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A View of Estonian Life |
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A View of Estonian Life |
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One of the fun and scientific reasons for coming is to do kite aerial photography of Estonia. Unfortunately, we do not have access to a slide scanner and therefore the Estonian images will not be online until 2001 when we return home. I retract that statement! Estonian kite aerial images are now online! Some of his work was reported in the September 16, 2000, Science News story High-Flying Science, with Strings Attached.
Living at 58°N latitude makes for interesting conditions. At night, the North Star is much higher in the sky than we are used to seeing. During the past month, we've gone from 16 hours of sun to just 12 now. This means the change in sunlight from day to day is quite noticable. Autumn is underway here with maple trees showing color, and birch trees dropping leaves. We broke out the sweaters the first week of September. Day temperature is in the 50s and night time in the 30s. Ground fog forms after sunset, and we saw a beautiful moonrise that was reflected in the fog. We've had several freezing nights already, and the city central heating system (hot water) was turned on today. Northern Europe experienced an unusually cool and cloudy summer, and autumn began early. It is our experience that yearly climatic fluctuations, in particular the summer weather, in northern Europe often run counter to those of the central U.S.
In August, we spent one week on the island of Vormsi in western Estonia, which we found quite nice. This island was historically Swedish up to World War II. After Russia occupied Estonia, the Swedes quietly left one night on their fishing boats. Now some are returning for a visit or to buy vacation homes. We were able to conduct kite aerial photography under nearly ideal conditions at several sites on the island. Estonia has many nature preserves in coastal settings as well as inland forests, lakes, and peat bogs. The latter environment is perhaps the most unusual in our experience. We recently took kite aerial photography in a large peat bog in east-central Estonia. An elevated wooden walkway crosses the bog that is monitored for climate, surface and ground water, and biological conditions.
We are busy teaching ESU classes via Internet, and Jim has some Estonian students enrolled in the remote sensing course. Susie's class is on gemstones and gemology. Our older son, Jeremy, is an exchange student at the University of Tartu, where he is taking a full load of language, history, nature, and culture courses. Our younger son, Jay, continues to work with teachers at Emporia High School via Internet and snail mail. As a relatively small university city, we find Tartu a very good situation for living and learning. The Tartu Observatory is nearby. It has the largest telescope in northern Europe, and there is a strong tradition of astronomical research here.
In fact, we are pleasantly impressed with Estonia. It has a strong economy, well developed infrastructure, and strong commitment to higher education. It's rated quite low in crime, political corruption, and environmental pollution. It aspires to be considered as part of Scandinavia, and indeed has strong Scandinavian connections. Negoiations are in progress to become a part of NATO and the European Union. Estonia is clearly the most successful of the several occupied nations of the former Soviet Union. In some respects, the conditions of Estonia are better than in certain countries of western Europe. The main long-term problem here is low birth rate and the need for emigration to provide unskilled labor.
Jim and Jay will depart soon for a two-week trip to the Tatra Mountains of Poland and Slovakia, where Jim will attend a geological meeting and attempt more kite aerial photography. Meanwhile, Susie and Jeremy will remain in Tartu to pursue study and teaching. The distance of this trip is not so great, but the roads and driving conditions will be substantially different than in the U.S. Although the highways of Estonia are reasonably good, we expect driving conditions to deteriorate as we travel southward through Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. No highways in central Europe meet interstate standards, and very few are even as good as US 50 west of Emporia. Most are more on the level of K-99 or the Americus Road, but with the addition of numerous pedestrians, bicyclists, slow buses and trucks, railroad crossings, and impatient drivers who will pass other vehicles anywhere. We have the added challenge of multiple border crossings and different currencies and languages in each country.
Our coverage of the Olympics is somewhat limited, as we do not get the EuroSport channel. Still the Estonian TV does give a daily summary of such sports as judo, fencing, rowing, womens weightlifting, and the ever popular team handball. The highlight of TV viewing is old episodes of the Simpsons (in English with Estonian subtitles) and the "ilm" (weather forecast).
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