Lahemaa National Park, Estonia: A conversation with Andres (b. 1980)
A day spent with Andres in January 2021
Andres is a tour guide leading us through Lahemaa National Park. He takes us first to the tallest waterfall in Estonia — in fact, in all of the Baltic States — which is a whopping 8 meters tall. “But hey!” he says, “It may be a small record, but it still counts.”
We don’t really have stereotypes about the Latvians and Lithuanians. Latvia, sure, because we share a border and they are so close. Lithuania is so far and we don’t think too much about them. I am sure if you ask any Estonian, they will all tell you that Latvians have six toes. I do not know where this comes from, but if everyone says it then it must be true!
If you look around, you can see the letters “EST” on the cars. This means that the car is from Estonia. People think that the letters “LV” on a plate means that the car is from Latvia. This is not true! The letters stand for the words lisavarbad, which in Estonian means extra toes.
Here in Estonia, we always look up to the Finns and down to the Latvians. We always look to the Finns and have a little bit of jealousy, because if things had been a little bit different we would be more like Finland is now.
I remember the Soviet times. I was maybe 10, 11 when Estonia regained independence. I don’t necessarily have bad memories of the time — because, you know, I was a kid — but don’t get me wrong, I have no nostalgia for it either. I grew up in the countryside. Out there your parents don’t care about you as much. You spend all day playing in the forest, come back inside to eat. It’s like natural selection, you know? If we lose this kid, just make another baby.
Estonian history is very simple. For hundreds of years, everyone invaded Estonia at some time or another. That’s it. The Danes, the Germans, the French, the Russians…everybody saw how great this land was.
I’m forty now. In school I had to learn Russian. I don’t use it much now, but I can still read the alphabet — Cyrillic — and if I visit Russia then I can get by.
I think it’s really cool that many Estonians still go about the old ways. The younger generations, not so much. But me, I am still very superstitious. Things like keeping the bread the right side up — you need to keep a loaf of bread standing the same way it was baked. And, you cannot have the bread sitting in line with the doorway or else it will run away. I know it doesn’t bother other people as much but now, in a bakery, when I see an upside-down loaf of bread I just think can’t we just turn that upside down really quickly?
One time when I was sick, I had a really bad cold. You know, before COVID — I just had a really bad cold. So I was coughing, sneezing, feeling really bad. I tried to drink a lot of herbal tea. We Estonians really like to drink a lot of herbal tea first — if you go into the pharmacy, you will first see a whole section full of herbal tea bags.
So I tried the tea first, then I called the doctor after a few days. I told the doctor what was going wrong and she said Hmm, you need to do vodka socks. So I did the vodka socks, and the vodka socks worked. Do you know what vodka socks are?
To make vodka socks, you take a pair of wool socks — not cotton, because wool will stay warm when wet — and pour vodka over them. Then, you put them on your feet and go to bed! You will wake up the next morning feeling much better. It works in two ways: one, the alcohol will evaporate and take the fever heat away from your body. Second, some of the alcohol gets absorbed into your blood, widens the blood vessels, and improves your circulation. I really like how a lot of Estonians embrace the old ways, because they all come from some place of truth.
Some people even make vodka scarves, but it’s not for me. Too close to my head. I prefer to keep it all to my feet.
Finland constructed a TV antenna and said they were directing it toward Sweden. But no, they were pointing it toward Estonia, so Estonians could see what was going on outside of the Iron Curtain and how great life was outside. They were sending us television transmissions. So, if you lived on the northern coast of Estonia, you could turn the dial on your Russian TV and suddenly be watching American television and French movies.
One of the biggest movies that Finland sent us was Emmanuelle. Do you know Emmanuelle? Well, it’s basically the greatest classical French erotica film that was ever made. In the Soviet times, that sort of thing was very taboo. I remember watching other films with my father, and when two people started hugging he would say Ok, time for bed now.
Anyway, people figured out that sometimes you could get to see naked people on the television. The night before Emmanuelle was shown to Estonia, you could see so many cars driving at 3 AM, 4 AM — as if they suddenly all felt a desire to visit their relatives in the north of the country. This was documented — and there was even a baby boom about nine months after. Some people say that in the middle of the night, after Emmanuelle was shown, you could see lights on in all of the balconies across northern Estonia, filled with people smoking cigarettes.
This is part of a conversation series centered around the country of Estonia. Click here to read the introduction.
