Fun facts about Estonia

EPP PETRONE

F UN S T C A F

. . . .

ABOUT ESTONIA

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Author: Epp Petrone Editor: Justin Petrone Cover and interior design Heiko Unt ISBN 978-9916-82-286-9 Published by Petrone Print, petroneprint.ee Printed in Greif, greif.ee For permission requests and bulk orders, contact: info@petroneprint.ee

A Beloved Children’s Song… about a Train Crash . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Lots of Sa(i)nts Running Around… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 A Sea of Candles in the Graveyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A Capital for Every Season . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Dalai Lama and Estonia’s Holy Lake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 A Selfie in the Execution Yard? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A Memorial for a… Line of Bricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 A Norwegian Who Survived an Estonian Plane Crash . . . . . 20 A Lot of Meteorite Hits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Always Add a Little Red! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 The Dwarf in The Simpsons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Game of Thrones and Estonian Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Magic Shawl and Its Ring-Test Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 The Father of Embryology and Spermatozoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The World’s First Memorial to Friedrich Schiller . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Estonia’s First Poet, a Queer Long‑Distance Hiker . . . . . . . . . . 36 President Meri and His Colorful Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 The Nude Ladies’ Beach and the Justice Chancellor . . . . . . . . 40 Estonians Were Vikings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Helena the Pirate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Village Picnics in the Graveyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 A Hidden Maze and Bat Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

What Could You Do in the Saatse Boot? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 How Estonia Gave Denmark Its Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The Estonian Miller Who Outsmarted Peter the Great . . . . . 54 Hemingway and the Wandering Estonians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Pietr the Latvian (or Estonian?), a Fictional Villain . . . . . . . . . 58 A Chance Encounter with Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 From Spies to Candy Couriers: the Story of Elves . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Crazy about Collecting: Estonia’s Folklore Fever . . . . . . . . . . 64 Let’s Clean up the Whole Planet! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 That Word Sounds Familiar! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Tongue Twisters for 14 Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 “The Garden of the Dead” and Funeral Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Doorways Full of Spirits and Other Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Tervi-seks! The Sexiest Language in the World? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 No Sex, No Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 When Vowels Run Wild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Mushrooming Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Imagine the Border Runs Through Your House . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Where the Streets Have Weird Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Arvo Pärt’s “Singing Land” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 The Island Full of Jokes: Hiiumaa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Smoke Sauna Sister- and Brotherhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Sweat, Snow, Repeat! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 When Estonian Peasants Became Israelis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

A Candy for Heartbreak: Marzipan, Anyone? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 The Hero Whose Head Went Missing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Under the Bastions: Tallinn ’s Dark Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Our Man in Havana… or Was It Tallinn? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 The Longest Ice Road in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 The Wife Carrying with the Estonian Technique . . . . . . . . . 108 Picnics, Pranks and Scandals Eight Meters High . . . . . . . . . 110 Burning Stone, a Hot Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Tchaikovsky and a Girl Called Mary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Summer Break for Pavlov ’s Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 The Saaremaa Boy Who Discovered Antarctica . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Little Robots That Can . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 An Unexpected Natural Resource: Photogenic People . . . . 122 Spooky Estoooonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 How People Become Concerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 How a Stone in Tallinn Learned to Tell Fortunes . . . . . . . . . 128 Seafood Cake, Really? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Milk Soups with Vegetables or Fish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Blood Sausage, Anyone? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Meat Jelly and Sprat Sandwiches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Sweet Curd Cheese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 History in a Bowl: Kama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Estonian Porridge, a UNESCO Heritage Delight . . . . . . . . . 142 Ciao?! Ciao What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

en’s So A Beloved Childr

about a Train

ng…

C rash

?

Did you know that Estonian kids grow up happily singing about a train crash and their parents are fine with it

One of the country’s most beloved children’s songs, “Rongi­sõit” (“Train Ride”), starts out innocently enough: a jaunty train goes tsuhh-tsuhh-tsuhh, the wheels go rat-ta-taa, and the driver is not some stern railway professional but a friendly duck. Children in kindergartens across Estonia “ride” along in a circle, chugging like little locomotives and shouting out sound effects with glee.

Then comes the twist: the train “went tsuhh-tsuhh-tsuhh, until it went into the ditch – karpuhh!” The refrain asks anxiously, “Oi-oi-oi, ai-ai-ai, what happened to the passengers?” and the answer is pure slapstick: everybody goes head over heels, cats run with their tails over their backs, dogs dash about with their tongues out, and so on.

In other words, it’s a train crash – but played out as cartoon chaos rather than tragedy. Children sing it at home, in kinder• 6 •

gartens, at school concerts, on TV talent shows, and almost every Estonian in the audience knows these words by heart. It’s also been turned into a full dance number at the Youth Dance Festival, with thousands of children whirling, tumbling, and “crashing” on the festival grounds. Yes, you get a nationally choreographed celebration of an imaginary train wreck for 7‑year‑olds.

For outsiders, this can feel delightfully puzzling: how can people calmly belt out a kids’ song about a derailment? The answer says a lot about Estonian humor and storytelling. And let’s keep in mind, in that train-crash song, nobody is seriously injured; everyone just goes uperpalli-kukerpalli, somersaulting and cartwheeling. Children experience a “disaster” in a safe, funny way, and adults get to wink at a deeper truth: sometimes in life the train really does go off the tracks, but the story goes on... Tsuhh-tsuhh-tsuhh.

pa uper

kuk erp alli i ll

kar • 7 •

! ! ! ! h p uh

Lots of Sa(i)nts Running Around…

If you visit Estonia in November and hear some strangers singing in the dark stairwell of your Airbnb, DON’T PANIC. It’s probably not a ghost or a cult, at least not the harmful kind. It’s the mardisandid or kadrisandid – Estonian “sa(i)nts” – doing what they have done for centuries.

On two nights in November, St. Martin’s Day (November 10) and St. Catherine’s Day (November 25), groups of people dress up, knock on doors, sing, joke, and give you good‑luck wishes in exchange for sweets. Think of it as Halloween’s folklore‑nerd cousin! The visitors are called sandid (from a word related to “saint”), but they look more like lovable scarecrows than holy icons – ragged fur coats turned inside‑out, faces smeared with soot for St. Martin’s Day; or, on St. Catherine’s Day, white shawls and veils that make them look like snow‑angels.

Here’s the fun part: they don’t just mumble a song and grab the candy. A proper sant troupe will crowd into your hallway, announce themselves loudly, and launch into a whole mini‑ show. They sing, dance, rattle bells, tell jokes, sometimes test the children (Can you answer this riddle?) and then reward • 8 •

the household with blessings for the year ahead. In return, you are supposed to pay them in sweets, fruit, or other treats, even money will do. And if you don’t let them in, prepare for mock curses on your cows and carrots.

Is this custom totally unique to Estonia? Yes and no. Many European countries have some kind of masked house‑to‑house visiting – mummers in Britain and Ireland, Christmas guisers in Scandinavia, costumed processions in Latvia and Lithuania, and, of course, the globalized Halloween trick‑or‑treat. But Estonia has turned its November version into something quite distinctive: two clearly defined nights, two contrasting characters, very strong links to farm life and fertility, and, most impressively, a tradition that’s still alive across the whole country (competing with Halloween). It’s not just in textbook villages; children in apartment blocks put on costumes and go “santing” through modern stairwells, bringing old blessings to very new doorbells.

The main rules are simple. If a chorus of Estonian voices appears at your door in November, open it. Laugh even if you don’t understand a word. Offer some chocolate or biscuits (or cash). Accept the blessings and enjoy the show! For a few minutes, you are part of a living piece of Estonian heritage – one that is important enough to be heading toward the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status.

• 9 •

s A Sea of Candle

rd in the Grave ya A lot of candles! When evening falls, the whole graveyard slowly turns into a soft, shimmering landscape of little flames. It’s especially beautiful in the dark, when the snow or frost catches the light and the trees stand like quiet silhouettes around this glowing sea… It’s amazing, though, those candle‑ lit Estonian graveyards on Christmas Eve and on November 2 (All Souls’ Day) are not entirely unique. They are part of a broader Northern and Central European pattern – you can see the same, for example, in Finland.

One thing for sure: on Christmas Eve, many Estonians visit cemeteries after church (or instead of church) to light candles at the graves of relatives. It’s an old tradition that became a quiet, nationwide practice during the Soviet era and also served as a subtle form of resistance and remembrance.

In the Soviet era, it was not exactly forbidden to light candles in graveyards at Christmas. Nor was going to church at Christmas officially banned, but it was clearly discouraged and • 10 •

closely monitored, and could be risky for certain people. Informers were around, and you could easily lose your job, your chance to travel, or your place in line for a car – to put it simply.

Even so, many people still went to church, and even more went to the cemetery to light candles. Yet you did not see the Christmas “sea of candles” in the cemeteries during Soviet times the way you do today. Why not? The answer is rather unexpected: it was down to plain old economics. In the Soviet period you simply could not get proper windproof candles, so this would‑be “sea of light” never survived the winter weather.

• 11 •

A Capital

eason S y r e v E for Estonia is one of the very few countries in the world where even the seasons have their own capitals

!

Beyond TALLINN – the year‑round national capital – Estonians have playfully crowned four different towns as the unofficial capitals of winter, spring, summer, and autumn. It is half tourism marketing, half national in‑joke, and fully part of the country’s modern identity. The idea is simple: as the year turns, the focus shifts to the place that best embodies that season’s mood and activities.

The best known of these is PÄRNU, Estonia’s “summer capital.” Long before the title was formalized, Pärnu was the country’s classic seaside resort: a sandy beach, wooden villas, spa culture, and boardwalk evenings. In the mid‑1990s, this reputation crystallized into the now‑traditional title of “Estonia’s summer capital.” Today, each June, there is even a symbolic ceremony where Tallinn “hands over” the summer capital • 12 •

baton to Pärnu, underlining that in warm weather the heart of Estonian leisure life beats on the coast.

But summer does not get all the glory. OTEPÄÄ, a hilly town in southern Estonia, is known as the winter capital, thanks to its role as a hub for winter sports. When the first proper snow arrives, Otepää becomes the place where Estonians go to ski, sled, and follow biathlon and cross‑country competitions.

In spring, the title shifts to TÜRI, called the “spring capital,” a small town in the middle of Estonia, associated with gardens, blooming nature, and its big spring and flower festival.

And when the air turns crisp and leaves start to fall, NARVA on the eastern border steps into the spotlight as the autumn capital, combining river views, fortress walls, and a strong cultural calendar at a time when the country gradually turns inward.

The state’s legal capital never changes, of course, but municipalities, tourism boards, and national media happily play along with the seasonal titles. There are public handover events, visiting delegations from the other seasonal capitals, and local campaigns built around the status: winter festivals in Otepää, spring flower events in Türi, summer beach concerts in Pärnu, and autumn culture days in Narva. Few countries package their seasons as neatly as Estonia does!

• 13 •

nd The Dalai Lam, a a

y L Estonia s Hol

ake

On a misty October day in 1991, just weeks after Estonia had regained its independence, an unusual scene unfolded on the shores of Pühajärv (Holy Lake) near Otepää, in the south of Estonia. The 14th Dalai Lama, freshly arrived in a country shaking off Soviet rule, stood by the water and offered a blessing to this already legendary lake. Locals had long called it püha (holy) and imbued it with stories of healing powers. Now that old layer of folk sanctity was being woven together with a Tibetan Buddhist ritual. For a small southern Estonian lake, it was an extraordinary moment of global spiritual crossover.

What makes this episode particularly charming is how seamlessly it links Estonian pagan-flavored landscape lore with a world-famous Buddhist teacher. In Tibetan culture, certain lakes are deeply sacred and associated with deities and visions, but the Dalai Lama does not typically travel the world “collecting” lakes to bless as he goes. His public activities abroad usually focus on teachings, meetings with leaders, and blessings of • 14 •

people, temples, or events, not individual bodies of water. That is why Pühajärv’s blessing is often described as rather unique: a non‑Tibetan lake, in a tiny country, singled out and still remembered for a ceremonial moment that locals proudly remember and retell to visitors.

Today, if you stroll along the park paths at Pühajärv, you will come across a wooden monument commemorating the Dalai Lama’s visit. It’s easy to miss if you rush past on your way to the beach or the boat rental, but once you know the story, the walk feels different. I strongly advise you to go and see and experience Pühajärv in its sheer beauty and holiness!

Every season is good around that lake. In summer, its clear water is framed by gentle hills and old trees, with little bays and peninsulas that catch the light at sunrise and sunset. You can swim at the beach, rent a boat or a paddleboard, and simply drift along the shoreline. In autumn, the forested shores turn golden and rust‑red, and the reflections make the lake look almost painted. Around the lake there are well‑marked walking paths and cycling routes, so you can do an easy loop on foot or combine a longer hike with a picnic by the water. In winter, if conditions allow, people go skiing in the Otepää area and then come down to the lake for a quiet walk in the snowy park… a park with a surprising touch of global spirituality.

• 15 •