BONJOUR L'ESTONIE

Retirement age in the EUROPEAN Union

Germany and Denmark recently decided to raise to 67 the minimum age when one is allowed to benefit from the public pension system.

Germany and Denmark recently decided to raise to 67 the minimum age when one is allowed to benefit from the public pension system, but they will apply this measure progressively between 2012 and 2029, in the German case, between 2024 and 2027, in Denmark. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, provides for gradually increasing the statutory retirement age between 2024 and 2026, reaching age 68.

Most states have a statutory minimum age of around 65, although some countries like France, Sweden and Lithuania allow retirement from 60 or 61.

Current legal retirement age in the EU member states along with reforms of pension systems that have been adopted: - Germany: The retirement age will rise from the current limit of 65 to 67, a process that will start gradually between 2012 and 2029.

Estonian man charged in city's largest steroid bust

PARKER — Police on Friday arrested night club owner Toomas Saarva, a 41-year-old Estonia citizen, after seizing more than 1,000 vials of steroids from the Grand Slam bar and Saarva’s home.

The department expects to make more arrests in the case, the largest steroid bust in Parker’s history, Detective Aaron Wilson said.

He said he thinks Saarva, who is in the country with a visitor’s passport, was getting at least some of the steroids from Europe.

The drugs had expiration dates from 2007, Wilson said, but Saarva had covered up the expired labels.

“So, besides injecting an illegal substance, [buyers are] using expired substances, so there may be health issues with that,” Wilson said.

Saarva is being held in Bay County Jail on charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and trafficking in a controlled substance. He will face deportation after court proceedings conclude, Wilson said.

Gulf of Riga frozen, shipping hampered

RIGA — In light of sustained temperatures well below zero, the entire Gulf of Riga has frozen over, with a surface of ice as thick as 50 cm in some places, according to Baltic Icebreaking Management.

The Gulf of Riga freezes over completely about 60 percent of winters, and this one is no exception. In recent winters the gulf had not frozen, but this is the coldest winter Latvia has experienced in 15 years.

On the Estonian coast access to the country’s large Western islands is being hampered by the ice and low water levels, with the ferry to Hiiumaa taking 10 hours instead of the usual 90 minutes. On the northern coast the ice is only in patches and the access routes to ports remain easily navigable, according to the Estonian Maritime Authority.

The Western Latvian and Lithuanian coasts are currently ice-free.

Nathan Greenhalgh

Singing Estonia

A country so green that it looks, feels and smells like an Alpine valley after an autumn rain.

The Journal Pioneer

Far less high-profile than its Lithuanian great sister – Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture in 2009  – Estonia is doubtlessly the most discreet of the three Baltic countries. It has, however, recently started raising its voice: in Tallinn, things are not said but sung, even… Revolution!

Try to picture a country so clean that you wouldn’t dare trample on the lawns.

Try to picture a country so green that it looks, feels and smells like an Alpine valley after an autumn rain; a country so deeply rooted in modernity that its internet cafes have long given way to a pervasive wifi network, and whose best designers rival even the neighbouring Scandinavian workshops. Well, this is Estonia, a country one might have thought crippled by the Soviet era and which now vibrates with dynamism on the beat of a Baltic chant.

Every five years, a gigantic musical event draws more than 100,000 Estonians to the stadium (also called “the shell”) in Tallinn, with more than 18,000 members of local choirs from around the country performing live. Across the vast lawns covered with umbrellas, a peaceful crowd listens to the songs while pecking at wild cherries and fresh green beans; no turmoil nor elbowing, but rather general politeness and blond kids running around, singing joyfully. You will find no big organization planning such events here, simply a genuine thriving for collective joy. So what’s the secret?

Estonia taking €820 million loan

TALLINN — The Estonian government plans to borrow 13 billion krooni (€823 million) within next three years to keep its fiscal deficit within Maastricht criteria.

Although the Estonian national government criticized the Tallinn municipality for its plans to take a 357 million krooni (€22.8 million) loan, Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi said at a press conference Thursday that the grand loan which will cover the budget deficit along with 4.7 billion krooni (€300.9 million) from the reserve  fund. The loan will be disbursed over the upcoming three years, five billion krooni (€319.5 million) taken out in 2010.

Ligi said Estonia’s planned 2011 eurozone entry will not be affected, as the 2010 budget deficit is 2.6 percent and the Estonian government’s debt is one of the smallest in Europe.

The Maastricht criteria settles that the country’s total debt can reach up to 60 percent from gross domestic product, Estonia’s is only 4.8 percent from GDP.

“We need to cover the expenses with something, partly it will be covered by the loans and partly by reserves,” Piret Seeman, the Ministry of Finance press spokeswoman told Baltic Reports.

Kay Joost

Estonia shames errant fathers in cyberspace

TALLINN — After claims that they are failing to force absent fathers to pay child support, Estonian authorities have launched an Internet campaign to try to shame them into obeying court orders.

"The aim of the public website is to motivate the absent parent to pay their debt," senior justice ministry official Marko Aavik told reporters Friday.

"Everyone -- not only friends but also their colleagues -- can see that information about them now," he added.

The names of 13 men were listed Friday on the page within the ministry's website, www.just.ee. The list is expected to expand over coming weeks to include hundreds more.

Alongside the names, the site provides the men's identity card numbers and the sums they have failed to pay, from 32,040 to 188,793 kroons (2,000 to 12,000 euros, 2,860 to 16,870 dollars).

Sheffield United sign Estonia keeper Mihkel Aksalu

Sheffield United have completed the signing of Estonia international goalkeeper Mihkel Aksalu on a two-and-a-half year contract.

The 25-year-old joins for a nominal fee from FC Flora Tallinn after a successful trial at Bramall Lane.

Aksalu has six caps for his country, the last coming in a friendly against Angola in December.

He told BBC Radio Sheffield: "This move has been like a dream come true. I'm really happy to be here."

Blades boss Kevin Blackwell told the club website: "He has proved to be one of the best goalkeeping triallists we have seen for a long time.

"It is a terrific opportunity for him and if he continues his development he will become the number one Estonian goalkeeper.

"We are hoping he can fulfil his undoubted potential with Sheffield United and cement his international career."

Finnish passenger ferry stuck in ice for 6 hours

Officials saya passenger ferry crossing the Gulf of Finland with 850 people on board was trapped in ice for six hours before it managed to break loose and continue its voyage from Helsinki to Tallinn.

Ilmari Aro, director of the Finnish Transport Agency's icebreaking unit, says the Nordlandia got stuck Friday morning about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Helsinki. Icebreakers were called to the area, but the ship managed to break free on its own about six hours later.

There were no reports of damage or injuries.

Aro says wind and persistent cold have led to more ice in the Gulf of Finland this year than in recent winters, which have been milder.

Tallinn city council hikes salaries

TALLINN — Despite the financial crisis, Tallinn’s city council voted to increase the salary of Vice Chairman Katrin Saks to 26,000 krooni (€1,661) on Thursday.

The vote more than doubles Saks’ original salary. Previously the vice chairman received a total monthly salary of 9,000 (€575). The council chair position also got a raise from 30,300 krooni (€1,930) to 43,400 krooni (€2,770).

Saks, a member of the Social Democratic Party, declined to comment about the raise when asked by Baltic Reports.

Toomas Vitsut, Tallinn city council chair and a Center Party member said that Saks’ original salary from the vice chair position, 3,000 krooni tacked on top of the 6,000 wage every member of the council gets, is lower than the country’s minimum wage and she deserves to get paid just as any other working person.

“Every working person has a right to get paid, so has Katrin Saks,” Vitsut told Baltic Reports. “Katrin Saks is also a taxpayer and she could also be screwed over because other workers get paid.”

Tallinn Capital of Culture program suffers massive cuts : EEK 70 Million

TALLINN - Tallinn's Capital of Culture 2011 program has had its budget slashed by 70 percent amid government efforts to reduce spending in next year's budget.

All eyes in Estonia are on 2011, when the country is expected to adopt the euro and the capital, Tallinn, will be the European Capital of Culture.

The state and the Tallinn municipal government were both slated to contribute 50 million kroons to the event, Eesti Paevaleht reported. The city government will now contribute 20 million kroons, while the state will offer only 10 million kroons.

Spokesmen for the Tallinn 2011 foundation said they would be forced to cancel about half of the programs, mostly larger, international ones, as a result of the budget cuts.

Many in Estonia hope to avoid the fiasco that came from the Vilnius Capital of Culture program last year, when project cancellations, delays and the collapse of the national airline hamstrung the events.

News of the budget cuts came just weeks after the CEO of the Tallinn 2011 foundation, Mikko Fritze, received widespread criticism for his exhorbinant salary, which was larger than the state president's.

Oskars Magone

The Holocaust as a lesson

January 27 was designated as the Day to Remember the Victims of the Nazi Holocaust, the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by Soviet troops. What those Soviet soldiers found there, the largest of the many concentration camps spread throughout Europe from Germany to the three Baltic States, stunned the world into silence as images of the most shocking cruelty leaked out.

The Holocaust (from the Greek holos – whole and kaustos – burnt) is a word normally associated with the extermination of Jewish people by the Right-wing Nazi Fascist regime at whose apex sat Hitler and whose tentacles spread throughout all of non-neutral Europe with the exception of Britain in the west and the Soviet Union in the East, implementing practices of sheer evil.

Yet this evil was not directed only against Jews. The Holocaust victims included homosexuals, gypsies (Romani), the disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, other religious opponents, political prisoners, Poles, Soviet p.o.w.s and Soviet citizens. While the exact number of people who died during this process is open to debate (official figures may include those who died of natural causes and diseases) and if the preliminary result is not exactly the six million Jews the history books claim, then the final result must be far more if one extrapolates the known records of deaths from certain camps and makes a calculation for the whole.

Just in the three Baltic States for example, the figures are staggering: in Latvia, between 70,000 and 85,000 Jews were exterminated in the camps of Mezaparks at Kaiserwald near Riga, Daugavpils, Lenta, Liepaja, Strazdu Manor, Dundaga, Jelgava, Valmiera, Salaspils and Jumpravmuita. In Estonia, up to 30% of the country’s Jewish population was murdered in the camps of Auvere, Aseri, Dorpat, Ereda, Goldfields, Idu-Virumaa, Illinurme, Jagala, Johvi, Kalevi-Liiva, Kivioli, Klooga, Kukruse, Kunda, Kuremae, Lagedi, Narva, Narva-Joesuu, Petschur, Putki, Saka, Stara Gradiska, Sonda, Soski, Tartu, Vaivara, Viivikonna and Wesenburg. Estonia’s Romany population was practically wiped out: unlike the Jews, most of whom managed to escape, they had nowhere else to go. And in Lithuania, between 135,000 and 220,000 people were slaughtered at the camps of Kovno (Kaunas), Kauen, Slobodka, HKP at Vilna and Prawienischken.

Stabilization reserve volume in Estonia fell by 2.5 bln kroons in 2009

Market value of Estonia’s stabilization reserve amounted to 4.7 billion kroons as of end of last year, according to the Ministry for Finance of Estonia, writes LETA referring to Postimees Online.

In the course of the year, the reserve fell by 2.5 billion kroons.

According to the Ministry, the decline in the reserve volume was caused by the decision to use half of the stabilization reserve funds (3.5 billion kroons). Without this decision, the volume of the reserve’s market value would have increased by a billion kroons.

On the basis of the State Budget Act, 810.8 million kroons was collected in the reserve during the year 2009.

In investing the reserve’s financial resources, the conservative investment strategy approved by the reserve’s supervisory board is used as guidelines. The objective is to mostly guarantee the stability of the value of the financial reserves and the high liquidity of the assets.

Bonds form 89.9% of the stabilization reserve’s investments, savings deposits form 10.1%.

The stabilization reserve was created in 1997 and its volume then was 701.6 million kroons. It is a budgetary policy measure for decreasing risks in the general economy.

Juhan Tere

Estonia lays out euro adoption timetable

Tallinn - The Estonian government re-affirmed Thursday that the Baltic state is on course to adopt the euro as its currency next year.

An overview of Estonia's economic convergence plans published by the country's Finance Ministry said that all of the Maastricht criteria, the rules governing euro entry, had been met well ahead of a European Commission (EC) deadline at the end of January.

The forecast predicted Estonia's gross domestic product would decline by just 0.1 per cent this year and would return to growth of 3.3 per cent in 2011 - a stark contrast to 2009's predicted decline of 14.5 per cent.

Inflation would remain under control at an average of 0.4 per cent for 2010, the Finance Ministry said, allowing Estonia to become the third Eastern European country to enter the eurozone, alongside Slovenia and Slovakia.

In February and April, the EC and European Central Bank (ECB) are scheduled to assess Estonia's readiness. If all goes according to plan, Estonia will win approval at meetings of EU finance ministers on June 8 and July 6 as well as a key EC meeting on 18 June.

Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip has repeatedly stated that he believes Estonia has done everything necessary to swap its currency the kroon for the euro on January 1, 2011.

Arctic Sea cargo vessel to set sail once more

The Arctic Sea cargo vessel which was hijacked last year will take to the seas again in February, the Russian Seafarers' Union said on Friday.

"The Arctic Sea cargo vessel's captain will return to the vessel and in February he will set sail again," the statement said, adding that most of the crew who were on board the ship when it was seized would be joining him.

The Finnish-owned, Maltese-flagged vessel disappeared in the Atlantic on July 24 while carrying a $2 million shipment of timber from Finland to Algeria.

It was eventually intercepted by the Russian Navy off West Africa on August 16, when eight alleged hijackers from Estonia, Latvia and Russia were arrested.

The ship's disappearance, which triggered a major international search effort, raised suspicions that it was carrying a "secret cargo" of drugs or weapons. Russian authorities have denied the rumors, saying the vessel was hijacked by criminals who demanded a ransom.

The freighter was handed over to Maltese authorities in late October.

Estonia borrows Soviet tank from Latvia for military drills

Estonian armed forces borrowed a Soviet-era T-55 tank from Estonia to hold military exercises, the Latvian Chas online edition said on Friday.

According to the website, Estonia does not possess its own tanks, while Latvia has some Soviet-era tanks, presented to the Baltic state by the Czech Republic few years ago.

The Chas said the Estonian military intend to use the Latvian T-55 to check the strength of several military facilities.

The Ohtuleht online edition said Poland intended to present five T-55 tanks to Estonia in 1999, but the country rejected the proposal.

Tiiu Kuik : ’20s style pin-up

Photographer Aneta Bartos shares this soft and feminine series from 2007 where Tiiu walks the fine line between flirtation and innocence.

Most workers from Loksa Shipyard will be made redundant

Loksa Shipyard in North Estonia has no any orders, so it’s management has decided to handed out redundancy notices to almost all of its 525 employees, informs LETA referring to Postimees.

Initially, only two members of the Management Board of the enterprise and mothers on parental leave will remain on the company’s staff lists.

The Loksa Shipyard’s Personnel Director Marju Varter said that while the redundancy notes were distributed now, actually people will be made redundant gradually from the end of February, March or April.

“The reason for the redundancies is that starting the second quarter, we don’t have as many orders to give work to people,” said Varter. “But we are working in the name of getting new orders and re-employing people. Since it is a big plant, the question emerged whether there is any point in keeping the company going.”

She said that till the end of April there are some orders that were left from the old owner. At the beginning of November last year, the Loksa Shipyard was bought from its former owner Odense Steel Shipyard by Loksa Invest, that belongs to local companies of Loksa.

Human skeleton found in garage

TALLINN — A human skeleton was found in a garage in Tallinn’s Õismäe neighborhood Monday.

Tallinn police initiated a criminal investigation on murder after a skeleton was found in a garage in Õismäe around 8 p.m. Monday. The identity of the deceased has not been identified.

Kadri Põldaru, press spokeswoman of the Tallinn prosecutor’s office told Baltic Reports that the skeleton was sent for examination, when the results will be determined is unknown.

Police are not releasing any other information on the case.

Kai Joost

Estonian TV tower will be very attractive for tourists

The legendary Tallinn TV tower in Estonia with its magnificent views should become a real tourism magnet as the result after the renovation that costs more than 100 mln kroons. It will be finished by the spring of the next year, writes LETA quoting Postimees.

This year, the TV tower celebrates its 30th birthday.

“Tourism attractions in high-rise towers are popular elsewhere in the world,” said Aare Siimon, the Council Chairman of non-profit organization SA Tallinna Teletorn. “More than 50 TV towers over the world are open to visitors and the number of visitors reaches often several million people a year.”

After several years of being closed to general public, next spring the Tallinn TV tower will be opened to visitors again. Siimon said that in the first year, the tower hopes to get over 100,000 visitors and later around the same which should form 3-5% of the number of foreign tourists visiting Tallinn an year.

While the exterior of the tower won’t change, the interior goes through major renovations, including electrical, ventilation, fire alarm systems, and elevators. The viewing platform in the height of 170 metres, that has panoramic views of Tallinn and its vicinity will be thoroughly revamped and the 22th floor above it will be designed into an exhibition area of Estonia’s achievements in many science spheres. “The key words will be innovation and sci-fi and that is supported by interior design,” Siimon said.

The budget of revamping the TV tower is 102.8 mln kroons.

Juhan Tere

The colorful styles of traditional dress

TALLINN - Estonians have strong connections to local traditions related primarily to different dialects and reinforced by variations in customs and dress. By ‘folk costume’ we nowadays primarily mean the festive costumes worn by the peasantry during the last century. Such clothes, made according to historic examples, are now worn at song festivals and other national events. Today the Estonian traditional costume is most spectacularly exposed at “Laulupidu,” the national song festival, both on the stage and among the audience.

In Estonia traditional costume denotes mainly the festive peasant dress of the 19th century, which in its time referred, besides social status, also to national background, as the ruling class was mainly German at the time. The former peasant costume of regional variation has today become a national symbol and has turned into a national dress due to its altered function.
The development of the Estonian folk costume over the centuries was influenced by fashions of the upper classes and the traditional costumes of neighboring countries. However, most of the costumes were influenced by well-established native traditions and customs. At the same time, folk costume denoted national belonging and social status, and both everyday and festive clothing constituted a complicated system of signs, referring to the wearer’s social status, age and marital status. Differences were especially obvious in women’s clothing, and they often became distinctive in neighboring parishes. In men’s clothing variations were much smaller, usually being differentiated by county.