Ina on the road

Some things are easy to brag about, because you get to be proud of your achievements. Other things are hard to brag about, especially if either people don’t know what is so special about these things, or they have no clue what the heck you are talking about… Enjoying the morning sun between the lake and the castle ruins of Viljandi... I remember my first Viljandi Folk Music Festival . It was not my first time in Viljandi, but this city is a completely different place during the festival than the rest of the year. There are as many, if not more festival guests (more than 20,000) than there are inhabitants (only about 17,000). I remember the relaxed, peaceful atmosphere, the great music, my first time hitchhiking, and all the famous Estonians. I remember hearing Silver Sepp perform. I had read about him in Justin Petrone’s books. These two famous people were friends. Everybody knows Silver Sepp, the musician. His music is not straightforward, and I remember not getting it at all. A yea...

Work goes on. Statistical analyses. Manuscripts. My supervisor Tarmo said that a scientific article is only finished when you want to throw up when you see it. I’m not quite there yet – months of feedback and discussions are still ahead. Finally it is time for my sheep project again. This year, I’m much more prepared than last, I know what to do. My friend Seidi, the veterinary technician, took three weeks off her regular work to be here. Liilia and Ants, the owners of the farm, help me where they can. In return, I help them with feeding the sheep, heating the sauna, assisting the kids with their schoolwork, cooking, and by taking over some night shifts. When a sheep starts giving birth, we have to watch it and see that everything goes well, and if not, we have to give birthing aid. Ants and Liilia patiently teach us how. Once the new mother has cleaned the lambs, we bring them into a separate box, so they can get used to each other’s sounds and smells and are easier to monitor, befor...

While spring still can't decide whether to come all the way to Estonia, we are packing our bags and leave. Three days of education are awaiting us on the shore of the lake Pühajärv: it's a winter school for PhD students of immunology and virology, and while most participants are from Tartu, some arrive from as far as Northern Sweden. A bus is picking us up from the parking lot of the Vanemuine Theater, and we look around. We will spend almost an hour in this bus, and three days in the same conference room, in the same dining hall, we will share hotel rooms. A decision is quietly made, as we all take off our protective face masks. If one of us has Covid, we will all get it anyway. There is no PhD student who doesn't know the PhD comics by Jorge Cham ( www.phdcomics.com ), which depict our life so accurately. There is one comic strip in particular that matches this trip: Career stages at a seminar - the first year graduate student will take notes, thinking she will ever loo...

 Scroll weiter für die deutsche Version ;-) Keri alla, et lugeda eesti keeles! ENG The city is full of people again. Nobody remembers the last time the city was this crowded. I had thought that it would be terrible when the people come back, but like every proper Tartu citizen, I love it. Tartu is once more how it is supposed to be. What was going on? Summer is over. Now that more than 70% of Estonians are vaccinated against Covid-19 (in our institute even more than 90%), the universities are opening their doors again. I have been working in the summer, too, constantly learning, and I had a presentation about my research at an international conference for the first time. I am also prepared for winter: I have dried herbs for teas, stacked firewood in the shed, picked berries, made jam, and froze bag after bag of blueberries, and marinated mushrooms. Fall is coming. The first of September is the first day of school for everybody. The school kids are wearing their finest clothes...

Roadtrip with Hugo The first thing I ever heard about the region was this: „The only thing that’s positive in Ida-Virumaa is HIV“. Ida-Virumaa is the county of Estonia that stretches farthest to the East and the town of Narva is officially the easternmost point of the EU; a highly surveilled bridge over the river Narva connecting us to Russia. As Narva is also the third biggest city in Estonia (after Tallinn and Tartu), when I first travelled around the country, this was the only place I visited in Ida-Virumaa. Because, what else is there to see? Turns out: A LOT. Ida-Virumaa is also the main region for oil shale mining, which still makes up around 4% of Estonia’s GDP and produces 76% of our electricity, at least according to Wikipedia. The production is also highly linked to the Soviet times, as the mining peaked in the 1980s. So the mines with their strange-looking hills are what you see, for example, when you take a train from Tallinn to Narva, or drive around the region on ...

How the lamb’s childhood sets the path for its future „Breeding sheep must be your passion if you do that“, says Ants. He must know, he has been in the business for almost twenty years. „The first years it cost us more than it brought in. And still a large portion of our income is from the state supplements that we get as organic farmers.“ After years of learning and trial, this breeder eventually chose the Dorper breed. They have good mothering qualities, do not require much birthing aid and, for a breeder of meat sheep very importantly, they have mostly fur instead of wool. This means that they don’t need to be sheared, as they lose their winter coat by themselves – a lot less work. So I learn that the breed has a huge impact on the financial stability of the sheep breeder. A sheep sold for slaughtering will bring in approximately 80€, as they are usually slaughtered when they reach 40kg and over the last couple of years, the price was at around 2€ per kg of live weight. Sellin...

    When I wrote in October that fall is my favorite season in Estonia, I kind of thought: „I will probably say this about every season“. But to be honest, I’m not yet sure about summer. It’s my first full summer here, and one thing is for sure: If you want to understand Estonians, you need to know the Estonian summer. The winter and how the people are then, only makes sense when you know the summer. But let’s start from the beginning. This story starts in April, when I buy my car. It’s a small off-road car, and although I struggle with increasing my environmental impact in this way, I need a car (and the car-thing in Estonia’s countryside is worth its own blog post). It’s a typical first car, 15 years old, some scratches and a little rickety, but it meets all my needs: Not too big, so I can still find a parking spot in the city, but big enough to transport all my lab equipment and some people and a dog. It has four-wheel drive, the main factor for buying a car that is defin...

A while back I made a list of ten things Estonia does better than Germany, such as trains that are always on time, digitalization and talent over titles. ( click here ) Since then, I have noticed a few more things that make me happy every day that I chose this country over every other - like the speed of vaccination against Covid-19. Germany is now catching up finally, but still. Yes, it’s going slow, there just isn’t enough of the agent, but it’s still much better organized and thus going faster than in Germany. As of today, 37% of Estonian residents have been fully vaccinated, and everything is according to plan ( source ). In Germany, almost 20% of the population have received both shots (source: RKI) (numbers as of June 3, 2021). I cannot get over how simple the health system here is. All the information is on the ID card. I can access all my records, make appointments and check on prescriptions online – using the same login as for online banking, my car registration (yes, regist...