Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
A reminder of the importance of keeping an open mind . . .
I was sitting topside on our ship, reading on my iPad as we sailed west out of the Baltic, when an elderly British gentleman approached.
He pointed to the device and asked if he could have a look. Foolishly presumptive that I sometimes am, I figured the old fella probably had never seen an iPad before, and likely hadn’t an idea as to what it is or does.
Wrong.
He looked it over, then asked: “Why don’t you have a 2?”
Then he proceeded to tell me how much he loved his iPad 2, ticked off several design improvements over my model and, after checking my screen, what apps I was missing.
Lesson learned: don’t discount the elderly. The old fella’s owned generations of Mac products, it turns out, and is friends with an Apple engineer who lives in his hometown of Essex. He knows more about Cupertino than I do – and I live only 20 minutes away.
Now embarrassed, it gets worse. The rest of his family shows up. This includes a daughter who’s getting married next April. She asks where I’m from. Again, narrow-mindedly assuming that she doesn’t know much about the States, I sheepishly reply: “A small town in California you’ve probably never heard of . . . Palo Alto.”
She paused just long enough to flash a coy smile and then inform me: “I think I’ve heard of Palo Alto . . . I work for Google.”
And her family frequently visits San Francisco. And they’ve been to Giants and 49ers games. And they don’t live in Middle Earth.
Just goes to show: the world truly is shrinking in this Information Age. And I can stand some self-improvement.
Speaking of the computer age, yesterday’s stop was Estonia – “E-stonia”, for its embrace of high tech following the communist exodus (Skype was developed here, before it was bought by Microsoft).
The Estonians are survivors, despite being dealt a bad hand geographically. Over the past 800 years, the land’s been coveted by Scandinavian nobles and the Knights of the Teutonic order. It was divided between the Danes and the Livonian Order. Poland and Sweden seized control. Then along came Peter the Great, with Russia running the show from the early 1700s to the end of World War I.
Estonia won its independence when the Romanovs fell. That lasted for only two decades and the arrival of the Soviets, who kept the Estonians under their thumb until August 20, 1991 (to this day, you can still see watch-towers along the coastline – the Soviets fearing the locals would take to the sea to seek their freedom boats and sail to a flee across the Gulf of Finland to a free land – plus stone markers with the simple inscription: “20VIII1991”).
Awkward question of the day: a passenger on our tour asking our guide what was worse – Soviet or Nazi occupation. Seems to me it’s not unlike like asking some who’s cheated death what was the worse malady: cancer or leukemia.
(Her answer: the Soviets, because they stayed for over 50 years).
One final note about Estonia and its capital, Tallinn: for a city of 400,000 (30% of the entire nation’s population) there’s little feeling of being overcrowded. Plenty of seats at the outdoor cafes, in the historic old town, to stop and have a cold Saku beer.
Keep in mind: this is a country only one-third the size of England, but whose population is not even one-third that of St. Petersburg. Made for nice breathing room, especially after two days of fighting for space in Russian tourist meccas.
This cruise’s last stop is Sunday, in Belgium, for a day trip to Ypres and my first look at a World War 1 battlefield. I’ve read much about the savagery of the Great War. Still, I feel unprepared for what I’m about to encounter.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
Your iPad encounter reminds me of a breakfast my husband and I enjoyed at a Cape Cod B&B years ago. An older couple was politely chatting with us and asked for recomendations about must-see tourist stops in NYC. Hubby immediately started praising the Intrepid, explaining the aircraft exhibited and the fun experience of making one's way through the cramped quarters to get a tiny taste of what the sailors experienced. The gentleman politely listened and when my husband finished, grinned and let us know that he had served on the ship during the war. Ha ha!
Dec '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
" ...cancer or leukemia."
Pedantic of me, but leukemia is cancer of the bone marrow.
Jun '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
Foxman: " ...cancer or leukemia."
Pedantic of me, but leukemia is cancer of the bone marrow. · Jul 29 at 4:02am
He should've run that by the Estonian family. They probably had a son that was an oncologist from Half Moon Bay.
Feb '11
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
" “A small town in California you’ve probably never heard of . . . .”
As a genealogist, I love it when people say this, though it's usually someplace in Eastern Europe. Two years ago, a guy said that to me about a town in Slovakia. Not only did I know the place, but when I mentioned my wife's great uncle (who was killed in Maidanek), he said "he used to cut across our yard on his way to shul."
Feb '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
Ricochet used an excellent contractor from Estonia for some of the development of the site.
Unfortunately, we lost his services because he went back to school to get a master's degree in... "cyberwar defense." I think he has a future.
(A historical note-- Estonia suffered a major cyber attack in 2007, suspected to be of Russian origin. This made Estonians extremely cyber-security conscious.)
Oct '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
A few years back, I was in Salzburg, in Austria. Wandering around on foot, I passed a poster for a local museum exhibit about the post-WWII occupation. It was a few more minutes of wandering around before it hit me: the occupiers had been us. The Allies.
Later, on our tour bus, I had the temerity to inquire with our guide about the occupation, knowing I was raising a potentially sensitive subject. Our guide, a J.D., just smiled. He said: "First, let's stipulate that it's no fun to be occupied by anybody." I so stipulated. He then gestured to some nice-looking apartments, a tennis court, etc. outside the bus window as we passed. "That center used to be the American base. When the Americans left, they converted the buildings, painted them and so on, and donated them to the city. When the Soviets left, they reduced everything to rubble."
The world is an exceedingly small place, mortal enemies really can become good friends over a single human lifespan... and vice-versa.
Jun '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
When taking a train in Communist Czechoslovakia in 1988, I had a conversation with a guy my age working on the train. I told him, sheepishly, that I was from Portland, Oregon. His eyes lit up and he proceeded to draw a map of Washington, Oregon, and California, identifying Portland, Seattle, and perhaps San Francisco. He then wrote down the names of the soccer teams that were located in each of the cities. I was stunned.
Feb '10
Re: Estonia and the Danger of Underestimating
Estonia is now more free-market than the United States in many ways: http://www.newsmax.com/Rahn/estonia-freemarket-economy/2011/06/21/id/400766
Edited on Jul 29, 2011 at 2:33pm