On Offense

K. says...

"So what is your take on "cultural appropriation"? Seems to be a hot topic on tumblr and instagram. Got to an argument about this on the last one."

The primary irony here is that this conversation about cultural appropriation is being had by white Europeans.  The secondary irony is that worries about cultural appropriation are being dismissed by people from a nation whose self-identity, self-worth, and history is almost entirely about its distinct culture.


The danger with cultural appropriation is that it dilutes cultural identity, which can be extremely important. (E.g. you know how American black people often have ridiculous-sounding names? This is an extreme backlash against the destruction of their distinct identity after forced integration into the white American cultural space. Similarly, Hong Kong Chinese are very protective of their mix of Anglo and Chinese names, as this gives them a cultural identity that is distinct from the Mainland.) This is very difficult to internalize for people who are generally part of a dominant, unthreatened culture.

The difficulty with explaining this to Estonians is that at this point, they are so starved for worldwide attention that cultural appropriation would not be seen as a necessarily bad thing - the first example I thought of was a Kanye West remix of Tõnis Mägi's "Koit", but I expect most people would go "that's awesome!". Let's try to think of something more impactful: imagine yourself in a conversation with a Soviet Union apologist who is disparaging the low level of specifically Estonian culture, with its dumb and useless music like Tanel Padar; whereas in the olden days, Estonians had access to the works of superior Soviet artists like Georg Ots.

TL;DR: Be aware that even if something doesn't seem like a big deal to you, it might still be a big deal to someone else; not everyone's experiences mirror your own.

That I get and agree with. Someone talking bad about a particular culture or insulting it. But at the same time, items in itself don't have any meaning. People give them context which is important, especially for me in this case. This was a really beautiful photo of a female caucasian wearing a feathered native american headpiece to advertise it. The company selling them gets these pieces from native americans who actually make them. For me it was kinda the wrong place to feel offended. There was nothing insulting there (unless you blame the model for being born white since some other white people now and many in the past were doing bad things). Especially if you think on those cheap Halloween native american costumes and all of the 'acting stereotypical' ways. For me the interesting thing was that the main vocalists in this case were white teenage caucasians from Europe. There were quite a few fully or partially native americans who loved the photo.
If someone who is a supporter of the Soviet Union and its actions is insulting Estonian cultures or traditions, I could care less since I will certainly not be able to change his mind. Getting offended would just be a winning situation for the one doing the insulting. Maybe if they burned something on a political note? But in this case, if someone is doing it in supportive and positive way, why feel offended? But... as an article I once linked sad... offendedness depends mostly on the person who feels offended.

Okay, several points:

In the situation you described, the most relevant aspect is that this is probably being *sold* to white people. And if it's being sold to white people in America, then yes, I can see how that would be seen as a terrible thing to do - marginalizing a culture that has already been severely damaged by your own. Instead of providing life opportunities and developmental aid to Native American communities, the buyers are behaving like tourists - looking and pointing at the noble savages, throwing them a few coins and bringing back souvenirs to show their friends at home. This is not necessarily the attitude of the buyers, but it could certainly be construed that way by the Native Americans. 

Neither you nor I get to decide what Native Americans should or should not be offended by. And this extend to other situations. You don't get to tell me I shouldn't be offended at an antisemitic joke. I don't get to tell you that you shouldn't be offended at a sexist joke. As long as I realize that there is actually some reasonable historic/cultural background to explain why someone of another culture/minority *might* be offended, then I am going to be extremely weary of setting limits on their behalf regarding what is and isn't offensive. (We can have a fascinating conversation about why one joke about Jews is antisemitic and another one isn't, if you're patient.)

Now, there's certainly a good argument to be had against meta-offense; offense on behalf of another minority. But...

The situation you described - I can understand why this would horrify Europeans. Again, Estonia is sort of unique here because the community and culture has existed on this piece of land ever since there's been human habitation, and has pretty much never been in an expansionary war (but I tell you what, the people at the tourist office in Sigtuna were *genuinely* upset at me when I asked them where was the site of the former great church that the Estonian raiders burned down). So Estonians have never had to apologize, as a nation, for being extremely nasty to another nation. Almost every Western European nation has had to do that - I think the Irish are the only exception? Whereas white Americans most certainly have something to apologize for - several times over - but are, as a stereotype, militantly refusing to admit that they've done anything wrong, or at least that they are supposed to feel bad about something that their grandparents did.

So I can certainly understand the sequence of thought that leads Europeans to be embarrassed on behalf of the Caucasian race at the behavior of white Americans.

(Side note: as a member of the linguistics student minority, I am deeply and personally offended at your use of "I could care less" in that form. :P)

As for not being able to change someone's mind: that is not necessarily true. It's *difficult*, but it does happen occasionally, and when it does, it's worth the effort. Mostly it happens with the help of a strong external trigger, but that trigger needs to land on a fertile soil of awareness that there are other ways of thinking out there, and that apparently rational people subscribe to them. The long-form treatment of this is the film "American History X" with Edward Norton, which I recommend highly. The short-form is the old quote, I think attributed to Margaret Thatcher... Anyone who is not a socialist when they are young have no soul, and anyone who is not a capitalist when they are old have no brain. 

Paalalinna

So, there was a school shooting in Estonia today. A 15-year-old kid from a small town shot a 56-year-old lady teacher of German with a revolver. The teacher died. School staff took away the kid's gun; the police have him in custody.

His name and Facebook account leaked already, of course. No, I won't link it. He looks like a regular kid. Some of the stuff on his FB is disturbing in hindsight, but not more so than any 15-year-old boy's.

This is a terrible tragedy, but let's remember that outside of the context of what we've heard from America (and Finland, and Norway, and Canada), a disturbed 15-year-old getting hold of a gun and shooting a teacher is no more or less of a tragedy than a drunk 15-year-old getting hold of a car and running over a pedestrian.

What we need to do right now is to make the right conclusions from this. What society needs to do is to not completely freak out.

Intermezzo

A fellow blogger was asked by a 9-year-old what he would do if he was the President of Estonia.

Some time ago I was asked something similar, in a more serious way, by a fully grown-up and politically aware Indonesian. 

My answer was: Legalize all forms of stem cell research in Estonia. I think it would be a perfectly Estonian move, in the vein of the cultural legend that is "nobody ever told them it couldn't be done, so they went and did it". The opposition to stem cell research and human cloning is pretty much exclusively *moral*. Leave morality to the rest of the world, while the least religious country on the planet cashes in on every major pharma entity sending their best researchers here. (Pass a supplementary law requiring anyone with a PhD to do 10 hours a week community service at local universities.)

Happy Holidays etc.

On Estonian Customer Service

Customer service stories are always popular with readers, right? Got a few different ones saved up for you.

The Good

Motodepoo is a largish motorcycle supply shop (and Kawasaki dealer). Along with Tartu's Motohoov, it tends to be the default choice for parts and gear, and it has a nice big storefront in Tallinn with a good stock of gear on the premises. Beyond that, it has an online presence, Motopost.ee.

With enough stock come leftovers, and occasionally the store has some really good discounts - especially right at the end of the riding season. Last year, I picked up a nice matte black helmet from them for a song, and this year they had one in the same color scheme as my bike, and in my size. (As personal acquaintances and long-time blog readers might recognize, I have a big head.)

The helmet, an HJC FG-14, cost me 35 euros (original list price was supposedly 250), plus overnight shipping. I sent in the order on Thursday morning, paid the invoice in the afternoon, and got the helmet delivered on Friday.

Except that it was the wrong size and the wrong color.

A system is not defined by its mistakes, but its reaction to mistakes - and Motodepoo was very cool about it. One phone call, and the dude apologized, said he'd find the right helmet in the warehouse and ship it to me. I could return the wrong one via Smartpost (my idea), or just drop by their store some time - no rush (their idea). The right helmet got overnighted again, and I had it on Saturday morning. The box with the wrong helmet was indeed mislabeled; Motodepoo's mistake was in not checking the contents before sending the box off, and they certainly handled the situation extremely well. Considering that this was a very low-value transaction for them - clearing warehouse space, selling a product almost certainly below cost - I am very happy with the company and will certainly deal with them again in the future. Oh, and the helmet's very nice.

The Bad

This was a few months back. I'd just returned from my Nordkapp trip, and didn't want to go out for dinner in Tallinn (where I was spending the night). So I ordered some food via a new service I'd seen somewhere called TapTender: you download an app to your smartphone (or use a Web browser) to order from a restaurant's menu, and they'll either deliver your order, or have it prepared and ready to serve by the time you specify, so you can arrive at the restaurant and get your meal right away. I'm not absolutely convinced there is enough added value in the idea to make it a business case, but here was a good opportunity to try it out.

I'd used the browser to put in my order and the address where it was to be delivered. The wait time was an hour - not particularly fast, but not unreasonable. Except that after an hour, the food was still not there. About an hour and 45 minutes in, I called the restaurant; the food was ready, but the delivery driver had not picked it up yet. They promised to call the TapTender people and figure out what was going on. A few minutes later, I got a call from TapTender's manager: their driver had become inexplicably unavailable, without warning. It did not occur to them that they could fix their mistake by getting the restaurant to use its other delivery service - which was working fine - until I'd suggested it. They said they'd call the restaurant and ask if that was possible, and call me back. When they did, I told them that so much time had passed since my food was supposed to arrive, that there was no more point in it.

My experience with the service was a complete and utter shambles, but to be fair, the TapTender people were very apologetic and seemed to be genuinely sorry and embarrassed. I got a call the next day, from their founder/CEO/whatever, offering a free delivery as compensation, but as I was not in Tallinn any more, I told them to forget it and just make sure it doesn't happen again. It's ludicrous that a contracted, professional delivery driver would simply fail to answer a call-out, but I have reasonable hopes that it taught the company a lesson. If you've used TapTender recently, I'd love to hear about your experience.

The Ugly

Möku is one of Tartu's premier pubs, a tiny room in a basement on the main pedestrian street that is open only in the evenings, serves only drinks (no food), and is extremely popular. It was started as a passion project by a couple of IT guys who wanted to bring the "local pub" culture to Tartu - to open a place that would establish a crowd of regulars, and stimulate a community feel. The combination of cheap drinks and an excellent location made Möku a staple of Tartu's pub culture. For two years, they hosted the monthly open mic shows for Comedy Estonia, of which I was a part. On show nights, comedians drank for free. I quite enjoyed that bit.


Unfortunately, Möku seems to have fallen victim to its own success - something that happens to a lot of personally motivated businesses while they grow big. Möku's crowd has grown to be many times that of its capacity, and these days the street in front of it is one big block party on weekend nights - certainly boosted by two other drinking establishments immediately next to it. On a warm, dry, mosquito-free night, this is a great place to hang out, and a place where you can go and expect to find people you know.

That is, if you can get a drink.

Möku's conceptual notion remains the same, even as its actual business has changed drastically. While in the early days, the founders themselves ran the bar, now it is all hired staff. And while I've met some cool people who worked at the bar while I was doing the comedy stuff, it seems that Möku has had trouble keeping them.

On a recent Friday night, I'd persuaded a few friends, old and new, to leave the dubstep-infused meatmarket that is Shooters and head over to Möku for a few drinks at a place where we could hear ourselves think. A few of the people were foreigners, so I figured it would be fun to buy them an Estonian Flag shot - like I did with a bunch of visiting comedians when we'd go to Möku after our main show. Now, different pubs make Estonian Flag shots differently, and I like the Möku version: pina colada, Salmiakki vodka, and Curacao Blue. (I know it sounds disgusting, but it works.)

After waiting for fifteen minutes to reach the bar, I was told by the girl there that I could not buy Estonian Flag shots for my friends. Not because she didn't know how to make them, but because it would take too long. There was a line, you see; and the only things she would sell were bottled beer, or whatever was on tap. (Maybe if I asked nicely I could have gotten a gin and tonic or a rum and coke, but I didn't dare ask.)

This was not the first time that Möku staff refused to sell me anything more complicated than two ingredients quickly thrown together in a plastic cup. It's a recent phenomenon, and while I can certainly blame the individual bartender, I also think it's a failure of Möku's management. On a massively busy Friday night, they only had two girls on the staff - one of whom was gathering up the empty glasses, running the dishwasher, getting more stock out of the back room, etc. With a clientèle of hundreds, Möku still only has one point of sale and one wired card terminal. And while I'm sure they could make more revenue from selling bottled beers in the time it took them to prepare a few expensive shots, refusing a sale like that is just ridiculous. I have a lot of historical loyalty to Möku, it's been good to me, but after repeating that experience a few times, I have no desire to return. I'd rather just go to that newish Pirogov place, where they make a great White Russian, and if you get there early enough, they might just give you some fantastic soup.

Medical Strike Demands

Came upon a link to a letter sent by the medical workers' union to its members. It sets out, in clear language, what exactly it is that the doctors and nurses are asking for. Figure it's worth translating for anyone who's following the events.

For what it's worth, the taxation issue warrants further discussion, but otherwise I personally find these demands to be reasonable.


The Purposes and Demands of the Healthcare Workers' Strike

The purpose is to slow down the outflow of healthcare workers from Estonia and stop the disintegration of the healthcare system.

To achieve the purpose:

A. We demand a collective agreement that:

* Extends to all healthcare workers, irrespective of whether they are financed from the Health Insurance Fund or from the state budget;

* Sets out the maximum work amount that can be demanded within a 1.0 workload position. For doctors, the number of in- and outpatients treated per year. For nurses and caretakers, the number of patients in a department per employee;

* Implements a 40-hour paid work week for a resident physician;

* Ensures defacto accounting and compensation of overtime, additional pay for night work, the coverage of supplementary training costs, additional vacation time;

* Implements minimum hourly wage rates - the first phase demands are, before tax, 8.60 for doctors, 5.50 for nurses, 3.00 for caretakers. The wage increase must be palpable and guaranteed for the next 3 years, to slow down the outflow of healthcare workers.

We will accept an honest offer that considers all financial possibilities. Note: we are talking about raising minimum rates, not an equal percentage increase for everyone.

B. We want agreements for the introduction of changes to the healthcare system and funding increases. For conditions that cannot be immediately implemented starting from 2013, we will agree to a longer-term schedule, but a specific plan of action along with implementation deadlines must be agreed upon and binding to the parties.

* The hospital network's development plan must specifically define the volume and kind of specialist medical care (in what specialist fields) that will unequivocally remain in general hospitals, and must also define how the state will ensure the preservation of this volume. This will give young upcoming physicians a sense of stability. The decisions must be made at the state level, not left up to the hospital owners.

* To improve the availability of medical care:

a) Change the maximum limit of outpatient queues for specialist doctor care back to 4 weeks (this was changed to 6 weeks in 2009).

b) Restore dental care compensation for patients.

c) Provide family doctor care to uninsured persons, financing it from the state budget.

These changes will also reduce the unnecessary additional workload of doctors and costs to the state, as easier illnesses that are left untreated become more difficult and chronic, and the treatment becomes more expensive.

* To increase the 2013 budget of the Health Insurance Fund:

a) Cover the capital costs of hospitals from the state budget (as per the Health Services Organisation Act)

b) Use the undistributed profit of the Health Insurance Fund to the maximum extent permitted by law

* To increase the income base of healthcare, we recommend the adoption of the 2010 WHO proposals "Possibilities for ensuring the financial  sustainability of the Estonian health system", for example raising capital taxes, application of social tax to dividends, state-paid social tax on pensions. The choice must be made by the politicians.

We are prepared to negotiate and compromise on all topics. We will be able to end the strike as soon as the agreements are signed.

And now for something different.

I'm going on vacation (motorcycle trip up to Nordkapp) and suddenly realized that my European medical insurance card - proof of insurance that gets me free healthcare anywhere in the EU and EEC - expired two years ago. Previously it was sort of irrelevant, because I had good travel insurance, but on this trip there's very little to insure - ferry tickets are cheap, and hotel bookings are usually free.

So I go on the Estonian state services portal, X-road, and order a new card. But it's going to take some time to get here, and I leave within a few days. I go to the health insurance authority's website and find that I can get a replacement certificate immediately at any of their regional offices, it's only valid for 3 months, but does the same things as the card, and it's also free. Excellent.

So I go to the Tartu office, and have a really weird interaction with the lady at the service desk. An older woman, she speaks to me in a really stern and loud voice. That leaves an unfriendly impression. But once I quickly explain to her what I need, and that I've taken all the other necessary steps (ordered the new card online, etc.), she quickly and efficiently prints out the certificate and explains to me all the relevant stuff - such as that it's in Estonian, but that's fine, because every country in the EEC prints them in their own language based on a common template, so a hospital will know which row contains which bit of info. A perfectly efficient and successful interaction that took me about three minutes from walking into the building, including finding the service desk itself. The only weird thing was the lady's tone.

Now, this is the point where a Mingus or a Vello Vikerkaar or a Justin Petrone might launch into a philosophical treatise on the Estonian psyche and the nature of customer service in this country. Mostly I've dismissed such wonderings - foreigner friends have told me about weird interactions they have had at places where I had no problem at all, so I generally think it's down to Estonians not being able to quickly parse the English of a visitor, or their non-Russian-accented Estonian: the clerk expects the foreigner to have, by default, a non-trivial problem, and experiences a brain freeze. But what was the weirdness in my interaction all about? The lady's tone didn't change all throughout the conversation, even though she understood what I needed before I even finished explaining, and in every other way her attitude was very efficient and helpful.

I thought about it for a while, and then it hit me. This is the administrative office of the health insurance agency. It exists for people who can't get their issue resolved online, for whatever reason. I was the outlier, the person who needed a piece of paper to be used abroad, a piece of legacy, backup technology for those venturing outside the cool, efficient environment of E-stonia. But who makes up the majority of the service desk's clientele? The elderly and the confused, people who can't figure out the Internet, or people who are just bored and come there with pointless queries to get some human interaction. The clerks at the healthcare authority have naturally trained themselves to speak slowly, loudly and succinctly, to convey information to people who are probably hard of hearing. And even when it's not necessary, they can't actually stop. And it wouldn't make sense for them to change their mental patterns just for a few minutes, for a rare type of customer.

It still feels weird, though.

Of Banks, Thanks and Tanks

Further to this:

There is an ever-louder discussion of why exactly Estonia should help bail out the Southern Eurozone countries. Here's a link to an interview with our Finance Minister (in Estonian). Although the current cabinet is full of people who often speak more directly and more insultingly than most European politicians, and Ligi is one of those people, I think there is room for an independent voice to provide more clarity still.

We're part of the bailout because Germany wants us there, and why Germany is willing to bail out those countries is actually irrelevant to Estonia's own internal political discussion. Estonia has benefited very heavily from European solidarity in financial terms. Being on the other side of that solidarity now, helping out others instead of just receiving help, not only repays some of the moral debt we owe to Europe, but accrues moral credit. We're pulling our weight, even though it's a difficult thing for us to do, and we have good short-term reasons not to do it. It makes the rest of the continent see us as an integral part of Europe. It is a favor we're doing, and the fact that we're not doing it for our own obvious gain is what allows us to expect a favor from Europe at some indeterminate point in the future. And that's where it comes down to the unspoken but well-understood, and well-founded, paranoia that underlies Estonia's political discourse, the ultimate purpose that the failing, dysfunctional, spent generation of Estonian statespeople still understands far better than the millennial generation which takes Europe for granted.

A strong bond with a weak Europe is still Estonia's best geopolitical choice.

Today, Estonian money protects Spain's banks; so that tomorrow, Spain's tanks would protect Estonia's borders.

On Balance

1) Estonia's contribution to EFSF: 555 million euros in guarantees.

2) Estonia's contribution to ESM: 150 million euros in guarantees.

3) EU structural funds actually paid out, out of those assigned to Estonia for the 2007-2013 period: 1 643 524 431 euros (1.65 billion).

Yeah... we might want to shut the fuck up about the Greek bailout and do what Miss Merkel says.

ACTA Is Not Evil; It Should Be Rejected Anyway - Part II

In Part I, I described why ACTA is not the intrinsically evil entity that people think it is. In fact, it is a relatively boring and toothless trade agreement that does not place any additional burdens on countries beyond what most signatories already have in their own national legislations.

So, am I going to go and withdraw my signature from the petition to stop ACTA, and tell my MEPs that they are free to vote for it if they can trade that favor for, let’s say, better agricultural subsidy terms for Estonian farmers?

I won’t. While ACTA’s text is nowhere near scary enough to warrant the level of public opposition it has received, the existence of that opposition is in itself a reason to reject the treaty.

As I have said before, if the majority of a democratic society expresses its desire sufficiently unambiguously, then that desire must be implemented, even if it is counter to the prevailing ideology. Governments and legislation exist only because it is not feasible to seek a referendum on each policy decision. At this stage, it would actually be technologically possible, but the general population does not have the time to thoughtfully consider the implications of a matter and arrive at an informed opinion. This is replaced by politicians running on broad platforms, and the people choose the broad direction they feel most comfortable with, then delegate their decision power. But the decision power stems from the people, and if the people actually care about an issue strongly enough, then that overrides the opinions of politicians, and the existing laws of the land.

ACTA is a touchstone issue. The anti-ACTA protests are not the result of the text of ACTA itself, or its implications; they are the result of an attempt to impose outdated behavioral models on an evolved technological world. And while a small layer of specialists may be genuinely worried about things like region-free DVDs or burdens on service providers, the majority of the human force of protesters is worried about something else. Everyone who saw the Wikipedia blackout and called their senator – for them, SOPA/PIPA/ACTA was only the last straw. Their patience was worn down, and their anger slowly built up, by the fight between rights holders and filesharers.

The Internet allows digital content – music, video, text, software – to be copied near-infinitely, at very little incremental cost. This creates a conflict. Consumers would like all content to be available for free. Rights holders would like to receive full retail payment for each created copy. Over the last decade or so, a dynamic balance has been reached. Businesses generally do not use pirated software, and this is heavily enforced. Consumers will prefer to use legitimate software and acquire legitimate content, where it has been made convenient for them, and where the price reflects the fact that the incremental cost of creating and delivering a copy has fallen dramatically since the days of cassette tapes. They do this partially on moral grounds, and partially because they recognize the importance of supporting the content creator. But consumers remain very aware of two things.

1)      The content creator and the rights holder are often different entities. Consumers part with their money far more easily when it goes directly to the content creator (who then covers the expenses of production and delivery out of their revenue, and keeps the profit) than when it goes to a rights holder, who distributes that revenue in opaque ways. Even if the content creator makes a lot of money, people still resent the middleman. There is no sympathy for rights holders.

2)     People are aware that the filesharing alternative exists. Where cumbersome artificial copy-protection measures makelife difficult for legitimate customers, and prices are perceived as being too high, they will turn to torrenting.

The origin of SOPA/PIPA, and the perceived threat of ACTA, is that the rights holders are attempting to legislate away the advances of digital technology, and the de-facto capabilities of consumers. This is why the public opposes ACTA. And the public’s voice must be heard. In a democratic state, if the will of the people is as clear as it has been made with ACTA, governments must submit to it, even if it is contrary to the interests of the rights holders.

If the public feels that intellectual property should not be protected or enforced in the way envisioned by ACTA, that's just too bad for the rights holders. The public must then deal with the possibility that content will no longer be created if rights cannot be enforced. Implications must not be hidden from the people, and their impact must not be softened. But the will of the people must be paramount.

Digital rights enforcement is broken, and is actively counter to both the will of the people and the technological reality. That is what the web demos are protesting, really. Yes, ACTA was the catalyst because its communication was grossly mishandled, but it does come down to the issue that modern technology allows for free content distribution, and the rights holders have mostly chosen to ignore the change in technology and attempt to enforce outdated business models through legislative means.

It's the same as the War on Drugs in that sense; if everyone is smoking weed, it's stupid to put people in jail for carrying a joint. If everyone is downloading, it's stupid to put people in jail for downloading.

One of the most preposterous things is that the issue has been successfully resolved for a different medium (analog-media copying) and works today. There was a hidden tax on every blank cassette tape and VHS tape sold, and that money was divided amongst rights holders. Even before that, there was the radio fee distribution scheme – radio stations pay to broadcast music, as do public venues that play music through their in-house audio systems. The equivalent solution – long since proposed and already adopted by some EEC members and other countries – is to place a flat levy on Web access, as payment for the implied piracy. This produces far less revenue for rights holders than they would like, but it resolves the moral issue while protecting the rights of consumers.

There are compromises to be made in the fight against piracy. As for ACTA, it is an issue of democracy. Because the people have chosen to reject it, and made their opinions heard, the politicians must reject it as well.

My signature is still on the petition.

Non-Celebratory Post Number 601

...and another thing. What's the deal with paper receipts? I'm not a complete eco-mentalist, but I try to limit consumption of unnecessary things. What is the point of printing a paper receipt for every transaction in a supermarket etc? Particularly if I'm using my loyal customer card. If there's a warranty claim, or a suspicion of shoplifting, you've got an electronic record of what went through the register, and I have a record of what went through my credit card. It's the year 2012. Why are we still wasting paper on receipts? Some people might enjoy the peace of mind from re-checking the numbers at the register, so OK, make the functionality available if someone actually asks for it. But I cannot see any other good reason for it. In fact, here's a freebie for Estonian and EU politicians: run on a promise of enhancing data retention & transparency, by requiring that every store chain that gives out loyal customer cards must also have a Web interface where you log in with your ID card and see a complete record of what the company knows about you - including your purchase history. I'm sure SEB would absolutely love to integrate that kind of data into their spending diary app. Hell, they'll probably co-finance its development.

MEP vs ACTA

This Wednesday, Wikipedia and a bunch of other websites blacked out their content in protest to SOPA, a bill in the US Congress that would break the internet while not actually being effective at fighting piracy.

There is a version of this legislation that is immediately relevant to Europeans. It's called ACTA, and it's an international treaty that needs to be ratified by the Europarliament and individual EU member states before it goes into effect. The first step was approval by the European Commission, and that was done in a very underhanded and secretive way, to prevent the public from learning about it. Didn't work.

On the day of the SOPA blackout, I decided to be slightly more proactive, and do a little personal test of democracy. I went on Facebook and looked for the accounts of Estonia's Members of the European Parliament. Four of the six had accounts.* I sent a private message to three of them and posted on the wall of the fourth. (Facebook will only let you post on the wall of someone who already confirmed you as a friend, but you can message anyone directly. I happened to be Facebook-friends with Indrek Tarand already.) My question was simple: how do you intend to vote on ACTA?

That was two days ago, and impressively, two people have replied already. Ivari Padar said that he was not part of the committee that dealt directly with ACTA, but referred me to his parliamentary faction's position paper on it. It's a boring political answer and the paper doesn't actually say whether the Socialists & Democrats faction is for or against the treaty, but at least they're asking questions - and Padar scores points for promptly responding to a voter's inquiry.

The other response was from Tarand, who pointed me to his website. He'd published an opinion on ACTA as long ago as 2010, and while this is also a political text, it does make clear that Tarand's attitude to ACTA in its current form is negative. Hopefully he will vote against it if and when it comes up in the Europarliament's agenda.

Contact your MEPs and make sure the rest of them do as well.


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*Tunne Kelam does have an account, actually, but I didn't find it at first - and it looks inactive (probably registered for him by a staffer to prevent squatting). Vilja Savisaar-Toomast has not replied yet, and neither has Kristiina Ojuland. Siiri Oviir does not have a personal account.

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PS: This is the 600th post on antyx.net. Awesome.

No, You

http://xkcd.com/989/

When we joined the Eurozone, I asked what Estonia's next great challenge was going to be. One suggestion was to join the Nordic Council, getting de-facto recognition of our status as a Nordic country (after which we would do absolutely everything in our power to make sure neither Latvia nor Lithuania could ever possibly join). But that was not significant enough; while it would be nice, it's simply not the kind of overarching goal and purpose that could unite the country in a singular pursuit.

These days I think a better challenge would be population growth. Twenty years ago, at the cusp of independence, Estonia's population was around 1.5 million; now it's 1.3 at a stretch. A lot of it is attributable to emigration in the 90s, in both easterly and westerly directions. Since that time successive governments have struggled with family-support legislation, tax breaks, baby benefits, etc. - and we've just about gotten to the point where the natural demographics are balanced, heading towards the positive: more babies will be born than people will die.

But following EU accession, global financial crisis, and the popping of the real-estate-fueled economic bubble, emigration is once again a big issue. A lot of capable and energetic talent is taking advantage of labor mobility laws, and going off abroad in search of fame, fortune, or just a good time.

Admittedly a lot of them will come back (and have). There is a sense of homeland that drives people back here, as evidenced both by the fairly high community of foreign expats married to Estonian women, and by my own experience during extended travels. I've almost literally been around the world, and while there are plenty of places where I could see myself spending a few years (Stockholm, Barcelona, NYC, Hong Kong, Singapore...), I know I'd always want to come back to Tartu.

The other issue is the difference between perception and reality. This is something I've also internalized while traveling: we might compare ourselves to countries with far greater GDP and income levels, but how different is the living standard, really? This summer, going across Europe by rail, I stopped overnight at a friend's house in southern Denmark. The guy is an IT professional, his wife is a specialist nurse. They live in a modest two-bedroom house, and their car is a ten-year-old diesel Ford Focus. Later on during that trip I ended up in Stuttgart, staying with a couple who had a really nice, large apartment; in their early-mid 30s, they didn't have children yet, and after traveling around the world themselves, they were very happy to meet other people by offering them a spare room via couchsurfing or airBnB. The guy was also an IT professional, this time for Mercedes (everyone in Stuttgart works for Mercedes, Porsche, or Bosch). He had a company car - but said that if he didn't, he wouldn't get a private one, because he and his wife didn't really need one and it is too expensive to run it in Germany. Months later, I was performing in Helsinki and talked to one of the biggest standup guys on that scene; he complained that while the average salary in Finland came out to something like 2700 euros (as opposed to 700 in Estonia), that really doesn't get you very far living in Helsinki. Indeed: a tuna sandwich in Rimi in downtown Tallinn or Tartu is 1.45. The same sandwich in Stockmann in Helsinki is over six euros. After Helsinki I went on my big trip for the year. In Northern California, I stayed with friends again - both professionals, established, in their 40s, childless for personal philosophic reasons. Their house is rented, and their one extravagance is a big powerful muscle car - a Dodge, far cheaper than an equivalent BMW that you'll see a lot of in Tallinn. Their previous car, the first one that either of them had purchased new, was a cheap basic Toyota. In Vancouver, I met up with a friend who drove a Neon, the Lada of North America.

All of these people are comfortably middle-class. The ones in Denmark are probably the closest to the median living standard for their country. The ones in California had the fanciest toy - but the biggest vulnerability to medical bills and, had they chosen to have children, the highest expenses for education.

So wherever you are in the Western world - of which Estonia is now firmly a part - you will end up with a roughly similar living standard for a given level of skill, ability and motivation. People who move out of Estonia hoping to significantly improve their circumstances through the sheer fact of living in a country with a higher GDP often find that this is not a magical solution. (People who intend to only work long enough to qualify for unemployment benefits and happily spend the rest of their lives eating instant noodles, sitting in a subsidized apartment and watching reality television, deserve as little sympathy and consideration as the societies that fail to prevent it.)

I tested this idea recently when an acquaintance mentioned the dire state of the Estonian medical system. She is a doctor who recently finished her training and went off to work in provincial Finland. This is a common enough occurrence: the University of Tartu's medical school is valued highly enough by our northern neighbors that a lot of their young people actually come here to study - it's cheaper and the entrance competition is easier. The doctor in question was concerned about the future of Estonia's healthcare as a whole: by her reckoning, at least 80% of medical students were learning Finnish, and very nearly all of them intended to take their skills elsewhere after graduation. (Norway is another country with a seemingly endless demand for medical professionals, and also one where the apparent living standard is not as high as you'd expect.)

My question to my acquaintance was this: what would have to happen, in a practical sense, for her to have decided to stay in Estonia? Or to now decide to come back, in light of her experience working up near the Arctic Circle?

The answer was not a higher salary, or access to new equipment, or better working conditions, or challenging cases to stimulate the imagination, learn new techniques and advance a career. It wasn't any of the completely valid and understandable gripes that I expected to hear when I asked the question. The answer was the way that the established classes in her chosen profession treated newbies - with lack of respect, not considering that they might also be smart, capable, trustworthy people who had something of value to contribute. The answer was attitude.

For her, and for a lot of other people I've talked to, the reason for emigration is the inability to handle Estonians' uncaring treatment of their fellow human beings. We are a country with universal free healthcare, nearly universal free higher education, easy access to tools of entrepreneurship, low levels of bureaucracy, trusted law enforcement that keeps the crime rate tolerable, and once you see the world for yourself, an objectively reasonable living standard. Hell, even our weather has been improving.

Estonia's biggest turnoff is that we just aren't nice to each other.

If we are to take up the new national challenge and grow our numbers, we have to do more than just make babies. We have to keep people in the country - or, perhaps even better, we have to make sure that people who've gone out into the world bring their valuable skills and experiences back here. We have to make Estonia a better place to be.

We are the ones who have to do it. Me and you. The only way to make Estonia a place where people are nice to each other is to start right now - start being nice to those around you, and keep doing it. Until they start doing it too, or until they die out, or until they go to Finland or the UK or Canada.

We won't begrudge anyone leaving to find the society in which they want to live. Meanwhile, you and I can stay behind, and improve this one.

Fun with images

Dokumenteerija

Here's a video of a lecture I gave to first-year IT students at the University of Tartu, on the job of a technical writer. It's in Estonian, and it's short; one of a technical writer's core virtues is to talk as little as possible while still getting your point across.

You're Praising Us Wrong

Over the last decade or so, Estonia has frequently been the subject of praise from foreign commentators for its rapid growth and fiscal responsibility. This has increased since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008 - we were hit pretty bad in the property bust, but have recovered well. (I've compared data from March 2007 to March 2011, and the average wage has increased 20%, while the Consumer Price Index has increased 21%.) We're also competing with Luxembourg for the lowest public debt in the Union. All this looks like a really good situation to outside observers obsessed with debt and growth problems in the US and EU, so there have been a number of articles talking about how we've been Doing It Right.

I want to talk about what our fans are doing wrong. I want to talk about bits of the Estonian state which are not mentioned by commentators who are using us an example for their own ideology.

On the US side, the most obvious example of this I've seen recently is this article in something called the Washington Times, by a man called Richard Rahn, "a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth" - in other words, someone who lives in the US capital and talks for a living.

Estonia serves as an example - even for the United States - of what can be accomplished by keeping down deficits and debt, and utilizing a flat tax rather than a progressive income tax.

That is true enough. But to any member of the US right wing (which is quite different, ideologically, from the European and even Estonian right wings), I would recommend they remember this:

1) That flat tax really is flat, as in, it doesn't decrease for the top earners. It also makes no difference between wages, capital gains, stock options, or anything else. Captains of industry may manage to siphon cash into Swiss bank accounts, but all personal earnings are taxed at the same rate. In fact, because income tax is waived for the first little bit of money you earn, the effective rate actually grows the higher your income gets, although this is insignificant above average-wage level. The free-market beacon you offer up to the wayward US does not give tax breaks to the rich.

2) Universal healthcare for everyone. People can be unhappy with the quality of treatment, and occasionally rightly so, but it's almost impossible to end up without healthcare coverage. If you or your spouse are on someone's payroll (even at minimum wage), if you're a minor, if you're a college student, if you're registered as unemployed - you get health insurance. No tiers. You can pay to jump a queue, but you still see the same specialist who's working with the same equipment, and it's paid for by the state.

3) Free higher education. Not universal - because no economy needs too many college graduates - but the state sponsors enough spots that if you know what you want to do after school and have the talent for it, you won't have to pay tuition. Between special subsidized student loans and a tradition of part-time work in college, smart and capable kids from low-income families have no problem getting a high-quality education. Access to the entire EU's worth of universities certainly helps.

The arguments are somewhat different when talking about the praise heaped on Estonia from EU-centric sources; here's a representative article from The Economist. Europe's right-wingers point to Estonia as a paragon of austerity, but are quick to ascribe it to cleverness and low levels of bureaucracy. But the key quality here is patience and a willingness to suffer for ultimate long-term good. That latter is what's missing in Europe as a whole today. Lack of it is the cause of the European sovereign crisis. Its onset is the only way to resolve the issue.

Quite simply, Estonia does not spend more than it earns - and neither should other countries. The Eurozone crisis is about unsustainable government-sector borrowing. Sure, a lot of Estonia's post-independence development has been subsidized by EU structural funds - but the same goes for a lot of other EU states, old and new. The threat to the common currency, the threat of Greece or Spain or Italy or Portugal defaulting, is that afterwards, Eurozone states will no longer be able to borrow money at low rates. So stop borrowing.

Forget PIGS. Both Germany and France have government debt of over 80% of their GDP - the entire value produced in those countries in a year. The Eurozone average is 85%. All the countries in the EU except Estonia and and Sweden spent more in 2010 than they earned, so that debt is only getting bigger. The initial thinking was that deficit spending would be canceled out by growth; by the time a country had to repay the debts, it would be collecting so much more in taxes that repayment wouldn't be difficult, or at the very least there would be a net gain. But most European states are at the point now where it is extremely unlikely that they would ever be able to pay off their public debt, and they haven't even started. Greece and Ireland and the other Eurozone states who have been particularly reckless with their spending are the first to reach the point where nobody trust them to keep up payments any more - but every single country in the EU will get there within the foreseeable future.

Unless they stop deficit spending.

This will be very difficult for politicians to sell to their voters, because today's Europeans see prosperity as their birthright. But balanced, surplus budgets are the only way to deal with the crisis.

The EU's government debt issue is not as bad as America or Japan's, true. But America has a lot of fat to trim. There are vast reserves of inefficiency in its budget-sponsored industries, primarily military and healthcare. Sooner or later, push will come to shove, they will introduce a single-payer system that will cut healthcare costs by a massive margin, and stop shoveling quite so much money into their military-related industries. They will also raise taxes on the top earners, like they did to pay off their WWII debt. They had a surplus in the 90s. The reason they don't now is because of their politicians.

The reason the EU doesn't have a budget surplus is because of its voters. The politicians, I'm sure, are well aware that austerity is necessary - but the populations will not stand for it. The EU already has high taxes. Increasing them further may help, but EU taxpayers expect to get something back for their contribution, a higher level of services, higher government spending. And it's government spending that needs to be cut.

In 2010, Germany's government debt increased by 3.3% of GDP. France's increased by 7% of GDP. Ireland's government spent a third more in 2010 than the value of everything that every person and corporation in that country did or created, put together.

The only realistic way to repay Europe's debts is to cut spending. Some will find it easier than others. None will find it as easy as Estonia did.

Kyoto and Estonia's Electric Cars

The most disappointing thing in recent years, in Estonian politics and life, is that we seem to have lost our edge; our willingness to go for awesome projects that might be very improbable and would not work anywhere else, but end up working really well here. The Tiger Leap program, the free wifi, the e-voting... How long has it been since there was a truly inspirational national project? The ultra-broadband buildout is the closest thing in the last few years, but that's not as obvious or immediate.

Now, it seems there is one. 

For years, Estonia has been supplementing its budget income by selling emission quotas under the EU and Kyoto Protocol regulations. Like fishing rights, this is a non-obvious but fairly serious revenue stream. The quotas are apparently assigned on a comparison basis, with 1990 as the baseline. In 1990, Estonia was still part of the Soviet Union, and all that Soviet industry was busy belching out pollution; most of it was not viable in a free-market economy and went bankrupt, so we are actually allowed to pollute a lot more than we do. The difference can be sold to countries which pollute more than they are allowed to, for cash... or other benefits.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Estonia's initial assigned quota was around 196 million AAU per year; this is the emission level that was recorded for 1990. (One AAU is equal to one metric ton of carbon dioxide, although it's actually a mathematical calculation with conversion factors for other types of greenhouse gases - CO2 is not the only thing that industries emit.) In the period between 2007 and 2012, Estonia was subject to the general EU commitment to reduce that emission level by 8%, so it could claim no more than 180 million AAU per year. If companies in Estonia emit less CO2 than that, the leftover amounts can be traded with companies in other countries, and added to that country's allocation.

This commitment period is ending next year, and Estonia apparently has AAUs to spare, because instead of just selling them for cash, it will hand over 10 million AAU to Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation. In return, Mitsubishi will establish an electric car infrastructure in Estonia. The country's cities and major motorways will be covered by a network of 250 charging stations, and the state will receive 507 Mitsubishi i-MIEV electric cars, which will be used by social workers.

Besides that, the sale of additional AAUs will be used to finance a subsidy for an additional 500 or so vehicles for private buyers. Those cars will not be free, but they will be a lot cheaper than market price, and buyers won't have to stick to the Mitsubishis - any electric car certified for use in the EU will be eligible.

To receive the subsidy, the buyers will have to commit to purchasing sustainable energy certificates. This is a way of ensuring that the electric cars are powered by green electricity. The cars themselves can be charged from any station in the country-wide network, or indeed any power socket; the certificate is a way of ensuring that for each fossil-fueled kilowatt-hour that the electric car takes out of the grid, a green-fueled kilowatt-hour is put back into the grid.

Buyers of non-subsidized electric cars will, of course, be allowed to use the country-wide charging infrastructure, and will not be forced to purchase the green-energy certificates. Meanwhile, the subsidized electric cars will effectively consume no fossil fuels at all - apart, of course, from the energy used to build the cars in the first place. It's also worth remembering that all of this is financed by allowing a Japanese corporation to spew out greenhouse gases from its own factories.

But it's still an amazingly elegant and forward-thinking deal, one which will make Estonia one of the world's leading countries in electric-vehicle infrastructure. And the availability of charging stations is the real key to making electric cars viable.

Progressive Income Tax and You

I love hard data.

Here is a little website where you can input your current net salary (per month), and see how much less/more you would be paying under the progressive income tax proposals of SDE and the Center Party.

What I would also love to see is the impact of this on the budget, but unfortunately there is probably no way to get a breakdown of taxes paid by each resident (even if it's just a list of numbers, with no personally identifiable information). I'm sure the Tax Board has that info, and I would love it if they made the calculations and published the results, but I doubt they will. So I tried a very, very approximate method to get something vaguely resembling useful numbers.

The most relevant numbers I can find in the Statistics Database are the total amount of personal income tax paid into the state budget (191 728 390 Euro) and municipal budgets (584 706 720 Euro) in 2010. This table shows the average number of persons engaged in each industry, adjusted for fulltime work, and this one shows the average net and brute salary for the same industries (both tables show data for Q3 2010).

If there are any statisticians in the audience, please tell me if I've got the logic heavily wrong somehow. I took the number of employees in each industry, and the net wage for that industry; then used the net wage with the link above to calculate the impact.

Click the image to see the full-size version.

So for the wages listed above, alone, it seems that the Social Democrats' progressive income tax plan will result in an increase of budget revenues of around 3 million euro per year; whereas the Center Party's plan, which actually cuts the tax rate for the lower income bands, will result in a loss off around 638 thousand euro per year in budget revenue.

Of course, these numbers do not include income tax generated from corporate dividends and investment income, but those numbers are far harder to find. But they would not make a significant impact on the magnitude of the budget impact. Remember that the total revenue from personal income tax in 2010, for the state and local budgets, was 191 728 390 + 584 706 720 = 776 435 110 euro. Whereas the people in the table, together, would have paid 701 085 072 Euro in flat income tax, adjusting for the untaxable minimum.

Again, all these numbers are very approximate. As always, if you can point me to the right data, I'll appreciate it.

Elections 2011

The Estonian parliamentary elections are this Sunday (and electronic voting has been going on for the best part of a week), and I suppose I really ought to write something about them.

I've been avoiding it, for a number of reasons. For one, there doesn't seem to be very much invasion of the real world with these elections. Political street advertising is banned, and I don't watch TV*, so the only real exposure I've had is the news articles and debates. Maybe the coverage is more pervasive in Tallinn. I've gotten some paper spam in the last few days, but nowhere near as much as I remember from previous election cycles, including Europarliament and local elections.

The other reason is that there is very little intrigue in the run-up to these elections. I've said before that the incumbent Reform Party was likely to do well, thanks to the successful Euro adoption and its general reputation as the party of economic administrators at a time when the economy is the most important issue. I'd hoped that Ansip would be forced to leave, on the general principle that having the same person in charge for so long is not healthy; but I'm pretty sure I'll be losing that bet. At this stage, the biggest question about the elections on March 6th is whether Andrus Ansip's Reform Party will get 51 seats, giving them a single-party majority, or if they will simply end up with somewhere north of 40, forced to grab one of the lesser parties into a coalition.

The Center Party will almost inevitably get some parliamentary seats, but will stay in opposition; it's also likely to lose seats compared to the current election. Not only is it suffering still from the effects of Savisaar's Kremlin money scandal, but it still doesn't have anything to actually offer, other than the idea of a progressive income tax. Anger among the disenfranchised means the Centrists are not out for the count, but their platform is unacceptable to Estonian voters with actual ambition or hope.

IRL has been getting surprising amounts of support, based on the chatter I hear. It is turning into a sink for all the mainstream voters who dislike Reform for their apparent elitism and blame them for the economic troubles, but are not ready to turn to Savisaar. The problem with IRL is that its best people are not being used to good effect. I'm starting to suspect that Mart Laar is disillusioned with the party as it exists today, and the actual RL part of it - Juhan Parts, Tõnis Luukas, and the other remnants of the pre-Ansip cabinet - are disliked by pretty much everyone, including Reform themselves. (In the media hurricane that followed the Savisaar scandal, there was an interesting claim - that the original press leak came from senior IRL officials, as a way of distracting the political establishment from Reform's planned ouster of Parts. That may or may not be the case, but it's clear that Res Publica people have been annoying in their statements and behavior.) Ideologically, IRL seems to be positioning itself as the catch-all center-right party: if Reform is taking care of the economic conservative side of things, then IRL wants the rest of the generic conservative platform. There is some strategic sense behind it, as Europe is generally shifting to the right, and IRL might get support from Old Europe's Christian Democrats and other conservative forces - but the problem is that Estonia is not a natural home for conservative socialism. So IRL is combining populistic promises about education, pensions, welfare benefits etc. with US-style family values. Estonia's political landscape does not need Tõnis Lukas's homophobic outbursts.

The Social Democrats are up in the air right now, and their performance in the elections is the one thing that is both interesting and uncertain. The party's image has suffered with the meltdown of their previous leadership and getting kicked out of Ansip's cabinet, but they seem to have successfully purged the old guard. Their current leader is Sven Mikser, a defector from the Center Party (where he served as Defense Minister in the Ansip-Savisaar coalition, despite never having even served as a conscript - though the latter is not necessarily a bad thing). Mikser is relatively young, but he's an established persona, and oddly enough his change of parties actually makes him look like a man of principle (as much as applicable to a politician, anyway, particularly in a country with poorly differentiated parties). That said, the absolute worst thing that could happen to SDE right now is for the electorate to take them seriously, as an actual Social Democratic party, rather than a safe vote sink that will keep the major players in check. In the same way that Estonia needs to embrace European values more closely before it can properly process IRL's social conservatism, the country needs to build up its economic base and labor efficiency before it can afford SDE's social liberalism. The Scandinavian welfare model is something Estonia will probably end up with, but not for a few decades: we need to be able to afford it without running up massive public debt, and we need a generational change to establish the samhälle, the sense of social unity and responsibility which is the bedrock of Scandinavian society.

Unfortunately, that's more or less it. Only these four parties are guaranteed to be represented in the next Riigikogu. The Greens have blown their chance and do not appeal to anyone - even Epp Petrone, arguably Estonia's most prominent and fervent environmentalist, refused to run as a Green in the last local elections. The leadership crisis of Rahvaliit, the farmers' party, makes SDE's clustermess look as elegant, amicable and coordinated as a Tour de France lead cyclist exchange.

Personally, I ended up voting (electronically) for whoever happened to be the lead of my constituency's Reform list, much as expected. I am by no means happy with the Reform Party's performance, current state and future prospects, but unlike the others, Reform still leaves the impression that they intend to base their leadership style on the economy: if we all make money, the other problems will resolve themselves somehow. That's a flawed strategy, but on some level it appeals to my thinking in that one must solve one's own problems, not hope for external assistance; and it's also less damaging in the long run than IRL's stated program of adding massive new social spending to the budget, without any idea of where the extra money will come from. Estonia's tiny budget deficit and near-nonexistent public debt is still a Good Thing(tm), and we should not give them up. SDE suffers from the same problem, and I guess they're actually less offensive under new leadership than IRL - the same sort of welfare policies without IRL's conservative intolerance - but I neither believe nor support any of their promises.

As for the Centrists, I suppose my main objection against Savisaar and his clique is that they do not appear to act in the country's long-term best interest. However objectionable I find the coalition parties, SDE, or Strandberg's Greens, all of them seem to be acting under the assumption that they and their children and grandchildren will be living in Estonia for a long time to come, and while they use their power to their own advantage as much as they can, they still understand that building a prosperous and stable society in Estonia (at the cost of painful decisions today) is in their own best interest. What I'm seeing in Savisaar is the attitude that nothing matters more than his own personal well-being

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*Really not trying to be a hipster douche here. I watch a bunch of TV shows, listen to podcasts, etc.; I consume popular culture. Broadcast television is just a really inefficient way of content delivery. I don't even have a cable subscription any more, and my DVR's been offline for months.

TECHNOANSIP

Saw the original photo here, and it reminded me of something.

Bluebirds

Comedy Estonia is doing its regular monthly standup show in Tallinn on March 9th, and on that night, I'm flying back to Tartu. I've been taking the last coach of the night, leaving at 11pm and arriving at 01.30 - unpleasant, but beats staying at my dad's place and catching the 7am express to make it to my day job on time. I'm losing the same number of hours of sleep, but I get to be in my own bed, and get to the office within half an hour of taking a shower and putting on fresh clothes - as opposed to three hours with the early coach. I've spent enough time on that one in my college days, especially the first year, when I lived in a dilapidated dorm building just before it was completely gutted and renovated. Tartu University mostly doesn't schedule classes on Fridays, so I'd get the 7pm coach to Tallinn on Thursday night and the 7am one back on Monday morning - in time for the 10am class. (I think they briefly tried to schedule a class for 8am on Monday morning in later years, but the prof rapidly switched the slots, to the students' great relief and approval.)

The Tallinn-Tartu flights are designed to hook into Tallinn Airport's schedule, which in itself is built around the idea of delivering people to major European hubs in time for connecting intercontinental flights (or work, especially in the case of the Brussels Special). So the plane gets into Tallinn early in the morning, and leaves late at night - 23.45, in fact, getting into Tartu Airport at 00.30. With the time to get out of the plane and take the shuttle into the center of town, I won't be saving much time over the coach, and the ticket is about 18 euro more expensive; but it'll be a fun experience, anyway. And I get to hang out at Drink a bit more after the show.

Curiously, this will be the third regular flight out of Tallinn Airport to destinations within Estonia (after the island towns of Kuressaare and Kärdla), and I believe all three of those are actually longer than Tallinn's busiest air link - the one to Helsinki. It's 80km over water, but Vantaa Airport is further inland. Can't be bothered right now to figure out if Kärdla is closer.

The island routes are operated by a small independent company, but the Tartu link is Estonian Air, operated by one of their little Saab turboprops. I've actually flown on one of those, a couple of years ago, Tallinn to Stockholm. It was officially called an Estonian Air Regional flight, and there was some administrative difference - it was run separately from the strict guidelines of SAS, the Scandinavian conglomerate that used to own EA. This meant that, ironically, the little local-service Saabs would actually serve sandwiches to their passengers for free - while the Boeings of EA proper charged you for a glass of water.

Those Boeings are being gradually retired with the long-overdue and much-celebrated arrival of brand spanking new Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft from Canada. I've flown on an older-gen CRJ before, a Lufthansa plane from Frankfurt to Tallinn. Compared to the ubiquitous 737s, they've got a funny behavior. They fly just as high and just as fast, but they're a lot smaller and lighter; so while the big Boeings just sort of glide down out of the sky, the little CRJs and Embraers and the rest of them actually point their noses down for a steep descent. Disconcerting, when you don't expect it.

Estonian Air is running a contest right now to name the two new planes (a third one will be arriving later). The contest is here, on Facebook. At the time of writing, the most popular options is Tartu, which I voted for. Number two is Põhjatäht, which means Northern Star and would be a fine name, except that non-Estonians would have a hell of a time pronouncing all those funny vowels. Third place is Sinilind, Bluebird - this seems to be the overall nicknames of airplanes in the flag carrier's livery. Go and vote for your favorite! (A history major friend of mine suggested Sigtuna Gate - that would be popular on the Stockholm route!)