In 2004, I visited all 25 countries in Eastern Europe. You'll find the blog entries from that trip here. In 2008-2011, I returned to see what had changed since that time. With these two visits, five years apart, I accumulated enough material for my 750-page book, The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us.
This blog now has many excerpts from The Hidden Europe. But who the hell reads anymore? Just look at the best photos from Eastern Europe!
This map reflects how I define Eastern Europe. Eastern Europeans love to deny that they're in Eastern Europe. I tackle how and why I define Eastern Europe the way I do in the Introduction of The Hidden Europe.
In 2006, I returned to Estonia by plane. I sat next to a fat, friendly Finnish lawyer and asked, “What do you think of the Estonians?”
“They’re nice. We get along with them,” she replied.
“I suppose it helps that their language is so similar to yours,” I said.
“But it’s not. Finnish is a completely separate and unique language.”
“Wait, I know Finnish is unrelated to Swedish and Russian. However, I’m pretty sure that it is quite similar to Estonian. Why else would so many Estonians understand Finnish?”
“You’re right, they do understand Finnish, but that’s mainly because the northern parts of Estonia get Finnish TV. So when you hear a language all the time, you learn it.”
She was right about Estonians having access to Finnish TV. During the Soviet time, Estonians picked up Finnish TV signals. It was Estonia’s conduit to the free world—a way to bypass Soviet propaganda. It was as if one rivet had popped out of the Iron Curtain, allowing the Estonians to peek through.
UPDATED IN 2018
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tested 400,000 15-year-olds in 57 countries on science, math, and reading. Finnish teenagers placed number one in science and ranked number one overall. As a result, school administrators from all over the world have been descending on Finland to learn their secrets. For example, during one six-month period, one Finnish school had 300 foreign journalists visiting it. What they learned shocked some observers. Consider that the typical Finnish high-school student:
Gets only 30 minutes of homework on an average night.
Doesn’t have a school uniform.
Has no honor roll or valedictorian status to strive for.
Has no tardy bell to hear.
Didn’t start school until the age of seven.
Doesn’t stress that much about going to college.
Instead of sending their gifted students to special classes, teachers encourage the brightest to help their fellow classmates along.
Nerds effectively become the teacher’s assistant. The smart ones aren’t as polite as the teachers. For example, when someone asks a stupid question, Finnish kids usually bark out, “KVG!” (which stands for kato vittu Googlesta or “check it out on fucking Google!”).
I can’t help but wonder what it says about the future of the human race when the smartest kids on the planet are swearing at each other like that.
Unless you live in the northeast corner of Europe, you probably don't know much about Estonia. So let’s review a few notable facts about this mysterious little country:
Estonia capital, Tallinn has Eastern Europe's quaintest and most adorable Old Town. Go visit!
This is an excerpt from The Hidden Europe that got edited down substantially. I originally wrote this article for ezinearticles.com. Learn more about what we can learn from Eastern Europeans. If you don't think Estonia is in Eastern Europe, read the Introduction to The Hidden Europe.
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