Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is cool and quiet this morning. There is a stiff breeze off the Baltic Sea and the sky is grey and overcast. I’m ensconced in a cozy cafe on the Old Town Square that bears a striking resemblance to a hobbit hole, drinking strong coffee nibbling chocolate and eating a late breakfast of a spiced meat pastry that is like a cross between a croissant and a samoza.
It’s a lot of travelling to get here from Vancouver. My adventure began with a bracing water taxi ride from Bowen Island to Granville Island in Vancouver, lumping through a southeasterly wind on Saturday evening. I hopped a British Airways 747 bound for Heathrow and populated largely by old Sikh men and women. Turns out 180 of us on the YVR-LHR flight were heading on to Delhi. It was a good flight, watching the surprisingly good remake of the taking of Pelham 1-2-3 and the surprisingly drawn out Australia. I managed to sleep in all the right places and stay awake in all the right places, and the jetlag was almost completely taken care of.
In London we landed in a bad squall which set the plane into a quiet desperate prayer session, but once we pulled up at the gate, the storm had moved on and an incredible rainbow graced the new Terminal 5. I ran for a connection, got stuck behind a huge group of Japanese travellers going through security and made my connection as the door was closing. The Finnair flight to Helsinki was fun; the video screen showed a shot from the nose of the aircraft on take off and landing, so it was like watching a real time live flight simulator. Not much to see in the dark, but perhaps the flight home will reveal more.
In Helsinki I had a bit of a layover, so I wandered around the airport. It was after 9:00pm when we got in and the late hop to Tallinn didn’t leave until 11:45, so I caught up on Skype – Estonia’s most famous high tech export! – with friends in North America who were beginning their Sundays. Helsinki airport is a lot like Ottawa’s airport. Everywhere I go, northern cities strike a home chord with me.
Noting that the further away I got from Canada, the more English was spoken on planes, I boarded a Finnair commuter flight to Tallinn, which is a short 35 minute jump over the Gulf of Finland. The two cities are only 85 km apart, almost as close as Vancouver is to Victoria. During the Soviet era, Estonians tuned into Finnish TV and radio all the time and were constantly exposed to western culture over the air.
Arriving in Tallinn at 12:30 I was met by my friends Piret Jeedas and Robert Oetjen, with whom Toke Moeller and I are running an Art of Participatory Leadership workshop this week. We drove through town, which in the dark reminded me a little of Winnipeg, and I arrived at my hostel accomodation in the old town. We woke up the landlady who hadn’t been told of my arrival. She was sweet and got me settled in and I quickly fell asleep.
I’m pretty good at dealing with jetlag, but today was a masterful triumph. I awoke at 8am refreshed and ready to go. Today is my day to explore Tallinn a little and hang out and relax. I have spent the morning walking around the old town, seeing some of the places that featured prominently in Estonian history, especially the Toompea, which is the Estonian Parliament. In 1991, a Russian minority protest against Estonian independence outside the Toompea almost became violent when the group broke into the castle and caused alarm amongst the Estonian politicians who were besieged inside. The political leaders called for Estonian citizens to come to their aid and a huge crowd showed up to barricade the Russians inside the castle courtyard. When it came time to let them go, the crownd simply parted and the Russians left. Anger and the threat of violence had been met with non-violence and song, and the singing revolution continued to work its remarkable magic. Here is a video of that day.
This morning I walked around the area that is shown in that video, the parking lot outside the Toompea where the Estonians rallied after the Russians broke in. Just knowing the recent history of that place deeply tuned me in to the sense of Estonia. For a long time I have been drawn to this place, sensing a connection both in the northern nature of the country and the indigenous struggle for freedom from hundreds of years of colonization from Danes, Swedes, Germans and Russians. Estonians I think have always craved their own self-government and cultural sovereignty and it’s clear being here that given the chance to take hold of their country, they have chosen an identity that is fiercely national without being nationalistic, and open minded to the rest of the world and especially the west.
Walking around here it is hard to imagine what it was like when Tallinn was a Soviet city on the Baltic. Near to where I am staying is the old KGB headquarters, a building that is still held in contempt by Estonians. When the Soviet Union was in control here tens of thousands of people were exiled to Siberia, imprisoned or killed, and the KGB and its predecessors took care of all of that. The fact that a mere 25 years ago, writing this blog post would be a dangerous prospect for a Canadian visitor is a testament to how far Estonia has come in embracing democratic freedoms and human rights.
One morning of walking around obviously does not make for a complete picture, and for sure there are lots of complex questions and conditions here with the economy, questions of European union, dynamics between ethnic minorities and relations to Russia, poverty, exploitation and all of the problems that come with capitalism, but the overall sense here is that Estonia has struck a balance that reminds me a lot of Canada. Estonians have lived on this coast as long as Skwxwu7mesh people have lived in Howe Sound – for 9000 years. Language and culture is intact, thriving even amongst the ruins of castles and TV towers built by those who have sought control of this country. Hanging out here, in a hobbit hole coffee shop on the old town square, it is clear that despite it all, they have survived.
Share:
I’m off to Estonia on Saturday to run an Art of Hosting workshop with Toke Moeller and Piret Jeedas. To say I’m excited is an understatement.
First, this is only the second trip to Europe I have made since I left the UK in 1981 after living there for three years. It’s interesting to see how things have changed in Europe over 30 years. On this trip I am intending to connect in London, during a brief stopover at Heathrow, with one of my school buddies from those days, who I last saw when I was just 13 years old.
But the real highlight of the trip will be the time spent in Estonia, a nation that has one of the largest traditional repertoires of folk songs. Only a million people live there but there are tens of thousands of songs that are shared and sung by everyone. So important are these songs that it was through music that a cultural movement was born in the 1980s that led to Estonian independence from the Soviet Union without a single drop of blood being shed. There is a terrific new eponymous movie about The Singing Revolution which we watched last night as a family. The essence of the film was that Estonian culture, language and tradition formed the basis for a slow and patient awakening of cultural sovereignty and pride that led to mass meetings and gatherings, and the singing of traditional songs of affection for the nation. From that current flowed the courage and will to establish political sovereignty that resulted in the self-liberation of Estonia from more that 50 years of occupation by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
To offer a workshop on the Art of Hosting powerful conversations in a nation that has done that seems a trifle hubristic. But the Estonian story is one that lauds the power of vision, courageous commitment and self-government and it provides both a tremendous ground for our work and inspiring lessons for those of us whose nations are still labouring under colonial administrations. With so many First Nations in Canada clinging to language, culture and music, what I am about to learn in Estonia can provide me with some important lessons about how cultural expression, skillful dialogue and courageous participatory leadership can result in profound social and community transformation.
Share:
A long flight necessitated by a late date travel change, had my flying through Chicago yesterday, getting a quick connection and beating my bags to Minneapolis. MPL is the second nicest airport in North America after Vancouver. Lovely layout, good food options and easy to get around. Also friendly United ground crew who got my bag to me with no problems.
I’m staying downtown, reached easily by the LRT from the airport. Downtown cores never give you the pure sense of a place, but I’ll be here a week, moving over to St. Paul tomorrow for a couple of nights in a hotel and then staying with a friend this weekend, during which we’ll play some music and hang out.
Three little gigs on tap here this week, and one meeting. Tomorrow I’m working at a conference presenting some experiences to grantmakers who fund child and family services on what it is like to work in Native communities. Following that a two day mini Art of Hosting for some people associated with Native Americans in Philanthropy, working with my friends Jerry Nagel and David Cournoyer. On the weekend, Jerry and I will do some design work for a state wide leadership initiative he is involved in. I’ll round out the weekend with music with my friend Norah Rendell, a great musician who I have played with for years, and who moved down here to play and teach with her partner Brian Miller.
So good work and good fun in a city new to me.
Share:
Ensconced at the head of an inlet in what has to be the most beautiful valley in BC. My commute yesterday to get here was a one hour flight from Vancouver over huge icefields, 9000 foot peaks, high mountain lakes and deep forested cirques. The landscape here is forbiddingly raw, and when the morning sun catches the blue glint of glacial ice in the cracks and crevacies on the icefall you are flying PAST (not over!) your heart just sings.
In this tight little valley – now rain soaked and cloud choked – a few thousand people live cheek by jowel. At one end, where the long inlet terminates, is the Nuxalk Nation where I am doing a little work, trying to bring some hasitily organized participatory process to a couple of pressing needs in th ecommunity. Today is basically about trying to host a community conversation that sees the good and the possible in a desperate and fractious context. In most First Nations communities, hurt runs deep and the kinds of dynamics that are at play here are deep currents that carry away optimisim, creativity and possibility. And yet, everyone I talk to here wants something different, a different conversation, a different wnay of looking at things. So today and tomorrow, using Cafe and Open Space, we are going to try that.
We haven’t had much time to prepare, and there is much working against making this an ideal situation, so I truly don’t know what will happen. I am just entering today as open as I can be to what’s possible, trying to embody what others are longing for.
Share:
Facts from the longest business trip of my life
- Number of days on the road this trip: 20
- Number of seperate projects worked on: 5
- Total number of people hosted: 835
- Customs officials spoken to: 4
- Number of those officials who wished me a good flight: 1
- Number who welcomed me to their country: 3
- Number who have said “Welcome back to the United States, sir” to me in the past ten years: 0
- Number who did on Sunday: 2
- Aircraft flown on: 12
- Airports landed at: 8
- Number of these I visited on more than one separate occasion: 3
- Number of Kazakh pickerels eaten in Manitoba: 1
- Estimated distance travelled in kilometers by that fish: 8771
- Distance between my plate and the Red River, where pickerel can be found, in meters: 200
- Colleagues I collaborated with: 26
- Gray whales seen: 5
- Porpoises seen: 1
- Minutes it took to fly over the flood waters south of Winnipeg: 10
- Number of times pulled over for running a red light: 1
- Number of tickets received: 0
- Hours I played a talking drum and got paid for it: 2
- Number of passengers who snarked rudely at an Air Canada flight attendant when the captain of the plane was an hour late due to HIS flight being delayed: 7
- Minutes by which the delay was reduced thanks to these interventions: 0
- Approximate number of rock balancing sculptures set up by a group of us on the Pembroke, Ontario riverfront: 30.
- Number of local senior citizens who said they were going to go home and try that: 3
- Age, in years, of Highland Park Orkney whiskey served to me by Allistair Hain: 25
- Minutes it took me to drink it: 30
- Number of juggling balls I left home with: 7
- Number I returned home with: 1
- Indigenous languages heard spoken: 4
- Number of these I understood enough to talk to the Elder about it: 1
- Different guitars played: 3
- People spotted wcearing paper face masks during a three hour wait in San Francisco: 7
- Number of poems I wrote and read out as part of my professional duties: 2
- Number of pieces of olive and sundried tomato pesto stuffed calamari that come served on a roasted cauliflower and fennel salad at RauDZ in Kelowna: 6
- Number of beds slept in: 9
- Percent of annual rainfall that fell in Hoopa, CA during the two days I was there: 4
- Number of elk heads on the walls at Cinnebar Joe’s in Willow Creek, CA: 7
- Number of hockey sticks on the walls: 1
- Number of times my credit card was returned to me by a cab driver who drove 20 minutes out of his way to do so: 1