Tartu meetup. 21 June, 2012 at 19:00. See on mingi asi.

Double-decker_trams · 7 days

Kas on teil selleks kuupäevaks mingid plaanid või on arv 21 teie jaoks lihtsalt hirmus?

Edit: Väike dsõuk.

Double-decker_trams · 14 days

1 year and a few months.

And of course it became a state holiday. It was a circlejerk for the military.

Double-decker_trams · 14 days

And it also has the largest clock in the world.

Each of the clock's four faces is 46 metres (151 feet) in diameter and will be illuminated by 2 million LED lights, with four oriented edges, just above the clock alongside huge Arabic script reading: “God is the Greatest” on the north and south faces and on the west and east the Koran. Four golden domes on pillars on all the corners are also present. Another 21,000 white and green colored lights, the same as the Saudi Flag, fitted at the top of the clock, will flash to signal Islam's five-times daily prayers, and will be visible as far as 29 kilometres (18 miles) away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraj_Al_Bait

Double-decker_trams · 15 days

It's hardly a rage comic.

salakasto · 1 month

The only foreign cities I've visited are Tampere and Riga ._.

salakasto · 1 month

That free public transport thing has been very controversial actually. I personally support free public transport (only 40% of the cost of public transport in Tallinn was covered by the tickets anyway), but the party who is doing it in Tallinn is kind of shady and known for it's populism.

But well.. to answer your question.. I guess it's just jealousy of other countries. Mainly of Finland. They had a head-start. Estonia in 1991 was so so much poorer and less developed than Finland. And Estonia is now trying to find ways to quickly jump into richness. So it tries to use everything that's new.

Also, the fact that there's only 1,3 million people here probably plays a part in this. It's easier to implement new stuff. It's not that overwhelming to rule a small country.

salakasto · 1 month

It definitely had a very big effect on us. There's 1,3 million people in Estonia and it'äs very dependant on neighboring countries. If I remember correctly just before the recession the unemployement rate was 3,7%, and during the recession it was more than 19% at one point. (4% and 20,1% in this source.)

But the austerity measures didn't really create a big backslash from the people and we adobted the Euro during the recession (we couldn't adobt it before because of our high inflation rate). The reputation of the Euro isn't very positive atm, but I think it's still considerably better for Estonia to use it instead of having our own currency. Finland (our biggest trading partner) is using it. And so is Germany.

We're still poor though.

salakasto · 1 month

Lowest public debt in the EU. http://i.imgur.com/5Kuv3.png

salakasto · 1 month

What is in place now is NOT capitalism. They're some strange forms of oligarchies with the pretense of democracy and in the case of Russia it's just a dictatorship.

Estonian here. Maybe it's true for some former USSR states, but not for all of them. Estonia definitely isn't an oligarchy.

Some facts about Estonia that people might find suprising if they don't know much about Eastern Europe:

Ranks third in press freedom (or well, shares the third place with the Netherlands).

According to Newsweek has the 7th best education system in the world.

It's very internet-y. Highest average internet speeds in the world and when dealing with the government you can do pretty much everything through the internet. The byreaucracy won't make your head hurt.

Was the first ex-USSR country to adobt the Euro.

Etc.

Estonians generally have a very negative view of communism and the Soviet occupation. Before the occupation Estonia and Finland were pretty much equally developed. (Estonians and Finns both speak a Finnic language and are just generally pretty similar countries. So that's why I compare us with Finland).

Finland was considered a Baltic country in the 1920's. But then the occupation came and the Finns fought and managed to stay free.. so during the whole occupation Estonia was just suffering and more and more Russians were imported into Estonia while Finland (located just over the Finnish bay) flourished. So nowadays Finland is a Nordic country and Estonia a Baltic country.

Estonia was still probably one of the safest and richest areas of the Soviet Union and the people who lived on the coast (so that includes people in the capital) could watch Finnish television (=western television) and it was just generally more western-feeling and different from the rest of the union (for example in the rest of the Soviet Union there were 10 classes in school so the people could start working earlier, but in Estonia there were 11 classes -- a compromise between the Soviet and the Western system), but still. It sucked. People were put on trains and sent into Siberia. Ugly Soviet apartment blocks replaced formerly beautiful cities that were bombed down in the war. (Narva) Etc.

There are problems with alcoholism, HIV and other things in Estonia (especially in the mainly Russian-speaking North-East and I guess also perhaps in the capital), but capitalism and democracy is definitely working better for us. Brain drain isn't as bad as it is in Latvia and Lithuania, either. We're doing all right.

I'm from Tartu and it's a nice little town. Quite safe and quite pleasant. It has ugly areas, but I'm moderately happy living here. In a free society.

Edit: Oh, and Reddit should like this -- Estonia is the least religious country in the world.. But Sweden is probably still more rational.

Double-decker_trams · 1 month

It's directly from the Estonian subreddit. That's how it's spelled in Estonian.

Double-decker_trams · 1 month

It's the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany.

And it's still in use.

Edit: Damn it. Other people were quicker to comment.

GreatWhiteBuffalos · 1 month

You're going crazy, said the penguin.

Double-decker_trams

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