Five great Estonian mysteries

As I head deeper into my second year in Estonia, a certain normalization and recalibration is occurring. Things I originally found strange and odd have become normal and, in extreme cases, comforting.

I now celebrate and love the fact that I can spend a whole day walking around the city, surrounded by thousands of people and, unless I really want to, not needing to engage with a single one of them. Privacy in public is massively underrated. I don’t think I could go back to the Cape Town way. There you had to keep moving purposely with a ‘don’t fuck with me’ look on your face. Any sign of slowing down or weakness would see people drawn towards you almost magnetically, like lions to a lame buffalo. The idea of sitting on a park bench to eat a sandwich and getting more than five bites in before the first fly starts circling your shit is foreign to most South Africans. And yes, I know. There are beggars because there is poverty and massive inequality and I should be nicer about it, but I like being left the fuck alone.

Even the way I cross roads has changed. The fact that I can close my eyes as I approach a pedestrian crossing and simply keep walking shows how deep my conditioning has become. In SA, that would be a very quick way to commit suicide.

But some things I will never get. I choose to call them the eternal mysteries. No Estonian has been able to explain these to me either. In fact, they get a bit nervous when I mention some of these as if I was blaspheming in a strict religious society.

So what are these mysteries? Let’s see:

The stench of Stockmann.

When I first arrived in Tallinn, my regular inquiries about acquiring exotic items like mango pickle, curry pastes, litchis, and lamb were invariably met with the same answer: “You’ll find it at Stockmann. It may be pricey but they’ll have it.”

So imagine my shock and horror when I first entered the doors of the legendary Stockmann department store and found myself greeted by a wall of hot shit. If you’ve been there you’ll know what I’m talking about. Hot air blasts into your face the second you open the door, which is OK I suppose, except this hot air smells like it is coming from the world’s biggest asshole and is being farted straight into your face.

Stockmann itself is great, albeit slightly overpriced, but the tactic of greeting customers with a blast of fetid sewage as they arrive is something I just don’t get. Why would you allow this? Why would you not do something about it? Maybe (and this is very possible) every single Estonian who has ever visited the place is simply too polite to mention it?

Well, I’m mentioning it. Being blasted with shit is nasty.

Who is buying all the apartments?

Tallinn is a city on the move. In some areas, it looks like a giant construction site. This obviously reflects the booming economy and the rise in living standards, but there still seems to be a huge disconnect somewhere. By all accounts, the population is shrinking, yet my research shows that at least 50 new apartments are coming onto the market every month. This excludes the older ones in hipster havens like Kalamaja which are being renovated. Yet many, many of the older blocks in places like Pelguranna, Mustamae and Kristiine have a large proportion of unoccupied apartments. Some people claim the Finns are buying cheap holiday property, others that people are simply moving out of old, shitty apartments and into new ones. But this doesn’t really make sense.

Tallinn has no real slums so any sane person would renovate something they own rather than swap it for a shitty new-build somewhere in Haabersti that has one bus an hour and no shops. Some experts believe there is a bubble that is about is to burst, and that the whole economy might end up smelling like a visit to Stockmann. I’d really appreciate sensible answers in the comment section.

Who the fuck is going to shop at all these malls?

I recently had some friends from Switzerland visiting and, as they live in the most expensive country in the world, the wanted to shop. So I took them to Kristiine Keskus and Rocca al Mare shopping center on a Saturday morning. They couldn’t believe how few people there were in both of these. I’d gotten used to this, but looking through their eyes it struck me again. Big shops would have three or four idling customers. You could swing a dead cat in the walkways and not offend a single Estonian.

Yet the malls keep coming. Arsenal Keskus in Kopli, the planned Ulemiste Shopping Centre. Where are the customers? Who the hell is going to keep these businesses alive? And do Estonians realize that in any other civilized country the days of the mall are over? Consumers want more Keskturg’s and Nomme markets, not more soulless monuments to corporate greed.

Why so conservative?

The legalization of marijuana is something that lies very near to my lungs. It would take any sane reasonable adult about ten minutes of research to find that the continued criminalization of a plant that is not only harmless but extremely beneficial in many, many ways is simply wrongheaded and actually extremely immoral.

Yet I recently came across these astonishing numbers: According to a survey conducted by Turu-uuringute AS in 2016, 93% of Estonian residents were against cannabis use and 87% did not support its legalization.

Holy shit, those are some scary numbers. The entire civilized world is moving in the opposite direction, yet in Estonia, we are right in the middle of the 1980s.

It also points to an extreme disconnect between Estonians’ opinion of themselves and the reality. We are constantly hearing about E-Estonia and how it is an incredibly forward-thinking country where you can vote online and where innovation and freedom of thought are encouraged.

Yet in reality, this is a deeply conservative nation, one that has bought into every piece of bullshit, anti-personal-freedom propaganda out there.

Conformism runs very deep and I must admit to finding it a bit stifling.

As an example, I enquired about why no one has fences around their houses. In South Africa, a man’s home is his kingdom and his private escape from the world. Even if you take away the safety aspect, gardens tend to be private.

I’ve been told that it is illegal to have a fence that hides your property in Estonia (again, I’d appreciate affirmation or arguments in the comments). When I raise this with Estonians they seem confused: “Of course. You don’t have anything to hide, do you? Why do you need a big fence”

Well, I’d like to have the ability to hide something. I long for the simple, animalistic pleasure of taking a piss in my own garden, but I can’t.

I’ve even been attacked (verbally thank fuck) for this blog. “Why do you have to have such abnormal opinions?” “Why do you hate Estonia so much?” “Why don’t you fuck off back to Africa? Why must we change for you?”

Well, if Estonia wants the world to see it as a player on the international stage, as a leader in terms of tech, innovation, personal freedom, and modernity, if it wants to be seen as a ‘cool’ place, it will need to shake this stifling conservatism and join the rest of the planet in 2017.

Why do you drive like murderous psychopaths?

South Africa has dangerous roads. A combination of poverty, poorly maintained vehicles and an insane taxi industry makes the roads deadly most of the time.

But nowhere in the world, other than maybe Italy, have I come across people who drive as dangerously and obnoxiously as in Estonia. On a recent trip to Saaremaa, I saw the aftermath of one incredibly brutal accident and saw another 5 or 6 narrowly avoided. People going well over the speed limit, overtaking on blind turns or sitting mere centimeters behind the car in front of them at over 100km/h is a common sight on Estonian roads. Driving out to Haapsalu on a weekend and obeying the speed limit means I will be overtaken by every single other car on the road.

I learned to drive in Gauteng, which is a huge metropolis with 12.27 million people. For a city like that to function people need to work together, and they do. They let each other into busy lanes, give gaps and generally behave decently, otherwise absolutely no one will ever get anywhere. In Tallinn, if you are trying to join a road that has bumper to bumper traffic, you’re fucked. No one will let you in.

When I stop in crawling traffic to allow someone to enter from a side road I am either hooted at by the prick behind me or not thanked by the person I’m letting in.

I see behavior here on a daily basis that would have you shot on the spot in South Africa.

Why Estonia? Why does a nation of such nice people turn into monstrous assholes when they get in their cars?