Remnants of War and Old Towns (Tallinn, Estonia)
I’ve been to Estonia a dozen or so times. However, this trip felt a bit more poignant with everything going on in Ukraine. Estonia if you don’t know has been invaded by Russia (and other nations) several times.
Despite all of that, Estonia is a small but strong nation and the Estonians themselves are such wonderful people. They are like the Norwegians I spend a lot of time with in the sense that they are very pragmatic people. However, unlike Norwegians they are much more direct which I really appreciate. Furthermore, they make a lot happen with rather little resources, including limited people as the population is just 1.3 million. I actually learned a new Estonian word this trip that helped me understand how they do it.
The word is ‘jonn’ which as far I understand describes how nimble you are while you are also persevering. I guess In startupland we would call this ‘being scrappy’. There are some further undertones to this word related to victimhood which is perhaps warranted given the history of this country. Although having come here now for almost 8 years I mostly have just seen the perseverance.
This trip we explored the forest and some old Russian military buildings long abandoned. I also walked through Old Town as I do every visit.
