journalists to write, highlights the ridiculously finnicky lengths officials would have things taken to - if anyone took any notice of them - as well as the contradictions inherent in them which make you question whether they really are placing child safety first.

Followed to the letter, the regulations would prohibit children from doing just about any cleaning up after themselves, and would send them home (or not even let them out the front door in the first place) if a wind whips up on winter days. They wouldn't even be allowed to make gingerbread men at Christmas.

Lea Tikenberg, the child protection officer from the Haiba orphanage in Harju County, points out that not only are children shielded from anything approaching everyday responsibility, they are also very aware of what they can't be forced to do. "They tell you that you're there to do the work, not them," she said. "But I've been here for five years, and a bit of work never did any of these kids any harm."

Of course, those who support the rules do so claiming that they are there to prevent children from being used as little more than slave labour. Chancellor of Justice Allar Jõks has pointed out that this is not unheard of. "Unfortunately we've seen lots of cases where children have had to get down and scrub the toilet bowls and the like."

Others have highlighted the contradictions in the rules: children are not allowed to wash their own dishes, but are allowed to make themselves a cup of tea or boil themselves an egg.

Former Education Minister Mailis Reps says that the Ministry of Social Affairs is living on another planet - clearly one where they are a lot less resilient when it comes to the cold. She remains as critical today as she was while in office of the weather rules. "If the wind's blowing from the wrong direction, there are places in Estonia where the kids won't be going to school for months," she said.

Fellow former minister Paul-Eerik Rummo, once responsible for the population's affairs (as it were) and having visited a good number of orphanages in his time, has the last word. He feels the regulations should be changed so that the kinds of things kids are asked to do is within the bounds of normality - for as he says: "It was astounding to see 15 and 16-year-olds who have never peeled a potato in their life."

http://www.postimees.ee/301007/esileht/siseuudised/292388.php

Dying for a drink

In a sobering article in the ever-thoughtful SL Õhtuleht, one of the country's leading tabloid psychiatrists has declared that Estonia is committing national suicide.

Jüri Ennet says that Estonians are drinking themselves into an early [mass] grave, with a surge in alcohol-related deaths in the last decade claiming the lives of thousands. He describes the situation in the country as 'catastrophic'. “With the amount people drink here, the nation's simply killing itself!” he proclaimed, rather dramatically.

Ennet's black view of the nation's fate is based on World Health Organisation data which states that if more than 10 litres of alcohol is consumed in a country per capita each year, things aren't looking too good. The psychiatrist suggests that the figure for Estonia is 13.4 litres. “And we're not talking about tourists here,” he points out. “Every last drop of that is being put away by Estonians!”

As might be expected, and as is probably fair, up to a point, Ennet lays the blame squarely at the government's door. He says that the drug and alcohol problem in Estonia has grown so huge that it should be dealt with personally by the Prime Minister himself. “It's a matter of life and death!”

Salutary words.

http://www.sloleht.ee/index.aspx?id=251696

Broadcast quality

Estonian Television has come under a hail of criticism lately from a number of unexpected sources. One of the most vocal has been disenchanted ex-employee Vahur Kersna, who has used his position as the country's most popular [former?] TV host to the max in venting his spleen and casting aspersions left, right and centre. Now, however, a heavyweight of a different kind has opened fire on the national broadcaster.

Sydney Olympics decathlon gold medallist and current MP Erki Nool has lambasted ETV in an opinion piece in Postimees for failing to give the people what they want. In it, he waffles on a bit about sport and uses sporting metaphors to make his point, but the top and tails of the article should give you an idea of where he's coming from.

_____

There's an old adage that people vote with their feet. They go wherever things are good, and they prefer whatever is good. If a new production doesn't take off in the theatre and plays to empty halls, no theatre manager is ever going to blame the public for failing to understand the art of it – he simply cancels the play and puts on a new one that will get bums back on seats.

Television is one big stage. But it is one which seems to be subject to different laws, at least where dear old ETV is concerned. Although the public here are voting with their remote controls (if not their feet), it doesn't appear to be bothering the management in the slightest.

Am I just not seeing it or is good entertainment on ETV so well hidden that anything similar put on by other channels is laughed out of the room? I mean come on, if the Swedish Ambassador is unashamed to take part in Dancing With The Stars, why isn't it good enough for ETV to show? Is charity, self-depricating humour and a bit of glitz and glamour for the audience really so vulgar? And isn't labelling the hundreds of thousands of viewers who watch the programme a 'tasteless herd' more than a little arrogant?

_____

Well, I'd say that one's open to debate, Erki. To me he seems to be missing the point entirely. How many countries can you name where the national broadcaster's role is to provide tabloid-style entertainment to the masses? Surely that's the job of the commercial channels. Fair enough, many of the programmes ETV shows wouldn't rate high on the excitement scale, but at the same time a lot of what they broadcast is thoughtful and topical stuff.

You only have to look at the kind of things Kanals 2 and 3 churn out, both imported and home-grown, to see the kind of audience they're aiming for. And the fact that they're winning it is reason enough for ETV to eschew such programming, if you ask me. It's telling and ironic in turns that the highest rated programme broadcast by ETV each year is usually the Estonian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, if not Eurovision itself.

Perhaps our Erki - flag waver as he is for all things Estonian, as well as for the nationalist Pro Patria party - wants ETV to be a ratings success, full of programmes like Dancing With The Stars and Pop Idol, for the good of its image and reputation. Personally, I feel the fact that it is a little more cerebral than its terrestrial competition is something it should cling on to for dear life.

Besides, I can't shake off the feeling that Erki's simply smarting from the national broadcaster taking a pop at the banality of a programme he himself took part in last year (i.e. Dancing With The Stars, not Pop Idol). Wounded pride, anyone?

http://www.postimees.ee/251007/esileht/arvamus/291432.php

Living on the gluten & wheat free sundried tomato & basil ciabatta line

Bespectacled Bank of Estonia boss Andres Lipstok, who is currently said to scrape by on little more than 100,000 kroons per month, has endeared himself to the public by claiming that he could quite happily live on 5000 kroons every four weeks, before tax.

In a Q&A with Eesti Päevaleht, Lipstok - who recently made headlines for discouraging people to ask for a pay rise in conditions of runaway inflation - poo-pooed ideas that a man in his position would struggle if his salary were cut by 95%. “Of course I would get by,” he said. “A lot of people in Estonia make do with 5000 kroons.”

While predicting that the average salary in Estonia would catch up to Western levels (roughly 1000 euros per month) by 2010, Lipstok nevertheless warned against it rising too high too quickly. This could hinder the creation of new jobs, he said, and lead to higher unemployment. Nor does he think that basing the minimum wage on the average salary would be good for society: “Because then it wouldn't have anything to do with performance results,” he explained.

What kind of performance do you have to give, though, to earn ten times the average salary?

Where there's smoke...

I came across a news item on Delfi today that I actually thought must have been a joke. Rather pathetically, it was in earnest.

Tomorrow sees the launch in schools throughout Estonia of the 6th annual Smoke-Free Class competition, in which students and teachers are required to give up smoking for a period of six months in order to be in the running for an all-expenses paid class trip abroad. All very laudable, you might be thinking, as was I at first - until I read that the competition is aimed at students as young as 11.

Now I may be naive, but how many chain-smoking Year 4 students do you know? Health experts claim that there is a serious problem in Estonia with underage tobacco [ab]use, and I can believe it, or at least would if such campaigns were aimed at those, say, 15 and up. But to include those barely into double figures seems a bit over the top for a project that is more cure than prevention. Teachers have expressed their own doubts, concerned that the competition may have the opposite effect to that intended among younger students: arousing their interesting in smoking rather than nipping it in the bud.

Whether or not I am naive, I am definitely a cynic, and had to laugh at the fact that the competition is based entirely on a trust system where participating students sign a class contract promising not to smoke at all during the six-month period. I mean by and large we're talking about teenage boys and girls at their most pliable and irritatingly insubordinate to whom responsibility and maturity are foreign concepts. Entrusting them with anything is risible.

Moreover, where does the lucky class get a free trip to at the end of it all? Amsterdam. Can no one see the irony here? It would be like running an Alcohol-Free Class competition and sending the winners to Oktoberfest.

I'm not intolerant...

A study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice has revealed that Estonian-speakers are more racist than Russian-speakers, but that Russian-speakers are less tolerant of minorities.

The survey, in which respondents were asked the questions "What kind of immigrants would you not want to work with?" and "What kind of people would you not want to work with?", saw Estonian-speakers outscoring their Russian-speaking countrymen across the board in terms of nationalities and religious groups they would rather not touch with a bargepole, but Russian-speakers being at times markedly more discriminatory when it came to 'social backgrounds'.

While it should be pointed out that at least half of those interviewed in both language groups said they would have no problems working with anyone regardless of their nationality or religion, it was the Estonian-speakers who displayed a much more noticeable reticence to have any dealings with Russians, Finns, Jews, Muslims, Blacks and Eastern Europeans. On the other hand, Russian-speakers were more illiberal when faced with Gays, Prostitutes, Criminals, Drug Addicts, HIV/AIDS Sufferers and the Disabled. Significantly more Estonian-speakers had no misgivings about such people, although in both language groups the overall percentage of the charitable was depressingly low.

Not that you have to look very far for reasons why: Estonian-speakers are generally against outsiders because they've been sat on by them for thousands of years, while Russian-speakers are more critical on 'moral' grounds because of their stronger religious roots. Everything else is likely the product of being a small country where many of these things are rarely seen or spoken about that was once part of a much larger system where such things were taboo, hushed up and/or punishable under the law.

To what end the study was commissioned nobody seems to know, but there you are.

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.