Free Estonian Word

It’s less than 100 days until we welcome you to Lääneranniku Eesti Päevad (West Coast Estonian Days) at beautiful Whistler, British Columbia, August 5 through 9, 2015.   We are thrilled to be able to present to you many talented groups of singers, dancers and musicians from Estonia – Noorkuu,...

The European Commission (EC) today officially proposed migrant quotas, under which each individual European Union member state should provide safe haven for a certain number of refugees. In the light of one of the worst migration crises for years in the Mediterranean, the EC set out immediate and long-term responses...

Based on Mikhail Shishkin’s article translated from Russian by Marian Schwartz   The May 9th issue of The New York Times carries on its Opinion Page the Russian novelist Mikhail Shishkin’s story. Shishkin recounts that as a youngster he was very proud of his father, who had enlisted at age...

`(…) Our institution will be recorded by history, the reason being that it is unique. Refugees usually have not the mental spirit to create a university, but we had the spirit (…)’Information Bulletin Baltic University, 13 December 1947.   In 1947 they thought that historians would investigate the Baltic University...

Flashback to emade/päev (Mothers’ Day): In English you say that someone is the apple of your eye.   In Estonian, someone can be the tera of your eye; your silma/tera. Literally, the silma/tera is the pupil of the eye and that’s why kids at Tallinn’s Kopli laste/aed (kindergarten) painted themselves...

In September, San Francisco  welcomes the mixed youth choir Vox Populi (voxpopuli.ee) from Estonia to the Bay Area Vox Populi is best known for its performances of the music of Veljo Tormis, and has received many international awards.   The SF Eesti Selts was successful in getting a small grant...

Vigala Reinlender: Jeff, Kadri, Andrus, Deborah, Jyri Erik, Kelsey   Pillerkaar, Estonian Folk Dancers of the Washington DC Metro Area, full of energy and vigor, spent half the day dancing at the 9th annual Estonian Embassy for the European Union Embassies' Open House on May 9, 2015 in Washington, DC....

Estonia holds a strong seventh position in OECD's biggest ever global school rankings based on math and science skills at age 15. Although the full report will only be formally presented at the United Nations World Education Forum next week, BBC has published the league table in advance. The rankings,...

I don’t have the Estonian alphabet on my computer, and nowadays I think in English and translate eesti keelde. I personally knew Mr. Raudsepp, and I always called him “Mr. Raudsepp!” How he knew me, I will never know. Perhaps from Geislingen, we lived on Werkstrasse. Maybe he lived nearby. ...