Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the Easter holidays and indulging in a bit of chocolate. A new month begins tomorrow so it's time to start making new plans. A summer holiday in Estonia always sounds good to me. It's a destination that never disappoints!
Today, twenty years ago on the 29th of March 2004 Estonia officially joined NATO. This historic milestone transformed Estonia's security architecture and ensured the county would never be alone again. Estonia has always taken its NATO responsibility very seriously, consistently contributing at least 2% of its GDP to defence spending. Now that Finland and Sweden have joined NATO Estonia's security has been strengthened like never before.
Historically Estonia was a Lutheran Christian nation but after World War Two that all changed. Today many Estonians identify as being spiritual, rather than religious and have a healthy respect for old ancient Pagan traditions. In the Estonian folk calendar Easter is a spring holiday, a time for cleaning and preparing for summer. Good Friday is a day of rest and Easter Sunday is a day of celebration that includes a large meal, painting eggs and the traditional Easter egg hunt.
Estonians prefer to paint their eggs with natural dyes. The chart below shows you how to achieve some great colours.
A tradtional game Estonians play on Easter Sunday is 'egg knocking'. The rule to the game is easy, simply tap the end of your egg against your opponent's and the shell that doesn't crack is the winner!
Easter is known by many different names in Estonia: Ületõusmispüha (Resurrection), Lihavõtted (literally means meat-taking holiday, marking the end of Lent) and Munadepüha (egg holiday).
The Tartu 24 short film starring Ott Sepa and Märt Avandi reminded me of a few Estonian expressions regarding neighbours. Estonians typically like their space and don't mind isolation, therefore generally preferring a bit of distance between themselves and their neighbours. In fact, during the coronavirus pandemic there was a meme circulating poking fun at Estonians natural habit of keeping a safe distance from each other. The joke was 'finally the terrible two metre distance rule is over, we can now go back to our usual five metre distance.' All Estonians chuckled at that meme because it rang true!
There have been times when my neighbours have irked me making me wish
they lived a little bit further away. The Estonian phrase 'hea kui
naaber oleks selline, et mu aknast oleks vaevu näha nende korstna
suitsu' has often come to mind. It's one of my favourite Estonian expressions.
Today marks 75 years since the March deportations by the occupying Soviet regime. In March 1949, thousands of Estonians were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to uninhabitable parts of Siberia. The Soviets targeted whole families during the deportations. Many people perished during the journey and from the harsh new environment, never to see home again. In total, 20,702 people were deported from Estonia, of whom about 50% were women, 30% children and 20% men. All three Baltic countries were affected by the deportations, over 90,000 people in total. This horrendous crime against humanity will never be forgetton. It affected every family in Estonia.Today we light candles in memory of the victims.
The World Air Quality Report was released this week by IQAir and names Estonia, Finland and Iceland as the cleanest countries in Europe for fresh air and swimming. These three nations all take pride in their superior air quality and have great respect for nature. In Estonia there are several factors that naturally support clean air - half of the land area is covered by forest, the low population density and it's long coastline means seas breezes push pollutants away.
To learn more, please click here.