A dozen questions about Estonia

1. Is Estonia the world’s smallest country?

With an area of 45 227 sq km, Estonia is larger for example than Slovenia, Holland, Denmark or Switzerland. Estonia stretches 350 km from east to west and 240 km from nort to south. Estonia’s population ranks amongst the smallest in the world: as of January 2007, an estimated 1 342 000 people live in Estonia.

2. Do polar bears live in Estonia?

Although Estonia is situated in Northern Europe, the nearest polar bears live more than 2000 km further north. Estonia is at the same latitude in Europe as central Sweden and the northen tip of Scotland. In North America, the middle latitude of Estonia passes through the Labrador peninsula and southern coast of Alaska. As in other northern countries, seasons vary widely in Estonia. The length of the longest day in summer is over 19 hours, while the shortest winter day lasts only six hours.  Due to the influende of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream, the weather in Estonia is considerably milder than the continental climate characteristic of the same latitude.

3. Does the sun ever shine in Estonia?

The sky over Estonia is cloudy for about half the year, and the hilly southeast region ecperiances up to 750 mm of precipitation due to Estonia’s maritime climate. Seven thousand rivers and streams carry rainwater to the sea, bogs and wooded swamplands of different types cover over one fifth of the country. Various kinds of forests comprise slightly under half of Estonia’s territory.

4. What is the Estonian language like?

Estonian is used as a mother tongue by just under 1,1 million people. Approximately 921 000 of these live in Estonia, the remainder in Sweden, Canada, the United States, Russia and elswhere. Estonian is one of the world’s smallest cultural languages to include contemporary terminology for all major fields of life. Estonian belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family, which also includes Finnish and Hungarian.

5. What is there to know about Estonian history?

-2000 BC Estonians gradually began raising cattle and cultivating the land. For more than two thousand years, Estonia was Europe’s most northerly crop-growing district.

-500 BC  The virst descriptions of Estonia nad the tribes who lived there, whose collective name (Aestii in Latin) may descend from the Northern Germanic word for „east“, date from the centuries around Christ’s birth.

-1000 In Viking times, boats were rowed from Estonia and through Estonian waters on trading and looting expeditions to what is now Russia, Central Asia and Constantinople.

-1200 The eastern regions of the Baltic Sea attracted the attention of European merchants and missionaries. The Estonians were one of the last pagan peoples in Europe; they were christianised as a result of the well-organised crusades initiated in Denmark and Northern Germany at the beginning of the 13th century.  

Once the local upper-class became Germanised, Estonians were reduced to the status of peasantry until the 19th century.

-1600 At the turn of 17th century, the ravaging Livonian War was fought in Estonia between Russians, Poles and Swedes. As a result of the war, Estonia fell under the Swedish rule for almost a century – this period is still remembered by Estonians as „the good old Swedish time“.

-1700 In the early 18th century, the army of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great conquered Estonia in order to create a much souhght-after „window to the West“. A mere half of the Estonian population survived the devastating war to become the subjects of the Russian Empire.

-1800 The National Awakening in the mid-19th century brought rapid advances in the Estonian education system, general living conditions and the formation of the Estonians own cultural environment.

-1918 The fall of the Russian Empire made the declaration of an independent Estonian Republic possible on 24 February 1918. In 1921, Estonia became a member of the league of Nations.

-1940 In a secret agreement which supplemented the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, Germany resigned Estonia to the Soviet sphere of influence; Soviet military bases were set up in Estonia that same year. Under the threat of full-scale military aggression, a Soviet-minded puppet government was boosted to power in 1940, and Estonia was incorporated into the Soviet Union.

-1950 In March 1949, the Moscow powers, ignoring all human rights and laws including their own, deported over 20 000 poeple tu Siberia; the majority of these were women and children. The Soviet powers strove to achieve systematic Russification through the establishment of mines and heavy industry, whose operation relied on a foreign labour force imported from across the Soviet Union; despite this, Estonia and the other Baltic States managed to preserve their national identities.

-1991 the Resistance Movement, which had been continually gaining support from the mid 1980s onwards, reached its peak in the early 1990s; on 20 August 1991 the Republic of Estonia was restored.

6. Does Estonia have a king?

Estonians have never actually had their own king. Estonia has, in fact, been a part of monarchies: the Danish realm from the 13thto the 14th centuries, the Swedish from the 16th to the 18th centuries and the Russian from the 18th to the early 20th.

7. Why are Estonians called a „singing nation“?

As Estonians have long tradition of song festivals dating from the time of the National Awakening in the mid 19th century, they have earned themselves the title of a singing nation.  The typical Estonian willingly sings in a choir; choral music is considered by many to be a symbol of the country. As for the size of its folklore collection, Estonia comes second only to Ireland.

8. What are Estonians like?

The character of Estonians has inevitably been shaped by their country’s history and its natural environment. It’s the long, dark winters that have most likely fostered their self-absorged and taciturn manner. At the same time, this dreary season has inspired an abundance of folk tale and song that may well provide insights into hte nature of the contemporary urbanised Estonian. The shomewhat grim and reserved Estonian of the winter months undergoes a significant change in summer: he will ask friends out for a picnic, meet new people, and rather than glaring at anyone causing a disturbance in the street, he will burst into merry laughter.  Ernest Hemingway has written that in every port in the world, at least one Estonian can be found; this speaks volumes about the nation’s enterprising spirit.

9. Do ferns really blosson in Estonia?

On 23rd June Estonians celebrate one of Estonia’s most significant holidays – St.John’s Day. Thousands of bonfires are lit all over Estonia, people sing and dance around them. St.John’s (Midsummer’s) Day marks the lightest time of the year – on that night, darkness lasts for only a few hours.  It is on St.John’s night alone that ferns are said to blossom; the lucky finder of the „rarest of blooms“ may expext great happiness and wealth.

10. Who or what is a „mulk“?

Despite Estonia’s small area and population, the country is inhabited by a surprising number of numerically tiny, but clearly-defined, divergent regional populations. A „Mulk“ is an inhabitant of southern Estonia’s Mulgimaa, the area south of Viljandi; a character who has always been considered wealthy and enterprising, though arrogant and stingy.  One of the most singular parts of the country is undoubtedly Southeast Estonia, or Võromaa. The dialect here differs so much from staneard Estonian that it may well be considered a language in its own right. Another highly unique area is that of the West Estonian islands. Saaremaa, the largest, is widely known for its windmills and, so they say, the best brewers in the country.

11. Where does Estonia get its electricity?

For more than 50 years Estonia has been getting its electricity from oil shale excavated in the northeast of the country. Estonia is not rich in natural resources: the only plentiful resources here are peat, limestone, silica sand, clay and wood needed for the paper and furniture industries.  The bulk of what is produced in Estonia comes from the processing industry, which relies on local know-how and good logistics.

12. What does an Estonian do at weekends?

This largely depends on the time of year. An athletic Estonian goes skiing or snowboarding in winter. Cross-country skiing is the sporting event which draws the largest television audience in Estonia. In recent years football has been gaining ground over basketball – which at one time was considered by many to be a „national game“.  In summer many Estonians leave the city for the weekend as almost every family has a cottage in the country. People go to forest to pick berries or mushrooms, to hunt, or just for a nice stroll. At every river or lake, or on the ice in winter you’re sure to see a fisherman or two.  An important weekend ritual is the Saturday sauna

Facts from www.einst.ee