Outlandish

Tallinn is a good place for a shop-a-holic. There are three big malls scattered around the small city (although Rocca Al Mare I wouldn’t recommend, very narrow selection of stores) and truck-loads of small boutiques from the tourist knick-knacks to the global high-end fashion brands. Viru Keskus is probably the most known of them all because it is situated right next to the Old Town, right in the center of the city next to the most famous and prominent building in Tallinn, the very ugly Viru Hotel, which also hosts the KGB museum (some rooms still have the old spy equipment left in them). But between the harbour and Viru Keskus there is an old and a very peculiar industrial area, Rotermanni Kvartal, which is also worth checking out. Rotermann offers something for everyone; if you are a foodie, like shopping, are interested in architecture or history, go check this area out! It is the most interesting mix of old industrial buildings and modern buildings consisting largely ...

Women and sport, 2016 edition. This summer has been a real celebration for all sports, so the media coverage has been very large on the subject as well. Recently there has been an increasing amount of talk about whether women’s sport is neglected in a discriminating way in the media and I find this discussion very interesting especially because I do follow all kinds of sports. The moment that inspired me to write this was when I watched a program, where a group  of successful Finnish athletes gather in Florida, hosted by one of world’s best ice-hockey players, Teemu Selänne, to compete in light-minded sport activities and go through their careers one athlete per episode. These athletes were some of the most successful Finns… and all men except for one figure skater, Kiira Korpi. So I wrote this but didn't publish it... until I saw a picture on Facebook: a huge headline screaming how Michael Phelps won silver swimming 200 meters. And a teeny tiny headline somewhere inside...

Estonia has actually two Independence Days. The first one was on 24th February, when they celebrate the Independence Declaration made in 1918. After the Second World War, though, they were occupied by the Soviet Union and the country was forced into communism. In 1991 when the Soviet Union was crumbling, Estonia declared itself independent again while the Soviet tanks roamed the countryside trying to stifle all hope of becoming independent again and soldiers were trying to take over the TV tower to shut down all communication channels (which obviously was much easier back then). But despite all Soviet soldiers' efforts Estonians stood their ground and on Saturday 20th August they celebrated their 25th year of Independence.  Estonians are quite patriotic, especially when I compare them to their brother nation, Finland. They take their independence seriously and Tallinn was filled with all sorts of concerts and markets and Estonian flags. In Finland people just...

It's August but the worst kind of Autumn has already arrived in Estonia. It has been raining eeevery day, just as it did in February for a whole month. And since it's raining all the time it's also dark, which is the most frustrating thing, because in reality it should still be light most of the day for couple more months. Until the never-ending winter darkness descends. And no matter how positive a person you are there is no way the darkness wouldn't affect you. Especially when I lived much more South it was easy to recognize from people's reactions that darkness was descending here, because people started to complain more than usual. The closer to the end of the year we got the worse the complaining got, and the array of issues worth complaining about went to stratospheric lengths. French are famous for being very big complainers but I think we Finns could beat them hands down every time. It's in our genes. But in the end no matter how much you complai...

There's been a lot of talk about digitalisation and how it will change the work life as we know it: robots will take over an even bigger portion of people's tasks in factories and manufacturing plants in all industries. That doesn't mean, though, that there would be less work for people. It just means that the nature of work changes, manual labour decreases and is replaced by surveillance tasks, administrative work moves online, etc. One change that is very much a reflection of the 21st century work culture and has been very well implemented in most companies where it has been possible is home office, working from home. I was introduced to this way of working in Slovakia working for one of the biggest IT companies in the world. And now I wouldn't accept a job if it didn't have the home office option included in the terms.   Especially in administrative jobs and executive positions where the only tool you need is a laptop and a phone home office is a...

Pirita is one of the biggest suburban areas in Tallinn and it spreads along the city’s Eastern coastline. It continues East-wards from the Kadriorg district, which means that it is a very wealthy area with amazingly beautiful and colourful private houses from huge manor-like houses to wooden “replicas” of small castles with turrets and towers. There also lies the Kadriorg Palace  and the gorgeous parks surrounding it. The area is well worth a visit, but because it is on the opposite side of the city from the Old Town 90% of the tourists never visit the area. I am not complaining though. It is much nicer to go for walks there when you don’t have to dodge photographing tourists every other step. The weird part is how between two of the richest districts there is the poorest and the most horrendous district in Tallinn: Lasnamäki. It is the “Russian district” where you do not want to venture. I had to get my ID card from a police station there and that was quite enough of Lasn...