Central to Estonian culture – and to many others – is the idea of reciprocity. We received so much hospitality during our trip, we are...

The Estonian language is a case of, “don’t try this at home”, or ära püüa kodus seda keelt õppida. I probably got that wrong. Estonian is...

Growing in the middle of a football field on Saaremaa is an oak voted European tree of the year in 2015. Someone had a sense of humour....

The story of Bernhard Lehova, grandma’s younger brother, always had an unreal quality to it. In dad’s telling, his uncle returned to the...

Cousin Inga pulled out two letters dated 1949 she had discovered 3 weeks prior to our arrival. Hidden in the back of our great-aunt...

A warming climate, a Pope in difficulty, and a boy born Temujin in 1162 figured among key events - to my mind  - that ended millennia of...

Did our grandfather ever play Paul Keres, Estonia’s national chess hero? I have not been able to find out, though it is a tantalising...

Everywhere we cycled in Estonia the abandoned ruins of white, silicate brick buildings spoke mute testimony to the failure of collective...

Tallinn saw the world’s first appearance on public display of a Christmas tree, in 1441. The Brotherhood of the Blackheads – not a...

A long, iron blade arcs swiftly, cleaving flesh and bone, an arbiter of destiny. A twist of fate for Kalevipoeg, Estonia’s mythical giant...

The hospitality we received in Estonia was outstanding. Our search for Napps in grandfather’s hometown confirmed this in a single,...

Wooden houses and tall trees line the Narva river; fishermen dot a smooth, brown, steady current. Russia’s face to the West, 100 metres...

I am forever thankful to the logging truck driver who put their life at risk to save ours. We rode a small road downhill to a sudden stop...

Keep at least 3 metres' distance from someone you haven’t met before, says a website on how to socialise in Estonia. We thought we’d...

More than two years ago I discovered among our father’s papers several typewritten copies of a two-page document he had never mentioned,...

Not wolves, bears or lynxes – the meanest critter in Estonia is 2mm long, and almost impossible to avoid. Ticks are much like spiders and...

Deep in our family memory is the farmstead, the talu where grandma grew up and where dad spent a winter and spring during the war. While...

More than half of Estonia’s land area is forest, and so the forest figures large in the Estonian imagination, in myth and legend, culture...