New coin to commemorate Estonian as a written language

Next year the Bank of Estonia (Eesti Pank) will release a new two-euro coin to commemorate 500 years of Estonian as a written language. The coin, featuring a special design, will go into circulation in the first half of 2025 to mark a very significant moment in Estonian culture - it will be 500 years since the first publication appeared written in Estonian, thus establishing Estonian as a literary language. The coin was designed by Svetlin Balezdrov and depicts four stylised books forming the letter E. The design is encircled by the words “Eesti kirjakeel 500” and the years 1525 and 2025.

The top EU exports by country

In 2023 the top exports of Estonia were cars (€899M), communication equipment (€883M), electricity (€433M), prefabricated buildings, whether or not complete or already assembled (€429M), and refined petroleum products (€417M). In the rest of Europe, cars, petroleum and vaccines remain hot commodities.

Here is an overview of Estonian export figures. More information came be found at Statistics Estonia

Beautiful Tallinn!

Tallinn is truly magical at night! During this time of year the pastel coloured sky provides a stunning backdrop to our beautiful capital city.

Aerial views of Tallinn

 These old aerial photographs of Tallinn were taken sometime during the 1930s.

 

 

Toompea castle grounds before the construction of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn

This photograph was taken some time prior to 1894. Construction of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn took place from 1894 -1900. After Estonia became independent the church was scheduled for demolition in 1924 but it never happened.

First picture to appear in an Estonian newspaper

The first Estonian language newspaper was published in 1806 and was called Tarto maa rahva Näddali-Leht. At the time Estonia was under Russian rule and when Tzar Alexander I found out about the newspaper, he forbid any further printing of the publication and had copies destroyed. A total of 39 issues were printed. The first picture to appear in Tarto maa rahva Näddali-Leht was this image of a rural farm setting.

Finland and Sweden may be the happiest countries in the world but Estonia is the happiest in the Baltics

For several consecutive years Finland and Sweden have repeatedly scored highly on the global happiness ranking. While long cold winters often get people depressed in other parts of the world, this appears to have little effect on the Scandinavians. So what is their secret? What makes them so happy? The answer is actually quite simple; in Sweden and Finland there is civic and social harmony. People trust each other, the government, and society. 

In Estonia it may take some time to catch up with our Nordic neighbours' high level of happiness, but compared to Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia has the happiest people in the Baltics.

In the recent Estonian Social Survey, respondents were asked to assess how often they had felt happy during the previous four weeks. Half of the Estonian population (50.1 percent) admitted they are either always happy, or happy most of the time. Around a third (35.3 percent) reported feeling happy sometimes, while just over a tenth (11.3 percent) are rarely happy, and 3.3 percent are never happy.  In Lithuania, 48.1 percent of people surveyed said they were always happy or happy most of the time, and that figure was even lower in Latvia, where 36.8 percent of respondents said they were happy all or most of the time. Overall, life satisfaction continues to grow in Estonia.