Sylvain Oulala arrived in Estonia 10 years ago, when he took part in a European volunteer project in Tallinn, a circus school at the Salme cultural center to be precise. He was active there for a year, and when it was over, it was clear to him that he wanted to live in Estonia.

For the last three years, he has been organising his own circus festival and has plans to perform in all Estonian towns that have more than 3,000 inhabitants.

He says that the French are like plums and the Estonians are like coconuts. "The French look very nice from the outside, but inside, they have a pit. Talking to them at first is easy, but who knows what they say or think behind your back. As a rule, they think badly of you. The Estonians seem rough on the surface, and covered with a hard shell, but beyond this, everything is bright. And healthy, too," Sylvian explains.

"Once you've made friends with an Estonian, you can trust them implicitly. They don't say anything bad behind your back, and if they want to say something, they say it straight to your face," says Sylvain, who is very comfortable with Estonians' natural disposition. The French sit back and enjoy themselves too much. Estonians don't do that.

"I really like the sauna culture here," adds Sylvain. "I also have a sauna in the basement, I get my friends together and we just hang out."

Sylvain also likes the way Estonians value and understand nature. They all know when the ramson in the garden is ready for picking or which mushrooms in the forest are edible. "It's fantastic to be at one with nature like that," he says. And he is also impressed by how we in Estonia have managed to strike a balance between nature and technological developments.

The fluidity of the four seasons is an experience Sylvain relishes and is probably one of the reasons he decided to make his home here.

Author: Diana Lorents/HAVAS
Photo: Virgo Haan/HAVAS

Piret Päär's profession and life calling is storytelling. She's been doing this work for 33 years. She tells stories to adults and most of them are old folk tales.

"These old folk tales are in my heart because I grew up with them and, quite honestly, I wouldn't have been able to survive so long in this life if I hadn't had these old stories," says Piret. "So maybe the story I tell can in some moment offer some comfort, redemption, provide some strength, or some entertainment -- why not, that's always been a side effect."

According to Piret, throughout the ages people have been looking for the secret of life in these stories, and the secret of how to be human. "Stories are like invisible threads that connect us in time and place, no matter our culture, ethnicity, age, and everything else that at times divides us," Piret says. "Listening to a good story can create a connection between different people, leading us to see how we are the same. We have the same fears, the same love, and the same scars. Stories have been a very powerful tool in building and sustaining communities," she adds.

When we talk about the magic of stories with Piret, we come to the conclusion that a person can only respect what they understand, and that understanding is achieved best through stories. Respect then follows. "Old folk tales come from oral tradition, but everything changes for a story when it is written down. For a person to understand what value lies inside them, they should be given a life that can only come with storytelling. So to give life to a story, you need a storyteller in between," Piret explains.

In answer to the question of how exactly this story life-giving happens, Piret responds: "I have a lot of stories that fascinate me, and when something happens to me in my life, that contact makes the old story come alive again. And these folk stories are very contemporary. That's one of the interesting things, that over the centuries man has not changed. People are loved in exactly the same way, and betrayed in exactly the same way."

It is undoubtedly our common belief that fairy tales and folktales are all very suitable for children's bedtime stories. "But they're not!" Piret protests. "If the adults themselves are not fascinated by these stories, then the child will not get the same experience. That's why it's my job to first awaken in the adult the recognition that a fairy tale can touch them."

Estonia is very rich in folklore, we have one of the largest archives of Estonian folklore in the world. These folktales are timeless treasures just waiting to be found and discovered.

Author: Diana Lorents/HAVAS
Photo: Virgo Haan/HAVAS

Lyudmila came to Estonia via a program for Finno-Ugric peoples. She enrolled soon after in a doctoral program at the University of Tartu. Lyudmila has therefore lived in Estonia for 19 years now, and done different things here. For the past two years, she has worked as a history teacher. Lyudmila is a Mari by ethnicity. The Mari are a Finno-Ugric people who live along the Volga and Kama Rivers in the Russian Federation.

"As soon as we crossed the border, I was surprised by the well-tended yards, houses, and lawns here. This gave me the sense that the people here love their homes and their homeland," says Lyudmila of her first impressions at that time.

"Now, I have already understood that the Estonians really value quality. They would rather buy something that is more expensive and of higher quality than buy something every year that is cheaper and in fashion."

The work culture of the Estonians also caught her eye. "If you order something from an Estonian, they never deliver anything below their own high standards, and they don't rush projects," Lyudmila says. "But to this day, I have a hard time dealing with the way they communicate. If you start to communicate with Estonians, then you have to take into account that they might not answer your calls, because they prefer to send text messages," she laughs.

She really likes the Estonian word emakeel, which means 'mother language.' "In both Russian and Mari, the word for one's first or home language refers to the place where you are born, but in Estonian it means it is your MOTHER language. Because of this, I came to understand that I should speak to my own children in the Mari language. Exactly me, not my husband so much. A child does speak with their mother more, and via their mother learns of different cultural traditions," Lyudmila explains, and adds that her younger child spoke only Mari until the age of 8.

In Estonia, she does miss her relatives, and would like to sit around the table with them and talk about the world. "Maybe that's why I'm actively involved in Mari culture here -- it's like being with my relatives." She also started collecting old pictures, things, and different artifacts, because it's all a way of communicating with her relatives.

Lyudmila likes the musician Karl-Erik Taukar too. His singing, of course, but she says he reminds her of her grandfather. "People used to say that my grandfather was like a kind of Baltic person -- tall, with light hair and light blue eyes, very similar to Karl-Erik Taukar," laughs Lyudmila, who finds similarities between pictures of her grandfather and the singer.

Lyudmila is working to ensure that her children know and understand Mari culture. When her eldest daughter had to do a research project at school, they took one of the pieces of jewellery that belonged to one of her Mari folk costumes, in which the oldest coin dates back to the 18th century, as the object of study. "It was touched by my grandmother, who in turn got it from her mother. It's a rarity, the most precious item in our family," explained Lyudmila.

In Estonia, Lyudmila also met her husband, who had come to Estonia as part of the same programme for Finno-Ugric peoples, but some time before her. "This programme was developed at the start of the Nineties in the last century, during the independence movement in Estonia, with the aim of supporting indigenous peoples. In 1994, when my husband came here, there were about 70 people in the programme, all from Mari-El. They came to study at Estonian universities, then went back to their homeland. Unfortunately, or fortunately, not everyone left, my husband stayed here to wait for me." Now they have two girls in the family, both of whom have Mari names and speak to each other in Mari.

Together with their family, they are trying to preserve the Mari culture in Estonia. "At least once a year, all the Maris living in Estonia get together, we communicate with each other and organize different workshops, so that the children can see how their parents communicate with each other in Mari."

Lyudmila considers herself to be quite emotional, but Estonians, as she sees it, are not so much. "Estonians are very peaceful, they value their words -- if they say something, they choose each word carefully. They also don't waste any words and don't make small talk. Estonians are practical."

If you live in Estonia for a long time, then obviously you pick up some Estonian habits too. Lyudmila has adopted one of these habits herself. "I really like to go to cafes. I remember how surprised I was when I just got here and I saw older ladies seated in a cafe on Tartu Town Hall Square, with their small hats and tiny handbags. They got together, sat in the cafe, and told stories, and it was really nice." Her grandmother never went to a cafe, ever. "They would gather with their girlfriends at home, or visit each other, somewhere else, and if they didn't meet at home or a friend's home, they didn't meet."

"In Mari-El, I'm often asked what I really like about Estonia and I always answer -- I like that everything here is done by the book, there are no big surprises, everything is stable, and can even be at times conservative, but everything is peaceful."

Author: Diana Lorents/HAVAS
Photo: Virgo Haan/HAVAS

Why should a young Canadian guy come to Estonia? But why shouldn't he, when there's wonderful nature and special people on offer here? These two reasons were decisive for Francois. He had heard that Estonia had unspoilt nature, came to see for himself, and stayed. He feels quite at home here now and plans to build a life here too.

Francois has worked for the engineering company Betson for two years, and makes music in his spare time.

"Actually, I'm an engineer during workdays, but in the evenings and on the weekends I'm a musician," says Francois. "When I'm an engineer, my creative side can rest a little, but when I'm a musician, the engineering world can rest. I've created that kind of balance for myself." Francois expresses himself by making reggae and soul music, but he also likes to go to classical musical concerts, of which there are many in Estonia, and those are of very high quality. "I recently was at a concert at Kadriorg Palace where two sisters played. I don't recall their names, but I enjoyed every second," he says enthusiastically.

For Francois, Estonia is a place where everything is close and that means nature, first and foremost. Nature is everywhere in Tallinn, where he lives -- in Kadriorg, Viimsi, and Pirita. From the window of his home, he has even seen the northern lights. Just the opportunity to go skiing in Tallinn's Kadriorg Park is a real luxury, he says.

Here, he has learned to distinguish between edible and inedible mushrooms in the forest, like Estonians, and loves to make delicious dishes from them. He also enjoys the different kinds of potato dishes, he says.

Francois admits that the Estonian language is difficult though: "I've got some of the words down, but I need to be more disciplined, because knowledge of the language is important."

"The people are special here, they love to have some space around them and they also give the other person the same space, which allows them to feel good about themselves, it's like respecting the other person," Francois says of the Estonians. "Estonians always and everywhere give a person time to get adjusted, this is also an expression of respect for the other person."

And while Estonia is very similar to Canada, according to Francois, there is also something different here. "At first, I was taken aback by the Estonians' love of silence. For example, when we eat here, it's not customary to tell stories and to talk. In Canada, we talk a lot and all the time during lunch or dinner, here it's all done in silence."

He has now learned from the Estonians how to be precise in his expressions, how to use just the right words when communicating. "I've adopted this way of communicating. A few words, but very precise, to be a better listener rather than a speaker."

One thing that immediately stood out to him is the pet-friendliness of offices. He doesn't have any pets of his own, but to him the opportunity to bring your pets to work seemed quite different. The Estonian sauna culture also stands out. "Every Friday, people here happily go to the sauna together, and there are even saunas in the offices," he says, adding that this is another custom he has already picked up from the Estonians.

However, in two years, he has not gotten used to the fact that the nights here are extremely long in winter and extremely short in summer. "In Montreal, where I come from, you don't find that, it takes some getting used to."

"I would like to communicate with Estonians through my music," Francois acknowledges, adding that he doesn't think about achieving reggae or soul stardom, but about how his self-expression could bring joy to others. His first album is already finished, he notes.

Author: Diana Lorents/HAVAS
Photo: Virgo Haan/HAVAS