While growing up in the United States, Estonia was always the lost pomised land stolen from our parents by the evil empire. Today Estonia is a free country, a member of NATO and the European Union, but we all know this already. Instead of whooping it up because Estonia gets a mention in the national press, we can accept our natural place on the world stage. I just read from the Russian press, ST. PETERSBURG, November 12 (Itar-Tass) — Arctic glaciers have shrunk by an average of one and a half to two percent over the past decade due to global warming, Professor Andrei Glazov, of the Institute of Geography under the Russian Academy of Sciences, said on Thursday. He was speaking at an international scientific seminar Glaciers and Sea Ice in the Studies of Global Climate Change and the Environment, at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg.
The seminar has brought together renowned experts in the field of glaciology, paleoclimate and environmental studies from the world’s leading research centers in Russia, France, Germany, Norway and Estonia.
See, we have arrived when even Russia accepts our Estonian research as world’s leading. Russians are having their own problems and Estonia doesn’t seem to be a factor at the present time.
In Saint Petersburg, a Russian teacher has been asked to remove a mathematics problem from the Internet after he inadvertently revealed who most Russians believe is the country’s most powerful figure. “(Russian President Dmitry) Medvedev must guess the number imagined by (Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin or he will be fired from his post as president. How can he save his position?” read the problem, posted by Saint Petersburg teacher Grigory Chepichev for the children in his mathematics club. “There was nothing political in this mathematical problem, which I invented with my colleagues for the children. It’s simply to make the problems more fun, more interesting for the students,” Elections are coming in Russia just as in Estonia and everyone is getting jittery. Luckily this teacher fared better than most critics in Russia. There have been 19 unsolved murders of journalists in Russia since 2000.
Last night while attending an art reception for Eve Viidalepp’s painting exhibition at the Kullo Children’s Gallery on Kuninga street in Old Town, I received a call from a member of the Estonian Parliament and member of the Estonian Renewable Energy Agency, (Olympic Gold Medalist), Erki Nool that Energy Smart has received an additional grant and loan to assist us with completing our solar park project in southern Estonia. This is in addition to an earlier grant from the Estonian Environmental Agency. Because our Kurenurme Solar Park is a proof of concept project, we are getting a handle on the many problems, hurdles and difficulties we have already and still need to overcome in order to put this project together.
Essentially like everything else, it ultimately always comes down to money. I read somewhere it is not money that is the root of all evil but the lack of it! In any case, after many set backs, its nice to have a positiive boost for the project. We are currently a litte behind schedule but should have our 100kW park up by this summer. We have already built the road leading up to the site so the spring thaw shouldn’t be too much of a probleem getting everything in place.
The equipment must be ordered and paid for, three months in advance and then everything must be in place ready to receive the trackers and panels or we will have to store everything securely at great expense.
After Erki’s call, it was a nice feeling, standing outside the gallery in the cool, fresh, Estonian night air -calling my partners and telling them the good news. I forgot to mention, I was asked by Eve Viidalepp to show some of my works as well so, in a small room in the gallery, on the first floor I am showing some paintings of mine as well, so, if you happen to be in Tallinn this month, stop in.
Viido Polikarpus
