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Estonia is what they call a "SURVIVOR". One of the few countries to have emerged out of the Soviet set-up and learnt quickly to pull its own weight, Estonia is without doubt the showcase CIS success story. In the early part of the last decade the country got its taste of independence – sweet and sour that was – the euphoria of freedom foiled by long lines to get ration & bread, fuel and skyrocketing inflation. Today Estonia is catching up with the rest of Europe but is luckily still affordable for the budget traveller. If you are fascinated by the thought of blood sausages on your dinner plate, love crisp sea breezes and lush forests, are adventurous enough to go bog walking and willing to try a syrupy liquor of dubious distillation, Estonia is waiting for you.

Estonia is a very forward thinking country and this reflects in the fact that all schools in Estonia today are connected to the internet. There is a very high usage of the internet as means of communication with 47% Estonian being computer literate and a whopping 38% of them owning computers. It is even possible to vote over the internet in this country.

Historically Speaking

To be Estonian is to be resilient – the country has fought time and again to ward off the world and let it keep its identity and independence. Ever since the 9th century when the Vikings swept through this region, Estonia has had to bear the brunt of invasion. With the Germanic princes and colonists experiencing the Drang nach Osten (urge to the east) Estonia fell under a dark cloud – 7 centuries of servility under indifferent sovereigns. Over the centuries Estonia was ruled by the Danes, the Swedes, and finally the Russians. In 1920 there was a brief pause in its existence as a colony; along with Latvia and Lithuania Estonia enjoyed two decades of independence. In 1939 a non-aggression agreement between the Nazi and the Soviets put Estonia under the Soviet jurisdiction – a fact the two didn’t bother to share with the Estonians. The Soviet authorities began their agenda of indoctrination and cleansing. The latter consumed about 60,000 Estonians – killed or forced to flee or forcibly sent off. So when Adolf Hitler’s German’s invaded USSR in 1941 and also occupied the Baltic States there was a mistaken ‘hurrah!’ from the Estonians who saw them as liberators. 200,000 Estonians were killed in WWII. The Soviet reoccupation in 1944 brought in an era of Stalinist rule – collectivisation in agriculture and ethnic cleansing of Estonians. Yet the Estonian spirit never lost hope. In the 1980’s while Mikhail Gorbachev led the Soviet Union through change Estonian hopes burned brighter. Nationalism raised its head and the masses protested vociferously for freedom in 1988. The populace sang songs of national pride so far banned from the lips of people. The movement earned the name of the Singing Revolution. The voices of 300,000 people rose in one single song in the capital Tallinn. In November 1988, Estonia’s supreme soviet put its final stamp of approval on the declaration of sovereignty and in August 1989 the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius and Tallinn were linked by 2 million people in a human chain. One year later Estonia declared independence. In September 1991 it became a member of the United Nations and got on with the job at hand – nation building. The year 1997 saw the easing of prolonged border tensions with Russia with the signing of still to be ratified agreement. And to the joy of the ministers, the country is all set to get the EU membership in May 2004 after negotiating since 1998.

Habitat

Estonia is at the head of the Baltic States. It is also the tiniest of the conglomeration – roughly the size of Switzerland. Russia sits to the east and Latvia to the south. The Baltic Sea laps at the western coast, and the Gulf of Finland lies to the north. Helsinki is only about 80 km across the Gulf of Finland from the Estonian shore. Going down the road 320 km east of Tallinn you’ll land in St. Petersburg. The country is a plain for the most part. The highest point at Suur Munamägi in the south east at 317 metres yields views of the stretching plains below. The fourth largest lake in Europe – Lake Peipus (3500 sq km) is a marks the Estonian Russian border. 10% of Estonia’s land mass is in its 1520 islands. The largest two - Saaremaa and Hiiumaa both lie off the western coast. Almost half of the Estonian landscape is forested and roughly a quarter is wetland – home to the peat bogs some of which go down as deep as 6mts. The major species of trees are firs, pine, birch and aspen. To a lesser degree there are forests of oak, elm, ash and maple. Estonia’s vast forests are a storehouse of varied flora and fauna - 1470 varieties of indigenous plants and large populations of animals. The forests are home to roe deer, red deer, elks, fox, bear, wild pigs, otters and lynx, mink, badgers, rabbits and hare. Estonian lakes are home to at least 10 species of protected and rare amphibians. There are at least 295 species of birds and of these 60 live in Estonia through the year. Aside from the raptors there are 250 pairs of the golden eagle, white tailed eagle, spotted eagle and eagle owl. Try and look out for the black stork when you travel here and also the unique European flying squirrel.