Life in Estonia Spring 2015

NO 37 I SPRING I 2015

SPECIAL! Shared

ServicesIn Estonia

land & people I state & society I economy & business I technology & innovation I culture & entertainment I tourism

Attracting Talent To

Estonia

Aldo Järvsoo, Ambassador Of Fashion

Hardi Meybaum Businessman

Of The Year

E-Residency Goes Global

Estonian Film and Music Play In The Big Leagues

COVERHardi Meybaum

Photo by Mardo Männimägi

Executive publisherPositive ProjectsPärnu mnt 69, 10134 Tallinn, [email protected]

EditorReet [email protected]

TranslationIngrid HübscherAmbassador Translation Agency

Language editorAndrew Whyte

Design & LayoutPositive Design

Partner

A dedicated team of professionals at

Enterprise Estonia’s Investment Agency

supports companies investing and

expanding in Estonia. Come experience

the ease of doing business in e-Estonia –

the low-risk, high quality and competitive

location for your company.

www.investinestonia.com

Powered by

SPRING 2015 I LIFE IN ESTONIA #37 3

Estonia – A Great Home to Businesses

Estonia offers an unparalleled environment for doing business. The country has been eager to

develop and implement new IT solutions both in public and private sectors. ‘e-Estonia’ has be-

come the country’s new moniker, thus highlighting the broad use of IT in all fields of life. In De-

cember 2014, Estonia launched a governmental start-up, e-Residency, which both gives foreign

businessmen a secure digital identity and enables them to use Estonia’s e-services, do business

anywhere in the EU, and more.

This technological openness is a powerful catalyst for the success of Shared Service Centres

(SSCs). Currently, there are over 70 SSCs operating in Estonia, primarily serving large international

corporations. In contrast to many other CEE countries, Estonia offers a superb environment for

the offshoring of complex operational services. Benefits include service level quality, a process

improvement mindset and other new capabilities.

My long career as an Enterprise Estonia representative in Germany has convinced me that Estoni-

ans and Germans are a great business match. Strong economic ties between the two nations date

back as far as Hanseatic times. We share a practical approach to problems, we are ambitious and

diligent in work and our business cultures are similar, including a relatively simple legal system, low

levels of corruption, etc.

A few years ago, Kuehne + Nagel, a global player in the logistics sector, was searching for a loca-

tion for their new IT centre. Altogether, 14 European countries were compared according to various

statistics, with Tallinn scoring the highest.

The Tallinn IT centre has proved a win-win project for all sides. Mr. Martin Kolbe, the CIO of Kuehne

+ Nagel attributes this success to the expertise and resourcefulness of local IT talent. “We Germans

tend to over-engineer things. Estonians, by contrast, take a more pragmatic view when it comes to

solving problems. When both sides get togeth-

er, great solutions emerge,” says Mr. Kolbe.

In addition to Kuehne + Nagel, many other

Scandinavian and Western European compa-

nies have realized the advantages of offshor-

ing to Estonia. You can find out all about

them in this issue of Life in Estonia!

Estonia is an ideal location for SSCs for

numerous reasons, but the key to Estonia’s

vibrant and innovative financial and shared-

service export sector lies in its skilled, educated

and multilingual workforce. All functions are

represented, with higher-order tasks and re-

gional or global responsibilities becoming the

norm.

Clearly, attracting SSCs that offer more complex

services has become a considerable strength for

Estonia and also one of the main focus areas for

the future.

Riina Leminsky,

Enterprise Estonia Representative in Germany

6_ Where To Go This Season? Life In Estonia Recommends

8_ News & Events

13_ Highlights of 2014Which events and achievements marked the year 2014 for Estonia?

Take a look at the selection Life in Estonia made.

17_ Hardi Meybaum: Estonia is Like a Peacock – Deceptively Small in Size But Full of Impact in Appearance

Hardi Meybaum (32) typifies the new generation of Estonian entrepre-

neurs, combining an innovative mindset with real success. He estab-

lished a company called GrabCad, raised tens of millions of dollars of

venture capital money and finally sold the company to Stratasys.

22_ Building a Digital Single Market for Europe

In November 2014, the new European Commission commenced work

with Andrus Ansip in the post of the European Commission Vice-Presi-

dent for the Digital Single Market. Life in Estonia interviewed the former

Estonian PM about the challenges in his new line of work.

24_ E-Residency Goes Global - Apply for One in Your Home Country

The success story of e-Estonia is something you may have heard about.

But what is e-Residency and why do people need it? In simple terms,

it is a digital identity issued by the Estonian state. Kaspar Korjus, the

Estonian e-Residency Programme Director, talks about the project which

aims to reach 2 000 e-Residents by the end of this year.

28_ ‘WorkInEstonia’ - Attracting Talent From Around

the WorldRecently Estonia has been busy in developing many initiatives to help

and encourage foreign talent to relocate here. ‘Work In Estonia’ is one

such project, due to be launched by Enterprise Estonia in May 2015.

30_ State Shared Service Centre Supports Innovation in Governance

The State Shared Service Centre (SSSC) is a public body within the ad-

ministrative jurisdiction of the Estonian Ministry of Finance which pro-

vides nationwide financial, HR and payroll accounting services. Tarmo

Leppoja, Director of SSSC says that the aim is to conduct all public pro-

curement in Estonia via this organisation in the future.

32_ Estonia – the Smart Choice for Shared Service Centres

Estonia is an ideal location for shared service centres for numerous

reasons, such as the local working culture, openness to development,

language skills, professional competences, acceptable cost level and

overall efficiency, not to mention the relatively few cultural differences

from Western European countries. In recent years, many Scandinavian

and Western European companies have transferred their shared service

centres (SSCs) to Estonia.

I CONTENT

#37_SPRING_2015

STATE & SOCIETY

ECONOMY & BUSINESSCOVER STORY

LIFE IN ESTONIA #37 I 2015 SPRING4

64_ From Hip-Hop, to Metal, to Classical Music Rave -

Tallinn Music Week Has It All!Despite her youth, Helen Sildna is already a respected old-timer in the

Estonian music industry. For the seventh year running, her main project

is the showcase festival ‘Tallinn Music Week’, which will be held again

from 25-29 March this year. We asked Helen about how it differs from

other festivals worldwide and who is expected to attend the event.

68_ Tartu Guitar Hero Really Tears up the Music Scene in the US

It is not commonplace for an Estonian guitar player to create waves

with country music in America. Laur Joamets, the former guitarist of

Dramamama, has already performed in ‘Late Show With David Letter-

man’ and Conan O’Brien’s talk show as part of the American country

singer Sturgill Simpson’s band.

72_ Two Restaurants, But Just One Chef de Cuisine: the Best Restaurant in Estonia 2014

Seven years of experience in choosing the top fifty restaurants in Estonia

demonstrates that local cuisine offers a great reason to visit the country.

This year, to borrow an analogy from sports, a photo finish was needed

to determine the NOA Chef’s Hall as the winner as no less than four

restaurants received an equal score for their food!

77_ Practical Information for Visitors

40_ Orkla Group Pursues Efficiency at Every Level

At the end of 2013, Orkla announced plans to establish a shared ac-

counting centre in Estonia, with a view to increasing the efficiency of

the Group’s accounting processes. Now, after more than a year of car-

rying out accounting for different companies in the Orkla Group, the

decision to stay in Tallinn has really paid off - Orkla has estimated their

savings to total around more than €2m per year.

42_ Samres Provides Transport Services from Tartu

Swedish company Samres AB operates call-centres for mobility services,

medical service transportation, and other call-based transportation re-

quests. Samreis Eesti AS, a subsidiary of the Swedish company, is a call-

centre operating in Tartu, where it employs over 50 people. In March

2015, Samres celebrates a decade of operations in Estonia.

44_ OpusCapita Offers Automated Financial Services

from Estonia With their Shared Service Centre in the heart of Tallinn, OpusCapita dig-

itizes as many as 20 000 invoices every day, which largely emanate from

its mother company OpusCapita Group Oy, who have a large number

of clients based in neighbouring Finland.

45_ Aldo Järvsoo: Estonian Ambassador of Fashion

Aldo Järvsoo is one of the most distinctive and celebrated Estonian fash-

ion designers and founders of the brand Embassy of Fashion. Life in

Estonia talked to Aldo about his life and career.

59_ Mission ImpossibleHad anyone said a year ago that the Estonian movie ‘Tangerines’ would

be nominated for the Golden Globe and an Oscar, they would probably

have been laughed out of the room. And yet - little Estonia, where only

five feature films were produced in 2014, is suddenly firmly on the map

of the global film industry! Although ‘Tangerines’ did not win an Oscar

this time, hopefully this is just the beginning.

CULTURE

TOURISM



I WHERE TO GO THIS SEASON

ONEGIN

Ballet by John Cranko after Alexander Pushkin

Performed by the Estonian National Ballet

Choreography and staging: John Cranko (Stuttgart Ballet)

Music: Pyotr Tchaikovsky, arranged by Kurt-Heinz Stolze (Germany)

World premiere on 13 April 1965 Stuttgart Ballet

Premiere at the Estonian National Opera on 19 March 2015

Conductors Vello Pähn, Jüri Alperten, and Kaspar Mänd

Staged by Jane Bourne (Stuttgart Ballet)

Designer Thomas Mika (Germany)

John Cranko’s “Onegin” holds a special place in the choreographic rep-

ertoire of the second half of the 20th century as one of the few original

full-length ballets. The dance version was born in 1965 for the Stuttgart

Ballet. The ballet tells the story of the arrogant and world weary aristo-

crat Onegin who rejects the love of the young and naive Tatiana only to

realize – upon meeting her again ten years later – that in her he threw

away the only woman who would ever have truly loved him. Cranko’s

absolute mastery of the art of the Pas de Deux finds its climax in “One-

gin”, where the relationship of Onegin and Tatiana is revealed in intense

and passionate duets.

FESTIVAL “THE GREAT TCHAIKOVSKY”15–19 APril 2015

This year the Estonian National Opera celebrates the 175th anniversary

of the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky has pre-

sented the world many beautiful operas and ballets, six symphonies,

instrumental concerts, cantatas and romances that have thrilled several

generations.

Estonian National Opera will celebrate the great event with a festival

that includes a selection from the composer’s diverse legacy: opera “The

Queen of Spades”, ballet “The Sleeping Beauty”, Piano Concerto No.

1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 as well as Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 29,

conducted by Nikolai Aleksejev, a ballet gala and John Cranko’s ballet

“Onegin” to the music of Tchaikovsky.

www.opera.ee

Vello Pähn


Bella Italia Guest starBalletto di Milano

May 8th

“Chansons”, “Bolero”Music Édith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Jaques BrelChoreography Adriana Mortelliti

Mai 9th

“Viva Verdi”Music Giuseppe VerdiChoreography Agnese Omodei Sale, Federico Veratti

Program includes � lms, opera and ballet classes and fashion show of Estonian designers.

concert.ee/johvi

hooaja peatoetajad

VIII Jõhvi Ballet Festival May 6–10Jõhvi Concert Hall

Ametlik autopartner

Eesti Kontserdisuurtoetaja

Bella Italia Guest starBalletto di Milano

May 8th

“Chansons”, “Bolero”Music Édith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Jaques BrelChoreography Adriana Mortelliti

Mai 9th

“Viva Verdi”Music Giuseppe VerdiChoreography Agnese Omodei Sale, Federico Veratti

Program includes � lms, opera and ballet classes and fashion show of Estonian designers.

concert.ee/johvi

hooaja peatoetajad

VIII Jõhvi Ballet Festival May 6–10Jõhvi Concert Hall

Ametlik autopartner

Eesti Kontserdisuurtoetaja

CARDILLAC

Opera by Paul Hindemith

Premiere at the Estonian National Opera on 14 May 2015

Conductors Vello Pähn, risto Joost, and lauri Sirp

Stage Director Vilppu Kiljunen(Finland)

Designer Kimmo Viskari (Finland)

Lighting Designer Anton Kulagin

“Cardillac”, written in 1926, is the first of Hindemith’s trilogy of operas

about the relationship between the artist and society. The others being

“Mathis der Maler” (1935) and “Die Harmonie der Welt” (1957). It was

one of the most frequently performed operas of the 1920s and went on

to become Hindemith’s most successful stage work of all.

The protagonist is a goldsmith Cardillac, who fabricates wonderful

things and because of his obsession with them he also retrieves them

by theft and murder. The plot revolves around the dilemma of revealing

to the public that the beloved artist is also the criminal who made an

entire city fearful. The citizens and police fail to make any connection

between the coincidence of the purchases and murders until Cardillac

finally confesses. A crowd then beats him to death, but after his daugh-

ter explains that the murders were merely the consequence of his love

of beauty, they sing a ravishing eulogy.

The Consumer Electronics Association has announced the winners of

the top global technology fair, ‘CES Best of Innovation’ and Estelon

Extreme, a new set of very high-end audio speakers developed by the

Estonian company Alfred & Partners, has won a CES award in the high-

quality sound and video equipment category. These awards are chosen

by an expert group of independent designers, engineers and media

representatives.

Alfred & Partners is an Estonian family company which has in a short pe-

riod of time achieved international recognition for producing top quality

loudspeakers under the Estelon brand.

The sound quality of Extreme is the natural outcome of every engineer-

ing detail and design decision as a whole – the shape and the material

of the cabinet, the top tier components and the engineering experience

in skilfully fitting it all together. The result allows Extreme to deliver a

complete and harmonious soundscape which is greater than the sum of

its components. Estelon’s head-engineer, Alfred Vassilkov, who is also

founder and manager of the company, has provided the Extreme with

all the same innovative breakthrough technology and design principles

that he has been receiving awards for several times over the years.

Simply put, the loudspeakers look as good as they sound because they

are the sum of everything Estelon stand for as a leading innovator in

the high-end speaker industry. According to Alfred Vassilkov, this presti-

gious award motivates him to continue in earnest with his work.

Although most Estelon customers are based abroad, the majority of

production and development work takes place in Estonia.

SWISS PROPERTY is aimed to manufacture in Estonia pre-fabricated

high-quality buildings based on Cross Laminated Timber technology.

In addition to the growing architectural bureau, SWISS PROPERTY is

in the process of building an innovative and advanced factory for the

production of house elements.

The total production output of the factory, situated in the Rae Indus-

trial Park on the outskirts of Tallinn, will be exported to Switzerland. In

spring 2016, the first luxury family apartment house, replete with four

apartments, are to be exported in sections to Küsnacht district, where

it will then be reassembled. The apartment prices - apartments are a

couple of hundred square metres in size - start from €20 000 per m2.

The company expects to make a profit right from the first building. The

total sales goal up to 2018 is €200m. Within the next five years, SWISS

PROPERTY plans to create 300-400 new jobs in Estonia, and according

to the majority holder and CEO of the company, Dr. Lutz Mieschke, the

company’s goal is to become the employer of choice in Estonia.

SWISS PROPERTY has already got off to a great start - at a competition

called ‘Dream Employer 2014’, the company won the coveted ‘Future

Employer’ title. Last year the similar title was given to TransferWise.

High-end Intelligent Luxury Apartments Now Being Constructed in Estonia

Loudspeakers Made in Estonia Among the Best in the World!

Founded in March 2013, SWISS PROPERTY Plc is a subsidiary of SWISS

PROPERTY Group AG, a residential real estate development company in

Switzerland that capitalises on the development and application of an

industrially prefabricated construction technology.


I NEWS

ICT Week

8.05-10.05

JOIn THE TECH EvEnT OF THE YEAR –

ESTOnIAn ICT WEEk

Estonian ICT Week takes place on 8–15 May 2015 and strives to be the most eventful week in the centre of the sizzling nordic-Baltic ICT powerhouse.

ICT Week brings opinion leaders, entrepreneurs, venture capi-

talists, foreign top officials and representatives of international

organisations to Tallinn and combines several conferences and

special events with keynotes you wouldn’t want to miss.

Last year over 1000 foreign guests made time to fly in and hear

the latest. This year Estonian ICT Week plans to go even bigger.

The main topics in 2015 will include e-Governance and e-Res-

idency, Green IT, Smart Industry, Fintech (Financial Technology)

and the Hardware Evolution.

8-10 May @ Tehnopol (Mäealuse 2/1)

Garage48 GreenTech Tallinn 2015This spring’s Garage48 GreenTech event gives everybody an opportunity

to make their environmental improving ideas into reality, starting with

water, soil and waste improvement and ending with alternative energy

possibilities. The aim is to gather together people from different fields

and skill sets and unite them into well-working teams. For example, peo-

ple from environmental field with experiences and knowledge about

what is missing in the sector unite with IT experts who have the skills to

develop the ideas into working prototypes.

We are looking for different skill sets: IT developers, marketers, project

managers, designers, visionary entrepreneurs, environmental specialists.

See more information: garage48.org/events/tallinn

Follow us on FB & Twitter: garage48, @garage48

www.ictweek.eu


11 May @ innovation and Business Center Mektory (raja 15)

Estonian Internet Day 2015 The future narrative? Where should you start a tech start-up in 2015? The answer is #Estonia!

What are the most burning topics of the Estonian Internet in spring

2015? Probably what could be our next Skype or TransferWise? Internet

has become a “lubricant” for economy and is always in need for some-

thing new and innovative. So are we! Do you know where the Internet

is heading? We don’t, but our aim is to get closer to knowing! The main

idea of the Estonian Internet Day is to bring together our Internet and

community enthusiasts to further discuss and give our contribution to

the development of the Estonian Internet.

Five topics, ten+1 keywords. internet & Estonia. Privacy & Control.

Skills & Awareness. internet of Things. internet as Economy’s

lubricant.

Can you imagine yourself two weeks without the Internet?

Follow us on Twitter: @Eesti internet #iPÄEV2015

* The event is in Estonian

11 May @ Swissôtel Tallinn, (Tornimäe 3)

norway – Estonia ICT cooperation seminar by Innovation norwayTrustworthy cooperation – key in developing innova-tive solutions and conquering international markets

Over the last years the cooperation between Norwegian and Estonian

companies has increased especially when it comes to developing new

and innovative solutions within IT. Norway Grants Green Industry In-

novation Program with focus on green IT has played an important part

in this development.

The seminar will present best cases, competences and experiences

found in Estonia and Norway to inspire new solutions and partnerships.

Sub categories that the seminar will cover are green IT solutions within

energy, transport and logistics, and trade. In addition the seminar also

covers public-private partnership when it comes to e-Government solu-

tions. Further on we will support the creation of new contacts, coopera-

tion’s and networks.

Registration to the event is done by sending an e-mail to

[email protected]

Follow us on FB innovationNorwaytheBaltics and Twitter @iNBaltics

12-13 May @ radisson BlU Hotel Olümpia

(liivalaia 33)

Industry 4.0 in Practice conferenceThe concept also known as third or fourth industrial revolution goes

around with many names: Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet, Internet of

Things. It boosts the efficiency of manufacturing far further by connect-

ing the machines, enabling advanced analytics and empowering the

people. But taking new concepts into practice is often time consuming

and costly.

The organisers of the conference believe that co-operation between ad-

vanced industries and Estonian ICT and manufacturing companies can

give the implementation of Industry 4.0 principles a vital boost. After

all, Estonia has been known as a tech advanced and agile society that

gets things done fast.

The event rises awareness about Industry 4.0 in creating higher indus-

trial efficiency. Collaboration possibilities and benefits will be outlined

together with practical case studies from ICT and manufacturing. Senior

decision makers from German and Nordic manufacturing companies

and top experts and decision makers of Estonian ICT and manufacturing

companies are expected to benefit from the event.

See more information: www.industry40.ee

12-13 May @ Nordic Hotel Forum (Viru väljak 3)

Tallinn e-Governance Conference 2015 by e-Governance AcademyWorld’s leading e-Governance experts from governments, business, aca-

demia, international organisations and civil society groups will meet in

Tallinn to discuss: designing e-Governance strategies, 15 years of e-Gov-

ernance experience in EU Eastern Partnership countries, coordination

and communication in central e-governance implementation and cyber

security and e-governance.

The conference aims to serve the following interrelated communities:

government decision makers and strategists from countries implement-

ing national e-Governance strategies, focusing on the EU Eastern Part-

nership and Open Government Partnership countries, donor organisa-

tions supporting development of open, transparent and efficient gov-

ernance practices via IT solutions and companies developing e-Govern-

ance applications and assisting governments with their implementation.

More information and registration: tallinnconference.ee

Follow us on Twitter: #egov2015

11.05

ICT WeekICT Week

12.0513.05

13.05

LIFE IN ESTONIA #37 I 2015 SPRING

I EVENTS

10

13 May @ Swissôtel (Tornimäe 3)

nordic Digital Day by the Ministry of Economic Affairs

and Communications

Last year some 300 e-Government experts and CIOs

from all over the world gathered to the Nordic Digi-

tal Agendas Day where Denmark, Norway, Sweden,

Finland and Estonia shared their vision for and major

action lines of their digital agendas. In addition, each

country introduced some crazy, yet necessary ideas

the realization of which is a challenge today, but could

provide valuable experiences and inspirations for fu-

ture cutting-edge innovation.

The Nordic Digital Day this year is even more inspir-

ing and is dedicated to the Nordic ICT innovations and

reforms that every country is particularly proud of. The

aim is to show the revolutionary projects that have had a big impact on

the daily lives of people and businesses in the Nordic countries. They are

something that every country should implement to make a new leap

forward in overall information society development.

More information and registration: e-estonia.com/nordicday/

Follow us on Twitter: #NordicDay2015

13 May @ National library of Estonia (Tõnismägi 2)

FinanceEstonia International Forum 2015This year’s Forum, jointly organised by FinanceEstonia, Estonian Private

Equity and Venture Capital Association and Estonian Business Angels

Network, focuses on the development of European capital markets and

increasing digital possibilities. In addition excellent networking oppor-

tunities will be provided both at the Forum and the Gala Dinner which

will take place in Energy Discovery Centre. Participation with invitations

only!

More information and registration: www.financeestonia.eu/

financeestonia-international-forum-2015/

13 May @ Tehnopol (Mäealuse 2/1)

LEAP by AIESECLEAP prepares startups for a big jump in their journey

by providing a learning space tailor-made for their

own needs and the interaction with International

VCs. Unlike others, LEAP is a fresh idea validated by the Estonian startup

ecosystem. At LEAP, you can expect mentoring spaces, skill workshops

and speeches tailored for you and your startups delivered by both Inter-

national and local experts. What’s more? LEAP is partnering with Lati-

tude59 to ensure that you get the best learning and opportunities from

both of the events!

More information: www.leap.aiesec.ee

14-15 May @ Creative Hub Kultuurikatel (Põhja puiestee 27a)

Latitude59 networking conference

latitude59 startup and investor networking conference will cele-

brate already its 8th birthday! This years’ special focus will be on

FinTech, Hardware Evolution and e-residency. At Latitude59 e-Res-

idency will undergo scrutiny by seasoned entrepreneurs to understand

its real business potential. Some of the hottest Fintech startups will be

present to discuss disruptive business models in the finance sector. For

the first time we will offer a special insight to investing into hardware

startups and will feature several kick-ass hardware showcases.

Be aware, Latitude59 Startup Pitch Competition powered by Blackbox

and EstBAN presents born global startups from around the globe to see

who’s best.

15 May @ rock Café (Tartu mnt 80)

Estonian ICT Week closing party “Rock IT”

Come see and enjoy the most innovative rock party of the week. RockIT

is a festival for ICT companies’ bands where 10 different groups will be

playing their favourite songs. The party starts at 19:00 and goes on until

the early morning hours. Tickets are available at the venue.

13.05

ICT Week

ICT Week

14.0515.05

“Amazed, not surprised, by the strength of tech and talent in #Tallinn @latitude59. Looks like I’ll be back!” Gil Dibner @gdibner

rEGiSTEr NOW: www.latitude59.ee

Follow on Twitter and Facebook @latitude59, #latitude59


Estonian pavilion “Gallery of_” features more than thirty Estonian companies, Estonian music and design. In addition a street food restaurant and a Rye bar with Nordic food and drinks inspired by the local nature. The pavilion is a melting pot for the high-tech and low-tech, presenting Estonia as a dynamic little country where ancient traditions and unspoilt nature fuse with technological innovation.

COME AND DISCOVER THE GALLERY OF ESTONIA @EXPO MILANO 2015

estonia.eu/expo2015

One of the highlights will be Estonia’s national day on the 7th of June and the attempt on the same day to set a Guinness World Record in Kiiking – swinging 360 degrees over the fulcrum with more than a 7m high swing.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to recharge a phone or turn on a light? Energy swings on the first floor will give you the answer and provide a unique possibility to produce electricity by yourself.

Skype, developed by Estonians, provides a virtual guide and a virtual friend for the Estonian pavilion and its visitors. Come and have a chat with IT and learn new things about Estonia.

WATCH THE VIDEO

The Friends of Estonia International Meeting Celebrated its FifthAnniversary in the Summer of 2014

The aim of the event is to recognise inves-

tors, politicians and artists whose activities

and support have helped Estonia to de-

velop into a progressive, fully-European

country with a dynamic economy and vi-

brant culture.

A hundred and six guests from 21 differ-

ent countries participated at the meeting

of 2014. The main topic of the event was

e-Democracy, the e-State and the role of

these institutions in contemporary society.

High-profile speakers at the symposium

included the President of Estonia Toomas

Hendrik Ilves, and Mr. Andrew M. Thomp-

son, founder and Head of Proteus Digital

Health.

At a seminar entitled “Global Estonians –

Contributing Towards A World Without

Borders”, organised under the auspices of

Enterprise Estonia, the Estonian Govern-

ment CIO Taavi Kotka introduced their lat-

est initiative to introduce e-Residence per-

mits to anyone around the world, grant-

ing the opportunity to utilise fully all the

benefits that ‘e-Estonia’ has to offer with

its many business services. In addition,

representatives of TransferWise, Teleport,

Google, GrabCAD, Planet OS and Tolaram

Group gave presentations on their own

smart solutions.

The next Friends of Estonia International

Meeting will take place between 9-11 July

2015.

The Estonian Song and Dance Celebrations are a

long-standing and very important tradition

for Estonia and the Estonian people (the

first song festival, or laulupidu, took place

way back in 1869 with first dance festival or

tantsupidu happening in 1934) and the ma-

jor festivals are today held every five years.

In 2003, this tradition of song and dance

celebrations was officially added to UN-

ESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The 26th Song Celebration and the 19th Dance

Celebration, entitled “Touched by Time. The

Time to Touch” was held in Tallinn from 4-6

July 2014, and drew a record number of par-

ticipants and audience, with more than 153

000 people visiting the dance performances

and concerts. Most tickets were sold for the

second concert of the Song Festival “The

Time to Touch” on Sunday – 67 322 tickets.

The audience listened to and indeed sang

along with 33 025 singers joined by 10 082

dancers. The joint choir for the grand finale

consisted of over 22 000 singers.

Hirvo Surva, Artistic Director of the event

said, “I’m extremely happy to have been

born in Estonia, to be speaking Estonian. I’m

grateful to be able to give my little contri-

bution to the ‘laulupidu’ - there is nothing

better that that.”

1 240 overseas participants also took part in

the event. These guests were amazed to see

choir conductors heartily cheered and even

lauded like rock stars.

The next Youth Song and Dance Celebration

will take place in 2017. And, 2019 will see the

Song- and Dance Festivals which will mark the

150th anniversary of the very first event.

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2014


Estonian pavilion “Gallery of_” features more than thirty Estonian companies, Estonian music and design. In addition a street food restaurant and a Rye bar with Nordic food and drinks inspired by the local nature. The pavilion is a melting pot for the high-tech and low-tech, presenting Estonia as a dynamic little country where ancient traditions and unspoilt nature fuse with technological innovation.

COME AND DISCOVER THE GALLERY OF ESTONIA @EXPO MILANO 2015

estonia.eu/expo2015

One of the highlights will be Estonia’s national day on the 7th of June and the attempt on the same day to set a Guinness World Record in Kiiking – swinging 360 degrees over the fulcrum with more than a 7m high swing.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to recharge a phone or turn on a light? Energy swings on the first floor will give you the answer and provide a unique possibility to produce electricity by yourself.

Skype, developed by Estonians, provides a virtual guide and a virtual friend for the Estonian pavilion and its visitors. Come and have a chat with IT and learn new things about Estonia.

WATCH THE VIDEO

PM Taavi Rõivas’ and Business Delegates’ visit to the USAIn December 2014, Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas made an of-

ficial visit to the United States, with the focus on three primary fields:

economic cooperation, bilateral relations between Estonia and the USA,

and security. The business delegation accompanying the Prime Minister

included representatives of over 40 Estonian companies. The visit be-

gan in Silicon Valley, where the delegation visited renowned technology

enterprises like Google, Tesla, Microsoft and GrabCAD (which also has

Estonian roots), Twilio, Yammer, and others.

At a business forum called ‘e-Estonia and the Digital Society’, held at

the University of Draper in California, Steve Jürvetson and his business

partner Tim Draper were presented with the first Estonian e-Resident

cards to be issued in the United States.

Prime Minister Rõivas called upon companies based in Silicon Valley and

in the rest of the world to make full use of e-Residency to simplify their

online activities and to bring new services onto the world market: ‘Es-

tonian e-Residency has already received a lot of attention, even though

we are in the initial phases and just discovering the potential of this

undertaking,’ Rõivas said.

Prime Minister Rõivas also gave a public talk at the University of Stan-

ford, Connecticut, in which he emphasised the importance of the US

as Estonia’s key ally in security policy, including cyber-security. The Es-

tonian Prime Minister remarked that the primary security challenge for

Estonia comes from the East. However the country has to be prepared

for attacks from other directions as well, principally cyberattacks, and

Estonia’s preparedness to implement new technologies and IT solutions

in fighting cyber attacks is paramount.

“Cyber-security is an aspect of security which needs constant national

and international attention,” said Rõivas. In Washington, the delegation

met with the US high-ranking state officials and with organisations of

interest for the defence industry.

The visit ended in New York with the opening of the NASDAQ stock ex-

change day and meeting with representatives of investment companies.

President Barack Obama’s visit to EstoniaUS president Barack Obama visited Tallinn on 3 September 2014 as part

of his official trip to Estonia and Wales, UK.

During the highly-anticipated one-day visit, Obama got to see the 18th-

century Kadriorg Art Museum, the Stenbock House (the seat of the Es-

tonian Government) on Toompea and also gave a very well-received

speech at the Nordea Concert Hall, during which he complimented both

Estonia’s continued efforts in maintaining and cultivating democracy

and the country’s notable entrepreneurial spirit.

“Here in Estonia, we see the success of free markets, integration with

Europe, taking on tough reforms. You’ve become one of the most wired

countries on Earth, a global leader in e-government and high-tech start-

ups. The entrepreneurial spirit of the Estonian people has been un-

leashed. And your innovations, like Skype, are transforming the world,”

the US President said.

With the NATO Summit Session in Wales his next destination, Mr Obama

also emphasised the dedication the US has demonstrated towards rec-

ognising and collaborating with its NATO allies now and in the future.

In the joint press conference with Estonian President Ilves which fol-

lowed, Mr. Obama went on to say that:

“Estonia is one of the great success stories among the nations that re-

claimed their independence after the Cold War. You’ve built a vibrant

democracy and new prosperity, and you’ve become a model for how cit-

izens can interact with their government in the 21st century, something

President Ilves has championed. With their digital IDs, Estonians can use

their smart phones to get just about anything done online – from their

children’s grades to their health records. I should have called the Estoni-

ans when we were setting up our health-care website!”


I HIGHLIGHTS 2014

#estonianmafia at SLUSHEstonian entrepreneurs participated enthusiastically in the Finnish start-

up-investor conference ‘Slush’, with a delegation led by the Prime Min-

ister of Estonia, Taavi Rõivas. Several promising Estonian start-ups made

the short trip to Helsinki to meet with investors at Slush including start-

ups Heelosophy, Fleep, Jobbatical, GoWorkaBit, WellBiome, VTT-TNM,

Comfee and Hyperion Tech.

‘I always thought Silicon Valley was the epicenter of global innovation.

After Slush, I changed my mind,’ said Wang Jian, CTO at Alibaba after

visiting the startup conference in Helsinki, Finland last November. Esto-

nians and Finns are uniting to grow the Nordic startup scene more pow-

erful. Also the governments are cooperating to innovate the countries.

The strongest message to come from the stage was expressed by the

Prime Minister of Finland, Alexander Stubb, when he announced that

Finland is about to commence integrating the e-Governance and e-Ser-

vices in Estonia into Finland as well.

Estonia Ranks First in the Tax Competitiveness Index

According to a survey conducted by the Tax Foundation (based in Wash-

ington DC) Estonia has the most competitive tax system in the OECD.

The foundation analysed over 40 variables related to tax policy, divided

them into five categories and ranked all the OECD member states ac-

cording to their scores in each category. Estonia ranked no less than in

first place in the Corporate Tax Rank and Property Taxes Rank, as well as

second in Individual Taxes Rank!

Samsung Sourcing in the nordicsAt the end of August, Samsung Electronics and the Estonian Investment

Agency jointly hosted a pitching event ‘Get Global with Samsung’ in Tal-

linn, for connecting tech companies from the Nordic-Baltic region with

the global big hitter Samsung. The team from Samsung Electronics had

come to search for innovative technologies that might be integrated

into Samsung’s future products.

Altogether, 14 tech companies from Estonia, Finland and Norway

were pre-selected by Samsung and got the chance to introduce their

technology.

The Samsung representatives were pleasantly surprised about the great

way they seemed to click with local companies. They emphasised that

they see a lot of great innovation happening in Europe and assured

everyone that they would take that message back home to Samsung

Headquarters in Korea.

Become an e-Estonian now! This Fantastic Governmental Start-up is Taking the World by Storm.

E-Residency is a state-issued secure digital identity for non-residents of

Estonia. This may sound counter-intuitive, so let’s explain how it works.

Estonian e-Residency is issued by the Government of the Republic of

Estonia only, though it does not bring physical residency or rights of

entry to Estonia or the EU in and of itself. Estonian e-Residency does

however facilitate the digital authentication and digital signing of many

different documents.

E-Residency does not entail any residential or citizenship rights as such,

and it cannot be used as a physical identification card or travel docu-

ment. Its main purpose is to make life easier for anybody by giving them

access to various secure e-Services which have already been available to

Estonians for years.

By providing e-Residency rights, we in Estonia are moving towards the

idea of a country without borders. Ever since Estonia announced its e-

Residency program in October 2014, the potential implications and ben-

efits of this innovation have been debated. The program’s detractors have

dismissed it as anything from a mere PR stunt to a real security threat,

but in the meantime the Estonian government has been positioning e-

Residency as a ‘governmental start-up’, giving the unvarnished truth and

so pointing out that every innovation comes with an upside as well as a

downside. In this way they have more than answered the critics.

But what is the correct response to those who criticise e-Residency on

the grounds that Estonia itself doesn’t stand to gain anything out of it?

In fact we are helping the whole world with this project, and the bene-

fits will be long-term and not just short-term. While the country will not

be directly profiting from those who enrol as e-Residents any time soon,

with the services available to be utilised by e-Residents only just starting

to unfold, the very fact of having what are effectively Estonian ‘ambas-

sadors’ all over the world means the venture is already paying off.

The very first two e-Estonian ID cards were issued to the prominent

Economist journalist Edward lucas together with the Estonian-Ameri-

can investor Steve Jürvetson. The reasons for these choices are simple.

Lucas has been one of the most significant international messengers of

the Estonian story for several years now, and he has also done some

great work in contributing to the country’s reputation in the electronic

and technological spheres. As stated, Jürvetson has Estonian roots, and

he is a very well-known Venture Capital investor in the US.


#estonianmafia amongst greatest success stories in 2014

The Estonian-founded, London-based, money transfer giant Transfer-

Wise has received US$58m in investment from the investors led by the

Silicon Valley-based American venture capital firm Andreessen Horow-

itz. TransferWise’s existing investors, including Sir Richard Branson, Peter

Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Index Ventures, IA Ventures and Seedcamp, also

participated in the investment round.

Ben Horowitz, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, joins the board of

TransferWise to help accelerate the company’s global roll-out. His firm’s

previous notable investments include Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, GitHub

and Pinterest.

The start-up will use these funds for its global ex-

pansion. It will open its US office next month and

is set to open offices in Germany and in Australia

in the next few months as well. The company

plans to open 300 further currency routes over

the next year. The funding round is thought to

value the company at almost US$1bn.

TransferWise was launched in London in early

2011 by two Estonians: Taavet Hinrikus, Skype’s

first employee, and Kristo Käärmann. The firm

started with making transfers between the Brit-

ish pound and the Euro. It now has 250 members

of staff, 292 currency routes and continues to

grow between 15-20% a month. The company

says that customers have transferred £3bn using

its platform.

In 2014, Estonian-founded, US-based startup

GrabCAD was acquired by the US-Israeli pro-

vider of 3D printing solutions, Stratasys Ltd, for

around US$100m.This was the second biggest exit

for an Estonian startup to date and the biggest for

Estonian seed investors.

Founded in 2010, GrabCAD is helping engineers get products to market

faster by connecting people, content and technology. “GrabCAD was

founded to bring the world’s engineers together and help them collabo-

rate to bring better products to market faster,” said Hardi Meybaum,

co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of GrabCAD.

“By joining forces with Stratasys, a global leader in 3D printing and ad-

ditive manufacturing, we believe we can extend the reach of one of

the most exciting and innovative design collaboration technologies

available.”

In January 2015, it was announced that NASA uses online engineering

platform GrabCAD to design a handrail clamp assembly (HCA) for the In-

ternational Space Station (ISS) that can be printed on the ISS 3D printer.

Read more about GrabCad >

Richard Branson Promotes Tallinn as new Tech City

The website virgin.com is of course the home-

page of the world-famous entrepreneur Rich-

ard Branson, and it now promotes the capital

of Estonia as one of the four new destinations

for founding your seed company.

If the rental prices for a decent pad in London

and San Francisco are beyond the pocket of

a young entrepreneur, and if the creativity in

those cities also comes at a premium, where

should a technology start-up look next?

Eleanor Ross, the author of the article in ques-

tion, has ranked Tallinn as THE top destination

for new and budding technology entrepre-

neurs to locate and grow. Tallinn is followed

by Malmö in Sweden, Eindhoven in Holland

and Brno in the Czech Republic.

“Unsurprisingly, Tallinn has its own version of

Silicon Valley in the form of Technopolis, which

is located near to the airport. It hosts a large

number of tech enterprises, with both SMEs

and more established companies,” writes Ross.

“Tallinn has over 30 WiFi hotspots for its citi-

zens and visitors, most of which are in the city

centre and the Old Town, and many are near

popular tourist attractions. The network, Tal-

linnWifi, may be connected to for free and its

has a download speed of 15Mbps per hotspot.”

Amongst other things, Ross praises the public

transport of Tallinn as an innovative and smart

solution. ‘From getting a free bus ride by swip-

ing a smart card that then tracks your move-

ments (all public transport here is free if you’re

a Tallinn resident) to using a special code to

mail a package from one locker to another, Tal-

linn residents use advanced technology every

day. All ID cards have chips in them, and park-

ing is paid electronically using a mobile phone

code,’ explains Ross on the website.


I HIGHLIGHTS 2014

Hardi Meybaum: Estonia is Like a Peacock – Deceptively Small in Size But Full of Impact in AppearanceBy Holger roonemaa / Photos By mardo männimägi

Soon after graduating from Tallinn University of Technology he estab-

lished a company called GrabCAD, relocated to Boston to continue its

development there, raised tens of millions of dollars of venture capi-

tal money and finally sold the company – allegedly for USD100m – to

the world’s largest 3D printing company Stratasys. Nowadays, Hardi is

working at Stratasys’ and heads GrabCAD development there.

For those of you not familiar with GrabCAD, the easiest way to describe

it is to say it is a collaboration platform that brings together some 1.8m

engineers (that’s greater than the population of Estonia incidentally) and

presents them with the tools to collaborate on both open and private

projects. GrabCAD’s clients include such august institutions as NASA

and General Electric among others.

We asked Hardi about what has been happening with GrabCAD lately.

Hardi Meybaum (32) is just one example of a new generation of Es-

tonian entrepreneurs – thinking out-of-the-box, having an innovative

mindset and most important – actually being successful.


COVER STORY I

Tell us what has been happening with GrabCAD during the five months since you sold the company to Stratasys?

For one thing, we just announced that GrabCad Workbench is now free

for all users. This is really great and positive news for our customers,

because prior to that you needed to pay USD70 US per user, per month,

in subscription fees. But that system is no more, and every designer,

engineer and manufacturer can now start using GrabCAD for free.

Looking at the bigger picture, our team has multiplied in size, and though

we do everything as we used to do before, we do it much faster now. We

have launched a couple of very interesting challenges in recent weeks;

one of them was initiated by NASA and another by General Electric.

What does it mean when you say that you’ve launched a nASA challenge?

Our concept incorporates a challenge-oriented environment, where dif-

ferent companies can ask for our users to come up with their solutions

for design problems posed. We have nearly two million users, who can

all contribute to solving these challenges. Over the last couple of years

we have launched many such challenges.

Now NASA have approached us and asked for help regarding a specific

detail in a space station. Our users have already provided them with

nearly 500 designs!

How does it work? Did nASA find you or the other way round?

We have never had a classical outbound sales team – usually people ap-

proach us and sign up without us directly talking with them.

With larger customers it is sometimes necessary to talk a couple of times

on the phone and agree on the details, before they sign up. It is very

similar with the challenges. Companies contact us and then we help

them set up the challenge.

You stated that the Workbench is now available for free. What is the business logic behind that? On the surface it seems you could potentially lose revenue by following this step

That’s true, but this is part of the charm in being part of a large corpora-

tion. GrabCAD’s vision has always been to reach every engineer’s desk.

We have effectively achieved this goal through our community.

We have 1.8m users now as I said. The other part of our vision is that

every engineer will store their files on our Workbench. The hefty price

that we used to charge made this difficult to achieve. But now that we

made it free, potentially everyone can access the Workbench. In the

future we plan to combine the Workbench with Stratasys’ products and

see how such synergy will work out. But today we keep focusing on

developing a really good product.

There is also another huge difference between being an independent

company as against being part of a large corporation.

As a startup we used to operate in an 18-month cycle. Startups have

to raise new venture capital on average every 18 months until one day

you’d ideally make an IPO and then get to factor public money raised

on the stock exchange into the equation.

This means that as a startup you keep working on short-term goals only.

Now we can look considerably further up the road and make decisions

that will affect the company maybe as far ahead as 5 or 6 years from now.

Tell us a bit about the deal with Stratasys. Why did you decide to sell GrabCAD?

There had been interest to buy us since basically day 1. GrabCAD’s com-

munity has always been neutral towards different software producers.

We are almost like the ‘Switzerland’ of companies in that sense!

It doesn’t matter what kind of software you use or in which industry you

work in - there’s always a place for you in GrabCAD.

Now, if we had sold to a strictly CAD company, we would have lost that

neutrality. For this reason I was never really interested to sell GrabCAD

to a pure software company. But ever since we first met with Stratasys,

we understood that we shared very similar visions.

This was a really cool thing to discover. GrabCAD’s main vision was to

help our clients get their products to the market faster. So was Strata-

sys’. Their 3D printing is neutral in exactly the same way as we are.

How did you and Stratasys find each other?

A year before our deal, Stratasys bought a company named MakerBot.

MakerBot has sold the highest number of 3D printer units worldwide,

although Stratasys’ revenue has been larger. As it happened, the found-

er and CEO of MakerBot went on to become a really good friend of

mine when I built GrabCAD.

So a little the MakerBot deal I was having dinner with him and he said

“you know, Hardi, I think you should also sell to Stratasys, so we can

work together”. He introduced me to the right people, we had negotia-

tions for six months and then concluded the deal.

Can you tell us how many interested parties you effectively snubbed before you made the deal with Stratays? From what I understand, it wasn’t the pricetag Stratays offered but more their overriding philosophy that you found appealing?

That was exactly the case. So I have never really worried about what

would happen with GrabCAD since the Stratays takeover.

The question had always been more whether to sell at all. But we have

been lucky to have attracted a lot of users and attention since the very

beginnings of GrabCAD.

So, whilst I can’t give you a precise figure, I can say that there were

plenty of meetings with people interested in buying us up. In the end,

though, it is one thing to meet and talk, but another thing to actually

reach a deal. Only that matters.


I COVER STORY

It has been reported that the deal with Stratasys came to a cool USD100m. Is this true?

Sorry but I can’t comment on the specifics of the deal.

After selling GrabCAD you didn’t leave, but instead were retained by Stratasys. How do you see your own future at the company?

To be honest, I don’t set long range plans for myself. As long as it is

still interesting to me, I’ll stay. And so far it has been really interesting!

But still, how can you motivate yourself now that you don’t own the company anymore?

I like new challenges. As long as I have them and I still feel like I’m learn-

ing something new, then I don’t mind if the company no longer belongs

to me. Stratasys’ turnover was around USD780m last year and it keeps

growing by 35 per cent a year! That is an amazing statistic!

Furthermore, the entire market sector is growing by an estimated 35-40

per cent a year. It doesn’t happen too often that someone can work for

a market leading company in a field that itself is growing at an incred-

ible pace, AND you can affect the company’s direction every day!

This on its own thrills me and that’s the reason why I’m staying here for

the meantime.

What will the relationship between GrabCad/Stratasys and your native Estonia be?

We are still hiring in Estonia, and even faster than before. Estonia is, and

will be, a very important place for both GrabCAD and Stratasys. We are

very positive about the different projects regarding our Estonian office.

Could you elaborate on that? Do I understand correctly you correct that it’s not only GrabCAD that’s expanding in Estonia, but also some of Stratasys’ other activities?

Yes. An important change that has already taken place is that Grab-

CAD’s team is nowadays also Stratasys’ development team. We have

already integrated the software development teams and our engineers

work for both GrabCAD and Stratasys in Tallinn as well as in our other

offices in other countries.

Your Tallinn office is close neighbours with another Estonian-born startup that is making headlines around the world, TransferWise. Both of you are expanding. Is there a hiring ‘war’ going on?

I don’t believe in doing that. I think that the time when people joined

software development companies purely because of the money are long

gone. There must be something really wrong when a person chooses

between us and TransferWise based solely on the wage we offer. We

are just such different companies, with radically different engineering

challenges.

Still, are there enough people to hire? There is yourselves, then TransferWise, then there are other local IT-companies and startups, finally Russian IT-giant Acronis is establishing its development centre in Tallinn.

True, in an ideal world we would like to hire faster. There is a need for

significantly more people with a technical background in Estonia. But at

GrabCAD we are used to such an environment. We are also competing

for IT talent in Boston, which is a ten times crazier scene than Estonia’s.

In other words, there are a lot more IT people in Boston, but the com-

petition to hire is also much higher. Or take Cambridge, England, which

is a well-known development hub for lots of large companies solving

extremely challenging engineering problems. We are used to competing

for the best talents and we have always been able to hire exactly the

people we want.


What are your own plans regarding Estonia? Are you thinking of giving something back to the community here after your deal with Stratasys?

Yes I am thinking about that a lot. As a matter of fact I’m set to launch

a project in Estonia, probably in April this year. Without giving too much

away, I can say it is connected with education, and the goal is to help

provoke interest in a technical education amongst young people. I know

I am being vague, and I must apologise but I’m not in a position to give

more detail than that just yet. There are still a lot of ‘Is’ to dot and ‘Ts’ to

cross before I can go public with the plan, so please sit tight!

Can you at least drop a couple of hints?

(Laughs) I really wouldn’t like to say anything more yet. Let’s wait for the

public launch, then we can talk again!

How often do you come to Tallinn these days?

Over the last five months there have been just two weeks when I

haven’t had to get on a plane to somewhere. As a result I unfortunately

haven’t been able to visit Estonia for a while. But I plan to stay in Estonia

for three months this summer. And that’s something I haven’t been able

to do for the last five years!

How will you find the time for that now?

Well, instead of Boston being my adopted home town and Boston Lo-

gan airport my home airport, it will be Tallinn and Lennart Meri airport

instead. I will still have to travel a lot, though.

GrabCAD came about through the use of tech accelerators, but as I’ve gathered from talking with various people, you yourself are quite critical of accelerators. Why is that?

I am critical of certain accelerators and also perhaps of certain compa-

nies joining accelerators. Some companies, because of their nature, sim-

ply shouldn’t join accelerators and others should at least ask themselves

which is the best accelerator to join. Actually that said I just made my

first ever investment - and it was into an accelerator - Bolt!

Bolt is a Boston and San Francisco-based hardware accelerator. Bolt

doesn’t teach you how to build a team, because you can find advice on

that online or simply ask your investors. Instead they provide you with

space where you can build your prototype, and then help find the best

manufacturer in China, that can make you as many as 100 000 of your

first units.

I like such types of accelerators, because they give you a very clear idea

of what you can expect from them.

Then there are accelerators that offer you the same know-how that you

can also find online. So if you have a startup that’s already making some

money and you can find a seed investment on your own, you really

don’t need an accelerator in fact.

Do you mean that some accelerators have basically turned into chatrooms?

Yes, exactly! Problem number one is that they’re completely over-hyped.

People tend to think that if you join an accelerator, miracles will start to

happen. That is simply not the case. The company still belongs to you

and it is you and you alone who has to fight for it and push it further.

Problem number two is that people tend to think that once you get into

an accelerator, you’ve made it – you’re successful! That is not a good

indicator of success though. Real success is when you find clients who

love your product, who are prepared to pay for it, not to mention when

you see consistent, month-on-month growth.

So with your views on accelerators in mind, do you have regrets about entering accelerators with GrabCAD?

I do regret entering Seedcamp [a popular London-based accelerator –

ed.]. When you join an accelerator, you lose a significant part of your

share of the company. So you have to calculate things carefully, to be

sure the accelerator are giving you enough value in exchange.

We definitely didn’t gain enough from our participation in Seedcamp.

In Techstars [GrabCADd entered Techstars Boston in 2011] however, the

share was 50/50. They didn’t directly give us much new, but member-

ship did help our brand development.

Thanks to Techstars we weren’t just an Estonian company in the US any

more. Back in those days being an Estonian startup didn’t mean nearly

as much as it does now. Furthermore, being part of Techstars made

investors fight over us, because they knew that we were likely t be

exposed to plenty of investors at the Demoday.

In other words everyone was afraid that they’d lose out on their chance

to invest in us.

Is being an Estonian startup really a brand of it’s own nowadays or does hype also come into play?

Estonia is fast turning into a place that people know all about. One of

our investors has compared Estonian startups with Swiss Army knives

€ because they guarantee quality. I agree with him and this is also an

image that is taking shape in Silicon Valley, as well as Boston and New

York.

When an Estonian founder is able to enter the US market and make

appointments with VCs, that’s impressive on its own. Second, Estonians

have a tendency to over-engineer their products, in my view. What I

mean is, first we make the perfect product and only then do we start

thinking about selling it.

The approach in Silicon Valley is completely the other way round. When

you add the eEstonian concept and the PR that president Toomas Hen-

drik Ilves brings to the Estonian IT-brand into the mix, we end up with

a very good result.


I COVER STORY

What more can we do here to improve our brand even further?

The next step should be to take a deeper look inside. Estonia reminds

me somewhat of a peacock. If you take a close look at it, you can see

that it is a really small bird. Its body is often little more than the size of a

man’s fist, but when it spreads its wings it gives the impression of being

a big, powerful bird.

Similarly, Estonia appears to be a major dynamic IT-focussed country

boasting lots of startups, but in actual fact we have had just a few real

success stories to our name so far. So we must do everything we can to

ensure we get more GrabCADs and TransferWises in future.

Do you plan to cast your eye around as a potential investor yourself now?

I do indeed. I have just invested in a Boston-based startup Dunwello. Dun-

wello is a community for professionals inside existing organizations. They

occupy the gap between Linkedin recommendations and Yelp. The commu-

nity is definitely ahead of the curve, but I believe in the vision and the team.

I plan to invest more in the future as well. Investing is a great way to

give back what you’ve learned and help other starting businesses into

the bargain. This also helps you to get to know new industries. I have

experience in production, design and engineering, but it’s really cool to

be learning about other industries now.

So is investing a business, a method of education or, alternatively, a charity?

I hope it’s not entirely a charity! I do plan to get a return from my invest-

ments! But I don’t do it just for the money, but more to educate myself

and help young entrepreneurs as well.

You’ve also published a book. How was that even possible with all your work in developing GrabCAD?

Yes, the name of the book is “The Art of Product Design - Changing

How Things Get Made”.

The cool thing about the book is that it was published by Wiley, which

is the number one business books publisher in the US. We noticed that

The Internet had transformed a lot of different industries. For instance

we don’t need walk-in travel agents any more, we can order taxis with

an app etc.

This effect was spreading to the production industry as well. This is

also the reason we created GrabCAD. We saw that there were a few

hundred companies that were approaching production in a new way.

As it turned out, they were all clients of GrabCAD! So with the book we

wanted to inspire the other 99.99% of companies also to do things in

a new, more creative and more efficient way.

Writing a book isn’t exactly the easiest thing I’ve done in my life.

And writing a book at the same time as running a fast-growing

company is really difficult. Luckily we had a great research team and

we expressed our vision and story through our clients. In fact the

second part of the book is about our vision on how to move on in

the future.

And how has the book been doing?

Very well, thanks it has fulfilled all of its goals in fact. I still receive

emails from people saying telling me the book was exactly the thing

they needed to inject new breath into their work.

It has also gained a lot of attention for GrabCAD. We’ve been invited to

attend many conferences, whereas we couldn’t have got an entrée to

them without having published the book.

Finally, what do you plan to do after GrabCAD?

I probably won’t work out my entire career down to retirement at

Stratasys. When it’s time to move on, I will be sure to let you know!


Estonia is no stranger to the digital world. As long ago as 2005, it be-

came the first country to hold an election where people could vote

online. I was one of the first people to try out the new system. Now, in

February 2015, the number of Estonians to cast an e-vote in parliamen-

tary elections rose to a record number – 31 per cent of those who voted.

I am immensely proud to have been at the forefront of the digital trans-

formation of my country, which today has probably the most joined-up

digital government anywhere. Estonia has managed to create a true

e-Society that has improved peoples’ lives in many different ways.

Take digital signatures, where we have more than a decade of experi-

ence. They allow people to vote electronically, do their banking, de-

clare taxes, fix contracts – all without leaving either home or the office.

When Estonians started to use digital signatures, it was like a social and

commercial explosion. Since the system became available, more than

100m digital signatures have been made in Estonia.

I would like to see digital signatures mutually recognised across the EU’s

28 countries.

Every Estonian citizen now has an ID card, which contains biometric

information about them as well as digital signing capabilities. Again, I

was one of the first people to start using these.

That said, I don’t always want to point to my own country as a shining

example. However, what is now normal for Estonians in their daily lives

is not yet the same for people in much of the rest of Europe.

During my nine years as Prime Minister, I supported the goal of creating

a digital single market for the European Union that really works. Digital

issues are close to my heart, which is why I was pleased to be nomi-

nated as Vice-President for the Digital Single Market at the European

Commission in Brussels.

Building a Digital Single Market for EuropeBy andrus ansiP / European Commission Vice-President for the Digital single Market

AnDRUS AnSIP

Andrus Ansip was appointed Vice-President

of the European Commission with responsibil-

ity for the Digital Single Market in November

2014. Before moving to Brussels, he was a

member of both the Estonian and European

Parliaments. This followed almost nine years in

Tallinn spent as Estonia’s longest-serving Prime

Minister, when Ansip worked with both centre-

right and centre-left parties to lead three dif-

ferent coalition governments. During his time

as Prime Minister, he also acted as chairman of

Estonia’s liberal Reform Party.

Ansip first entered national politics in Septem-

ber 2004 when he became Minister of the

Economy. Up to this point, his career was spent

in Estonia’s second largest city of Tartu where

he was born in 1956.

Ansip was Mayor of Tartu for six years after

working in banking and business. A chemistry

graduate from the city’s university, Andrus An-

sip is married with three children.


I STATE AND SOCIETY

Digital activity is everywhere. Every economic pursuit, every sector of

society uses digital tools and online networks. With the power of cloud

computing, the growing reach of social networking, the rise of big

data, all manner of mobile devices available, technology is developing

at lightning speed.

Europeans want the best that the Internet can offer; they want safe, ac-

cessible and fast online services; they want more choice and competitive

prices that the world’s largest marketplace should be able to provide.

They want to be able to enjoy online films, music, books bought any-

where in the EU. No price discrimination, website blocking or re-routing

because of where they happen to live.

Unjustified geo-blocking is unfortunately still a reality, with messages

like ‘This service is not available in your country’ that can appear on

screen. For me, this is a form of discrimination – and something we

fought hard to remove in the physical world. People do not understand

why they cannot access content they have paid for when they travel

abroad. In the same way, they cannot understand why they cannot ac-

cess content they are willing to pay for in the first place. This should all

be possible in the 21st century, the digital age. But it is not yet a reality

across Europe.

There is still a lot of work to do to achieve a truly connected digital sin-

gle market. A market where every consumer can enjoy digital content

and services – wherever they are in Europe, including government ser-

vices. It means every company should be able to share and sell its wares

online to a market of 500m consumers, with ease.

Today, a small business trying to spread across the EU faces no less

than 28 regulations concerning consumer protection, data protection,

contract law and tax rates. People trying to buy online in Europe today

face endless barriers. It also costs too much, both for consumers and

businesses.

Take the cost of getting delivery of a parcel of goods that you have

bought online, but from a retail website based in another EU country.

The charge for delivering across an EU border can be five times – even

more, sometimes the national equivalent.

We are working hard to remove the obstacles to create a connected

Digital Single Market for Europe. Bringing down barriers is what Europe

is about, to give all Europeans more opportunities so that they can enjoy

competition, convenience and choice online. At the same time, we have

to set about building, improving and connecting digital Europe.

Building trust and confidence, for example, so that people are confident

about using the Internet and online services. Or improving areas like

technical interoperability and standards across the EU, which will also

help to improve access to networks between countries.

Connecting everyone, everywhere, by investing in modern and joined-

up broadband infrastructure, so that people in the remotest areas can

also enjoy high-speed Internet access. Fast, reliable, secure connectivity

– everywhere.

These main principles will form the basis of a long-term digital strat-

egy that the European Commission will present in May. It will contain

proposals for new legislation and the updating of existing laws so that we

have better regulation – rules that are ‘fit for purpose’ – in the digital age.

For people, the Digital Single Market will be a digital space where users’

electronic data can easily be carried or transferred across platforms and

systems in all EU countries, without discrimination based on nationality

or unjustified geo-blocking.

For businesses, it will allow them to reach new EU markets easily, backed

by a clear set of rules. Companies, particularly small and/or online busi-

nesses, should be able to start operating across the EU with just one

click of the mouse, without burdens or restrictions. This will allow them

to grow, scale up quickly and transform their business and industrial

models to include digital technologies.

This means moving further on consumer rights, and simplifying and

modernising rules for online purchases and digital products, for both

buyers and sellers. It will mean concluding negotiations on data protec-

tion and cyber-security. It will also involve reforming and modernising

EU copyright rules.

We have a great opportunity and should make the best of it. My aim is

to make sure that Europe, its citizens and businesses, get the best of the

online world in the safest and most open environment possible.

Openness and opportunity: not obstacles.


E-Residency Goes Global - Apply for One in Your Home Country By Holger roonemaa

Perhaps you have heard the success story that is e-Estonia? That you

can start a company in Estonia in just a few minutes, whilst sipping

a cappuccino in a café; that it takes just a few minutes at worst and

sometimes just a few seconds, to submit online tax declarations; that

contracts are mostly signed with digital signatures and you can be thou-

sands of miles away from the co-signatory to the contract?

Well if you didn’t know all that before, you do now! And there’s even

more great news – from now on anybody, anywhere in the world can

benefit from many of the services e-Estonia offers, whether it be sim-

plifying one’s business-related activities, starting a new company or just

trying out something innovative and cool which is not available any-

where else.


I STATE & SOCIETY

Kaspar Korjus is the e-Residency Program Director, which means

that he is the person in charge of the first ever Estonian governmental

start-up.

But what is e-Residency and why should people need it? In very simple

terms, it is a digital identity issued by the Estonian state.

To put it even more simply, it is a plastic card with a micro-chip. This card

provides two options: the ultra-secure authentication option and the

opportunity to digitally sign all manner of documents. In other words,

this card opens the doors to the Estonian e-Services to everybody who

is not an Estonian resident, and perhaps has never had any contact with

Estonia before.

The purpose of e-Residency is to make life easier by using secure e-

Services that have been accessible to Estonians themselves for quite a

few years already.

By providing e-Residency, we are moving towards the idea of a nation

without borders. The e-Residency project which started in its beta-ver-

sion during the last months of last year, is now ready to take the next

giant leap. ‘What we aim to do is to create a worldwide virtual business

environment, where people from both the developed and developing

countries can easily become entrepreneurs and start doing business

anywhere in the world. Physical national borders and restrictions will

no longer present an obstacle. You can start a business, open bank ac-

counts, make transactions, sign contracts and even declare taxes, all on

your computer,’ says Korjus.

More than that, the opportunity to use mobile-ID for e-Residents to

sign and get authentication for their documents is also in the pipeline.

Four big goals

‘When we went live with the e-estonia.com/e-residents page some

months ago, we received over 4 000 applications in 24 hours from peo-

ple who wished to be kept informed about the e-Residency launch.

Those contacts came from 140 different countries,’ says Korjus.

At the end of last year, the opportunity to apply for e-Residency was

launched and, to date, 900 people have applied. The aim is to reach 2 000

e-Residents this year. ‘Until now e-residency has been able to sell its own

concept without us pushing it, rather the opposite - in the beta phase, it has

been a struggle sometimes to meet the excessive demand,’ explains Korjus.

Actually it seems the whole e-Residency project had been without a

team until recently: ‘Everything we have done up to this point has been

at a beta-level. Now we are gradually beginning to develop the service

in order to make it into a finished product,’ Korjus explains.

Korjus has the task of putting together a seven-member team by April

2015, which will concentrate on developing, marketing and packaging

e-Residency to the world. From this moment the clock will be ticking

for a year and a half, during which his team will need to demonstrate

real results. ‘Within this period, e-Residency must become a finished,

saleable product. It must be totally user-friendly and offer enough im-

portant and comfortable services and it has to attract mass users,’ says

Korjus, summing up the challenge ahead.

Apply at home, receive without needing to travel to Estonia

Korjus is confident that things will start happening fast. Whereas until

now it has only been possible to apply for and receive e-Residency in

person in Estonia, the whole procedure will be available online from

April onwards. ‘Applicants can fill out an online application form and

select a location where they wish to receive the card,’ he explains.

The list of places issuing e-Residency cards comprises currently 38 Esto-

nian embassies and consulates all around the world. For example you

can choose the Estonian embassy in Beijing, Washington or Moscow to

receive your card. Upon going to collect the card, the applicant needs

to present a valid passport and be prepared to give some biometric data

(ie. fingerprints); once this data has been processed, the card is ready

for immediate use.

The second task for Korjus’ team is to push through some legislative

changes in order to make more e-Services available for easy use by e-

Residents. For example, until now it has not been possible to open a

bank account in Estonia without turning up at a bank in person. ‘Our

research shows that 65 per cent of people wishing to apply for e-Res-

idency wish to do so for business reasons. The e-Residency will give

them the opportunity to digitally sign payment documents via Internet

banks, but in order to open an account they would have to travel to

Estonia,’ explains Korjus.

LHv, Stripe and PayPal enter the game

LHV Pank is one Estonian bank willing to offer the option to open a

bank account on the basis of a digital application. ‘I really hope that

this opportunity will be given to us by law, because at the moment we

are unable to offer non-residents a comfortable way of communicat-

ing with our bank,’ says Andres Kitter, Head of Retail Banking at LHV

Pank.

It is technically possible to open a bank account from a distance, but this

option is only available to Estonian residents, and even then quite com-

plicated limits apply. ‘For example transactions can only be made within

Estonia, and one cannot even pay one’s monthly Spotify bill,’ says Kitter.

Kitter explains that a lot of preparatory work, including technical and

legal analyses, has gone into opening bank accounts for e-Residents at

LHV. ‘We are really waiting for legislation to catch up with this great

application,’ he says.

Kaspar Korjus explains further that e-Residency services will not only

be limited to services offered by the Estonian state. ‘On the contrary, it

is our wish and expectation that the private sector will start to develop

new services. We can create great conditions for it’, he states.

The first steps in this direction have already been taken. For example

the influential Stripe who also offer an online payment environment

to Kickstarter, Twitter and Facebook are developing a solution to offer

authentication with the extremely secure Estonian ID-card. This devel-

opment should reach the testing phase by summer. Similar ideas have

been discussed with the secure credit card payment service PayPal.


Japanese entrepreneur: a world-changing idea

The task of Korjus’s team is to give a push to creating an e-Residency

community. ‘It is clear that once e-Residency takes off into the masses,

we will be physically unable to deal with all questions, requests, con-

cerns. We wish to create a separate e-Residency community, which

would help each other and also support our marketing efforts,’ says

Korjus.

One person who could be a potential voluntary leader of the e-Residen-

cy community is the Japanese IT entrepreneur Tsutomu Komari.

Just a year ago, Komari knew little about Estonia, when he accidentally

stumbled upon the e-Residency topic on the Internet and started to fol-

low the developments of the project with great interest. Of course he

already has an e-Residency card in his pocket! ‘It is a globally totally new

idea, it is cheap and ultra-comfortable to use,’ says Komari who sees

both business and private opportunities in being an e-Resident. ‘I just

received my card, so I have only used it on a few occasions,’ he states.

He explains how he wanted to test the card and so took a look at the Es-

tonian business registry and almost literally drowned in the possibilities on

offer. ‘It took me a while to sort out which are the most important services,

which I can use. You should quickly develop a user-manual for beginners,’

he says and adds that the Japanese are very strong at creating manuals.

Until such a time as a manual exists, however, Komari is relying on Es-

tonian friends who have been helping him to orientate himself to the

number of services on offer.

The idea of having Komari as a leader of the e-Residency community is

not arbitrary, it has to be said. He fulfils all prerequisites you could imag-

ine for an e-Residency booster in Japan. He is the first Japanese person

to receive the e-Residency card and he is hugely interested in the project

too. He even promises to make a note of all his thoughts, comments,

recommendations and ideas and to submit them to Korjus’ team.

First e-Residents Based in the U.S.

During the business visit to the U.S. last December, Prime Min-

ister of Estonia, Taavi rõivas handed out e-Residency cards to

three men who all have special merits.

The first American to get an e-Residency card is a world-famous

venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson (DraperFisherJurvetson - DFJ).

Steve was born in the US but both of his parents are Estonians!

Steve recommends e-Residency to Americans saying: “With Es-

tonian e-Residency it will be easy for U.S. startups to set up their

European presence”.

The second U.S. citizen to become e-Resident of Estonia is Tim

Draper (DFJ & Draper University). Both Steve and Tim were

amongst the first investors in Skype!

Third was Balaji Srinivasan, who in addition to being a partner

at AndreesenHorowitz (a16z) is a co-founder of Teleport together

with two Estonian ex-Skypers, Sten Tamkivi and Silver Keskküla.

Balaji’s quote on e-Residency went viral: ”This is so freaking

huge man, it´s insane! The plan to let anyone become European

– digitally!”

Balaji Srinivasan

Steve Jurvetson Tim Draper

Taavi rõivas


I STATE AND SOCIETY

• New york City and

Washington DC, UsA

• sydney, Australia

• Cairo, Egypt

• tbilisi, Georgia

• Beijing and shanghai, China

• Dublin, Ireland

• New Delhi, India

• tel Aviv, Israel

• tokyo, Japan

• ottawa, Canada

• Astana, Kazakhstan

• London, UK

• Ankara, turkey

• Kiev, Ukraine

• Minsk, Belarus

• Moscow, Pskov and

st Petersburg, Russian

Federation

• Riga, Latvia

• helsinki, Finland

• stockholm, sweden

• Paris, France

• Athens, Greece

• Berlin, Germany

• the hague, Netherlands

• Copenhagen, Denmark

• Lisbon, Portugal

• Madrid, spain

• oslo, Norway

• Prague, Czech Republic

• Rome, Italy

• Warsaw, Poland

• Vienna, Austria

• Vilnius, Lithuania

• Brasilia, Brazil

One of the Many ‘First’ e-Residents

While Edward Lucas, senior editor

at The Economist was presented

the first e-Residency card by Esto-

nian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Hamid Tahsildoost is

the first person to receive e-Residency through the regular appli-

cation procedure. Hamid works for Skype in the US and regularly

travels to Estonia to meet with his colleagues here. We asked him

about his expectations for e-Residency.

How did you hear about e-Residency?

I heard about eResidency from multiple people at Skype and outside

of Skype, including our HR Department. With the current and up-

coming functionality being built into this, e-Residency really has the

potential to change the world.

Why did you decide to apply for it? Was it for the sheer innovativeness of it or some real benefits that you saw coming from it?

I applied for it because it’s the type of project that can change the

world, and I wanted to be among the first to use it. Seriously, I think

anything that can be done digitally should be, but not without ad-

equate security. The security of this card sets the standard for the

world. Keep in mind, I’m from the US, where we predominantly still

use magnetic strip credit cards.

How (if at all) have you already benefited from being an e-resident?

I’ve been mostly experimenting with document signing. Digital doc-

ument signing is gaining popularity in the world, but I haven’t seen

any place doing it as securely (and openly) as Estonia.

How do you expect to benefit from it in the near future?

I have a few things I still want to do, and I strongly suspect I’ll be

able to. In the near future I want to personalize my Ühiskaart [a

smartcard used for public transportation in Tallinn – ed.] so I can

top-off online, conduct online banking with an Estonian bank ac-

count, enjoy some of the mobile ID benefits that Estonian citizens

have, and see if I’m able to access other electronic services in Eu-

rope using e-Residency.

Global Cities Where You Can Obtain Your e-Residency Card At An Estonian Representation

As early as March 2015 he is set to organise a conference in Japan

introducing Estonia and its local business opportunities to Japanese en-

trepreneurs. The proponents of e-Residency will have their own des-

ignated area at the conference. The Estonian Ambassador to Japan,

Jaak lensment, and by far the most famous Estonian in Japan the

retired sumo wrestler ‘Baruto’ (Kaido Höövelson) will assist Komari in

this undertaking.

Komari has already created a Japanese language Facebook page intro-

ducing the concept of Estonian e-Residency, and will soon be develop-

ing another one for Asia on the whole.

Until now most people who have applied for the beta-level e-Residency

card have come from Estonia’s neighbouring countries of Sweden, Fin-

land, Latvia, Russia. This is understandable as up to now an applicant

has had to come to Estonia, not once, but twice, in order to get a card,

and most benefits of the card have been felt by people who have had

some connections to Estonia already – for example they either work or

study here or have business relations with Estonians.

Once applying for e-Residency becomes simpler from April and more

and more comfortable services and user options will be created, po-

tential users will grow more diverse. Kaspar Korjus says, ‘I am sure that

the largest interest in the service will be where the level of pain is the

highest.’

Signs show that this is the case in countries outside the European Union

such as Ukraine, but also Asian countries where business regulations,

bureaucracy and relations with European countries have been very com-

plex up to now.

Taavi rõivas

Tsutomu Komari


‘WorkInEstonia’ ATTRACTInG TALEnT

FROM AROUnD THE WORLD

Estonia has been getting busy recently, developing many initiatives to

help and encourage foreign talent relocate here.

‘WorkInEstonia’ is one such programme, and is due to be launched by

Enterprise Estonia in May 2015.

The goal of ‘WorkInEstonia’ is to simplify the process for local compa-

nies to employ overseas experts. The programme will also introduce

Estonia as a destination for living, to potential, talented would-be em-

ployees worldwide.

Estonia is often referred to as a pioneer and innovator in ICT. It there-

fore comes as no surprise that this is the sector which is doing the most

hiring.

Companies like TransferWise, Skype and Kuehne + Nagel are just a few

examples of employers who are already actively recruiting globally. The

demand for top specialists is expected to grow in the future as well, in

line with the growth of ‘ e-Estonia’ and its ICT sector.

‘WorkInEstonia’s’ raison d’être is to make international recruitment

easier not just for ICT companies, but also for companies hiring in other

sectors such as mechanics and electronics industry, finance, etc.

Competing for talent

In May 2015, the web page www.workinestonia.com is due to go live.

This website will advertise international jobs available in Estonia and

also gather relevant information necessary about relocation from an-

other country.

Frequently asked questions such as ‘where to live?’ ‘How to cope the

necessary paperwork?’ ‘Where to find a doctor?’ ‘Where to go out and

how to get by in general?’ will be listed and answered on the site.

‘At first glance, it may seem ridiculous that one small Nordic country

could compete for talent alongside places like London, Berlin or Silicon

Valley,’ says Kristel Kask, Project Manager of ‘WorkInEstonia’.

‘In reality, Estonia has several advantages that make this country an at-

tractive place for many future-orientated, high-achieving talent from all

over the world.’

Kask gives some examples of these, including the possibility of rapid

professional growth. Because of the low hierarchies in Estonian compa-

nies and the over-all working mentality and business culture, it is highly

likely that a young professional with enough ambition might climb up

the corporate ladder quite quickly and be part of the strategic decision-

making processes at a young age.

‘Compared with “old-Europe“ where the professional career after grad-

uating is often slow to progress, Estonia can be described as a place that

believes in the capabilities of motivated youth, and age on its own is not

understood to be the measure of skills,’ says Kask.

Executive positions for persons under 30 are not uncommon here. Fur-

thermore, the scope of effect that one can implement on a national

(and sometimes even global) level, due to the fast reactions and easy ac-

cess to decision-makers, is rather impressive compared with many other,

larger countries.


I STATE AND SOCIETY

not only for employees

One of the reasons behind this phenomenon is likely to be the fact that

Estonia itself is relatively both small and young. Therefore the nation is

prone to adapting to fresh ideas and change much faster than other,

more-established countries, as proven by the extensive use of e-Ser-

vices, Internet voting and the recently launched e-Residency program.

‘The web page will also provide relevant information about interna-

tional recruitment for employers, in order to help the hiring process go

smoothly,’ says Kristel Kask adding that ‘WorkInEstonia’ is also a good

channel for companies in Estonia to promote themselves and make it

easier to be seen by the international talent pool – through the web

site, online marketing as well as campaigning and special events that

‘WorkInEstonia’ will organise overseas.

Finland is the first country where ‘WorkInEstonia’ will focus its market-

ing efforts – one of many good examples Finnish-Estonian cooperation.

The transition for talent coming from Finland is obviously much easier

than it is in the case of those relocating from more distant destinations.

It is also good for the region in general not to lose the local talent to

further afield.

“Destination Estonia – Relocation Guide” is

the first material already published under the

’WorkInEstonia’ programme and is currently

available as an online handbook that pro-

vides a useful overview on housing, taxes,

transportation, education and everyday

life and key figures. The online manual is

currently available in English, Finnish and

Russian.

Why come to Estonia?

In the recent Global Talent Competitiveness Index, created by INSEAD,

which measures a country’s ability to attract and incubate talent, Estonia

placed 19th out of 93 countries. The European countries still continue

to dominate this year’s list, with 16 of them in the top 25. This alone

shows that Estonia is in good and respectable company and is a viable

alternative to more well-known competitiveness leaders like Switzer-

land, Luxembourg or Singapore!

“Destination Estonia – Relocation Guide”


Self-realisation

People moving to Estonia from western coun-

tries consider the main motivator and attraction

of Estonia to be its compact organisational hier-

archy, which enables people to climb up the ca-

reer ladder more rapidly that in other countries.

Whereas in the USA, Germany, Spain and

Scandinavian countries, employees typically

reach a certain career level in their forties, this

is possible significantly earlier in Estonia.

Teams are smaller and everyone has the

chance to have their say in decision-making.

Young employees have opportunities to lead.

Staff members and their contributions are no-

ticed and rewarded.

Language level

The high level of English language skills is

considered a very positive thing. Non-Estoni-

an speakers do not generally feel helpless in

Estonia. Whether at the doctor’s, on the street,

at the shops or official institutions, it is usually

possible to at least get by in English.

Living environment

The Estonian living environment is considered

to be notably safe. Life is not over-regulated.

The streets are safe. The pace of life is not as

hectic or stressful as in larger cities. In just half

an hour one can be out of the city and sur-

rounded by unspoilt nature, and even in the

towns, the level of pollution is very low.

There is plenty of both fresh air and fresh

food. People from a variety of different cultural

backgrounds admit that they feel comfortable

living here.

Although recognizably ethnically different

people may stand out or be noticed happily

they generally do not report experiencing sig-

nificant prejudice, and indeed sometimes at-

tain positions within the public sphere.

Effectiveness in dealings with both the state and with business

As services are digitalised, everything here

takes place quickly and painlessly.

Expats reported they particularly appreciated

the opportunity to directly interact with offi-

cials – you always knows who is dealing with

your case and what is the status of the case is

(since officials pro-actively contact you via tel-

ephone or email).

The tax system is transparent and simple. Yet

at the same time it’s important to state that

Estonia cannot be advertised as a tax haven as

such. Several other countries have done much

more in this area (eg. Singapore, Luxembourg,

and the Republic of Ireland).

Cultural opportunities

Despite the small size of the country, it is possi-

ble to visit great concerts and exhibitions here.

Research conducted for ‘WorkInEstonia’ among highly-skilled expats during autumn 2014 pro-

vided some interesting insight about what individuals who have moved to Estonia have found

positively surprising about local life. In short, Estonia is easy and affordable, open-minded and

straightforward.

What kind of services does the SSSC offer and who are the beneficiaries?

Tarmo leppoja: Currently the SSSC offers financial, HR and payroll

accounting services to four ministries out of the total 11 (namely the

Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Economics and

Communications, Ministry of Justice).

These also happen to be the four largest ministries in the country, which

between them are responsible for 80% of the state budget. At present

we at he SSSC only offer our services to state institutions like these,

but not to local government or state administered companies, though

we are considering a step in this direction and taking steps to broaden

our remit.

The SSSC has been in existence for two years and in that time we have

become convinced that our centralised model of support services is

well-suited to Estonian state institutions.

At the same time, we have also downsized our workforce by 20% and

today employ around 100 people.

State Shared Service Centre Supports Innovation in Governance

The State Shared Service Centre (SSSC) is a public body

within the administrative jurisdiction of the Estonian Min-

istry of Finance, and which provides nationwide financial,

HR and payroll accounting services.

Tarmo leppoja, Director of the SSSC says that besides

the services on offer already, their future aim is to con-

duct all public procurement in Estonia via their organisa-

tion. “I am convinced that centralising competence gives

us a better result.”

This is in addition to the benefits that economic effective-

ness will have on the state budget.

Life in Estonia asked Mr. Leppoja about the SSSC, its role,

and how he sees things panning out in the future.


I ECONOMY AND BUSINESS

This streamlining of staff numbers has not led to a decline in quality – on

the contrary, research from the two years the SSSC has been operating

demonstrates that satisfaction with our services is in fact growing. The

SSSC has proven that its model suits the specific characteristics of the

public sector in Estonia. We have some ambitious future plans as well,

as we aim to increase the number of ministries which we serve, as well

as to bring the administration of all procurements and the training of

public institutions under our own jurisdiction.

That being said, we at the SSSC are taking a gradual approach with our

procurement and are currently negotiating with the Ministry of Justice

and the Ministry of Finance, in order to better set out the division of

tasks. I am convinced that by centralising competence the SSSC will

get better results, employees will gain more skills and the SSSC can ask

for better prices for the larger procurements and for those which cover

more than one field of jurisdiction.

Just how much have state costs been reduced?

The SSSC is experiencing two parallel processes in Estonia. The first is

standardisation next year all state institutions will start using a unified

accounting program. As it stands, two thirds of all institutions are al-

ready using this software. In parallel, the transfer to a centralised provi-

sion of services is also taking place. Both processes will help to cut costs.

In just two years, the number of accountants and HR staff has been

streamlined by a reported 20%, under the auspices of the SSSC.

Today, Estonian state institutions employ 230 accountants (just 40 of

whom work for the SSSC). If this number falls in state institutions across

the board as quickly as it has done in the SSSC, it would mean as many

as 50 accountants fewer in the sector in another two years.

The same would apply for HR personnel. The upshot is that the state will

make a saving of 2m a year on payroll costs alone, I believe that a 20%

greater efficiency is by no means the ceiling, and that the SSSC could

progress even further.

Can the SSSC also use its experience in the public sector to demonstrate the efficiency of centralised support services to companies?

I am convinced that this method of organising services is equally ben-

eficial for the public and the private sector. He stated that he thought

that international companies establishing their Support Service Centres

(SSCs + not to be confused with the state-run SSSC) on Estonian soil

are on the right track, due to his firm belief in the cluster-based devel-

opment of businesses here. In other words there are benefits for all

in having many companies with a similar profile and operational logic

concentrated in the one area. In this way, they can influence the devel-

opment of the employment market.

The state and legislators will be able to better understand the needs of

this specific field when the public sector has the experience already. The

SSSC will also apparently be able to develop in the right direction when

it comes to the educational cluster. Several private sector SSCs in the

financial field can already be found in Estonia, and their development

plans amply demonstrate that they are more than satisfied with their

decision to come here.

How do you find staff?

The SSSC model, in assuming responsibility for activities from existing

state institutions, has involved reemploying the same staff who were

already doing the same job in those institutions. In order to increase

efficiency, however, the SSSC has had to cut staff numbers.

Where employment contracts have been terminated, the SSSC have

helped their now-former employees to find new jobs in other institu-

tions with a similar profile. This has shown that SSSC ex-staff are highly

valued by the private sector because of their professional know-how

and service skills. The SSSC staff’s software skills are also appreciated,

because they use SAP, which is also used in many international corpora-

tions. All SSSC staff members are highly educated specialists.

Which software solutions has the SSSC developed?

The SSSC’s range of services is actually broader than just accounting and

HR. For example, they also administer state claims.

Another large section of services is in administering and developing vari-

ous accounting software. Hence they also offer consultations to public

sector accountants working outside their organisation. The SSSC has

also developed a self-service portal for public employees, which helps

to enlarge automatic data input into the accounting software. As at the

beginning of 2015 the staff of over a hundred (123 to be precise) public

organisations have been using the Public Official’s Self-Service Portal

to administer their vacations, assets and formalise their business trips.

The portal operates on a simple logic: whereas when an employee

wants to take a holiday, this usually means writing an application on

paper or in a document administration system, getting it approved by

superiors and finally having another person input this data into the ac-

counting system, in the self-service portal the employee inputs the data

him/herself.

The data is then automatically sent to the supervisor and the replace-

ment staff member and, once the holiday application is approved, the

data is automatically inserted into the accounting system. The SSSC

developed the portal in collaboration with the Estonian software de-

veloping company Helmes. Such developments really help to increase

efficiency.

How can the SSSC help to bring more SSCs from international companies to Estonia?

The specialists in SSSC are always prepared to talk about their experi-

ences, the situation in the labour market and other appropriate issues

to companies who are thinking about bringing their services to Estonia.

We are active participants at collaboration seminars for SSCs organised

by Enterprise Estonia, for instance.

Whereas it is never easy to gather information from other private com-

panies, we, the SSSC, see our role as a public sector organisation as

broader than just that of offering accounting services. It is important for

the SSSC that the state develops, and we are therefore keen to share

our experiences and information.


Estonia – the Smart Choice for Shared Service Centres By ann-marii nergi

HIGH QUALITY HUMAn CAPITAL Estonians receive a strong education,

especially in core subjects such as

maths, foreign languages and IT.

LAnGUAGE MIX & PROFICIEnCY English, Finnish and Russian are

widely spoken, with German and

Nordic languages also increasingly

used.

ADvAnCED IT PLATFORM Ultra high e-commerce usage, with

most business transactions and gov-

ernment returns conducted online.

nORDIC BUSInESS CULTUREEstonia has long-standing links with

the Nordic region and modern day

integrated economic, energy, finan-

cial and transport systems.

COMPETITIvE BUSInESS EnvIROnMEnT Modern business infrastructure is

supported by the commitment to

competitiveness, the rule of law and

low corruption.

Why Estonia?

SIMPLE TAXATIOnSTRUCTURE Corporation and Capital Gains taxes

are payable only on distribution and

zero at all other times, encouraging

re-investment.

LOW RED TAPE Business formation and licensing are

simple and there is no complex regu-

lation or accounting on an ongoing

basis.



The key to Estonia’s vibrant and innovative financial and shared service export sector lies in its skilled, educated and multilingual workforce.

Every company aspires to run at maximum efficiency, whilst keeping

costs under control. This applies especially to internal administration.

So it comes as no surprise that in recent years more organisations have

opted to base their back office operations in countries which combine

high standards with lower costs – countries like Estonia.

Estonia’s journey as the nearshoring location of choice for Nordic com-

panies began in the 1990s almost immediately after re-establishing its

independence. Since joining the EU in 2004 and adopting the Euro in

2011, Estonia has attracted further primary and secondary investments,

diversifying the breadth of functions in the process.

In recent years, many Scandinavian and Western European companies

have transferred their shared service centres (SSCs) to Estonia. Numer-

ous factors make Estonia an ideal location for SSCs: its strategic loca-

tion at the intersection of the continental European, Nordic and Russian

markets, a growing economy, a smart workforce with outstanding lan-

guage-, finance- and IT skills, a great business environment with a sim-

ple and transparent flat-rate tax system and a technologically-advanced

business platform, with its exceptional world class solutions.

Complex processes and more specific know-how

Kristiina Himma, Shared Services Sector Manager at Estonian Invest-

ment Agency at Enterprise Estonia (EAS), a body tasked with boosting

and supporting business and entrepreneurship in Estonia and raising

the profile of the country as a business destination, says that they have

mapped over 70 shared service centres in Estonia, which together em-

ploy nearly 5 200 people.

“It is quite common that at first the foreign investor sets up a small

centre which then starts to grow year by year, from, say, five persons

to 50. So in the coming years, we want to pay more attention to the

centres that are already here, so they will be satisfied with the overall

environment and increase their activities in our country,” she explains.

Estonia aims to offer the management of more complex processes

and to bring in to the country those SSCs which require more specific

know-how.

The latter might include fund management, custody-services or IT-solu-

tions, where the service centre develops specific aspects of the process

and carries out development work for the parent company. In addition

to this, product development services for the banking sector can be

made available.


Kristiina Himma

shared services sector Manager

at Estonian Investment Agency

at Enterprise Estonia

Estonia is naturally not in a position to compete on a level playing field

with countries with a much larger population, where various services

are offered at a much lower labour cost in comparison with the larger

and more developed Western and Northern European countries.

Instead, Estonia’s opportunities lie in those SSCs which require a smart

workforce in the IT- or financial services fields, rather than a sprawling

and more generalized labour force.

According to Himma, Estonia boasts this kind of competence already.

As demonstrated by our here experience to date, it is likely that once

smart jobs have been created in Estonia, many related management

processes will follow.

The Norwegian corporation Orkla is a good example of a company

which has successfully brought its financial management to Estonia.

Almost the entire accounting component of Orkla Group is concen-

trated in Estonia, and they are continuing to bring more segments of

the company into the country.

We also have to mention Kuehne+Nagel, who have brought their IT

development unit to Estonia.

Estonia as a Fund Administration Centre – the Stars May Be Aligning!

Fund management is one type of service which

Estonia is already in a position to offer success-

fully in the near future. The cluster organisa-

tion FinanceEstonia focuses its activities on

helping its members – companies already op-

erating on the Estonian market.

Additionally, FinanceEstonia mediates contacts

between members and foreign companies

and helps to find contacts for potential inves-

tors and companies interested in relocating to

Estonia.

FinanceEstonia aims to offer the management

of more complex processes in Estonia and to

bring in those SSCs which require more specif-

ic know-how. For example, the banking sector

could really benefit from relocating here, since

outsourcing is an increasing trend in fund

management. The ‘fund hotel services’ en-

able the divesting of investment management

from all associated back office work, allowing

investment managers to focus on performance

and giving unit holders the benefit of better

services for lower fees.

According to Paavo Põld, the Funds Area

Head at FinanceEstonia and partner at Lime-

stone, fund administration outsourcing is on

the rise.

The message is clear - those funds which have

survived the crisis or are starting up right now

must cope with more institutional risk controls

and best practices.

"Working with an independent administra-

tion firm is nothing new within the industry

- many companies have been using them for

years; what’s new is that now smaller funds

are also being asked to use administration

firms by their investors, boards and advisors,"

says Põld.

By the same token, fund managers have rec-

ognised that in order to remain competitive

they have to place an increasing focus on core

businesses, which means managing money

and not running in-house fund administration

operations.

“Additionally, we have to consider the grow-

ing dominance of fund domiciles like Lux-

embourg which have become leading cross-

border fund distribution hubs, as investors in

continental Europe and Scandinavia continue

to have a strong preference for funds based in

those types of locales,” says Põld.

According to Põld, the most important is the

implementation of UCITS IV and the Alter-

native Investment Fund Managers Directive

(AIFMD), which allows asset managers to set

up management structures using a €passport€,

making it possible for fund managers to man-

age funds across the EU region.

This in turn allows the establishment of fund

platforms, with funds registered in Luxem-

bourg, while the management company can

be licensed and supervised in Estonia with all

central administration duties performed here

too.

Finance Estonia members Swedbank and

Limestone Fund Platform are currently provid-

ing fund administration services along these

lines.



Paavo Põld

Honesty is appreciated

FDI Area Manager at the Estonian Investment Agency,

Märt Helmja, says that one mission for Enterprise

Estonia is to establish and exchange contacts with

international corporations who might be interested

in moving their SSCs here.

“We enlighten them [ie. overseas companies] about

the advantages of Estonia and at the same time we

also tell it like it is and with a high degree of transpar-

ency. People appreciate it when we honestly say that

you can’t build up a centre with 200 employees all at

once. But we add that you could have 20 people in

the first instance and with time you grow and eventu-

ally find the personnel you need for a higher number

of staff.”

Helmja assures us that Estonian employees are still

more effective than those of some of the neighbouring

countries, not as a boast but simply because the over-

seas companies locating here themselves have said so.

“In fact we see already that some companies move the

simpler tasks away from Estonia and focus here on more

complex processes: for example vast proportion of StoraEnso’s ac-

counting is serviced from here and Statoil moved their financial centre

to Estonia because of our highly developed IT-infrastructure and favour-

able tax and business environment.”

When a company’s representatives have decided to travel to Estonia to

explore available options, EAS is already in the picture. Helmja says that

first impressions are important.

“Our aim is to help the company with all its contacts – where do you

find HR firms for employees? Or rooms for rent? Or maybe someone

who has already gone through that the process and can share their

experiences?”

Higher value with a smaller labour force

Another of Estonia’s strengths lies in its ability to offer higher added

value services but with a smaller labour force. For example, the man-

agement of a particular department could be located in Estonia - which

does not necessarily mean that the rest of the workforce of that depart-

ment has to be here. As a result, it is not rare these days to have the

management of a department based in Estonia, but for example, its

programmers based in Shanghai!

Yes, Estonia is a small market, but it has the capacity to offer a smart

workforce in the field of IT and financial services with an effectiveness

far out of proportion to its size.

At the end of 2014, Estonia started to offer a unique service in the

world: e-Residency to foreigners, which will add significant value to

the business environment. This is essentially a platform which will allow

non-residents access to the IT-platform which operates in Estonia.

Thus, e-Residents will have access to all solutions normally accessible

with an Estonian IDcard but without having to physically be in the coun-

try. For example, e-Residents will be able to make digitally encrypted

signatures on electronic documents, have access to the Estonian busi-

ness registry, Estonian medical services and other services to interact

with the Estonian state.

So for instance if a large financial corporation decides to change their

internal processes and implement a digital ID system, they could bring

that component of the process to Estonia.

It is therefore highly likely that jobs will be created in Estonia as a result

of the e-Residency initiative and certain company activities or processes

will be transferred here in the future.

E-Residency significantly enlarges our virtual state borders, in other

words. Furthermore, whereas at the moment one can only open a bank

account by providing proof of the physical person, but if and when this

requirement disappears in the future and banks start to accept biom-

etric detection, e-Residents will have the opportunity to open bank ac-

counts in Estonia from a distance as well.

This will provide yet more opportunities for outsiders to carry out their

business activities in Estonia. Furthermore, high street banks in Estonia

may be able to start to offer services which are no longer confined to

the national borders of Estonia.

So, on the basis of e-Residency alone, Estonia is ready to offer special

solutions which do not as yet exist anywhere else in the world!

Thanks to the relatively small size of Estonia, it is simpler and faster for

us to implement changes and to test out various solutions than is the

case in many other places.

Märt Helmja


Paavo Põld

kuehne + nagel is Boosting its Staff in Tallinn IT Centre

Kuehne + Nagel’s 63 000 logistics profession-

als are spread across over 100 countries.

One of Kuehne + Nagel’s strengths when com-

pared with their competitors is their long tradi-

tion of developing IT solutions in-house, rather

than purchasing from external suppliers. Most

of Kuehne + Nagel’s industry-leading logistics

software was originally developed in Ham-

burg, Germany. However, in 2012 Kuehne +

Nagel took the strategic decision to invest in a

second IT centre in Tallinn to meet their need

for further capacity.

Kuehne + Nagel started their operations in Es-

tonia back in 2006, and in 2012 they achieved

something that no other company has done

so far. Drawing on the pool of abundant lo-

cal talent, they have fully staffed the centre

with more than 200 highly qualified IT experts,

about half of whom work in developing new

applications. The other half meanwhile pro-

vide global support for Kuehne + Nagel’s exist-

ing systems, on a 24/7 basis.

Kuehne + Nagel creates smart jobs with a high

added value, and won the Estonian Entrepre-

neurship Award 2013 as well as being named

Foreign Investor of the Year in the same year.

Both of these accolades underline the fact that

the Tallinn IT centre is a win-win project for

all sides.

Although Estonia was up against 14 Central

and Eastern European (CEE) countries such as

Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Serbia, Estonia

was chosen as the new location for Kuehne +

Nagel’s new office. The major draws in choos-

ing Estonia were the fact that at the time, Esto-

nia was the only CEE country which was both

in the Eurozone and which boasted a highly

educated workforce, fluent in English: “Natu-

rally other countries also have capability when

it comes to IT, but their people are more to

be found in support units - they usually work

on a very specific program and so don’t de-

velop anything they can call their own, which

is what we see here,” said Martin Kolbe, the

group’s CIO at the time of the move to Estonia.

Mart Ambur, Head of the Kuehne + Nagel

Tallinn IT centre, explains that the department

was built up from scratch: “The creation of a

successful IT centre and the increased demand

for labour in the Kuehne + Nagel group has

resulted in the creation of hundreds of high

value-added jobs in Tallinn between 2012 and

today. In little more than 2 years, Kuehne +

Nagel’s Tallinn IT centre has come to number

200 highly skilled staff members, and plans to

grow further in the future by adding at least

30 high value-added jobs each year over the

coming years.”

Tieto Already in Estonia for 20 Years

Tieto is an international IT services company

with representation in 25 different countries.

In addition to the Nordics and the Baltic states,

Tieto is present in some other European coun-

tries as well as Asia.

“We have continuously improved the efficien-

cy of our service processes at Tieto and have

searched for opportunities to improve the

cost-quality ratio in order to raise customer

satisfaction. The corporation has taken no-

tice of Estonia as a highly competitive coun-

try with a stable economic environment and

a highly-educated and technologically savvy

workforce,” said Executive Manager at Tieto,

Anneli Heinsoo, who is also President of the

Estonian Association of Information and Tel-

ecommunication Technology (ITL).

Tieto has had a presence in Estonia for over

20 years, offering business consultation and

analysis services, software development and IT

infrastructure services.

The company is also developing its interna-

tional basic banking product, called Banksy, in

Estonia: “In 2013, we decided to create our

support services centre in Estonia, which serves

customers in Finland, Sweden and Norway in

the first instance. There are also plans to offer

services to customers based in Latvia, Lithuania

and Russia. In addition, we will be offering em-

ployment for up to a hundred specialists in the

international Shared Services team at Tieto,”

explained Heinsoo.

Tieto’s Estonian offices employed 135 staff at

year’s end 2014. However, there are plans to

have expanded the number of employees to

200 people by the end of 2015.

Estonia is an important country for Tieto, since

there are many talented and hard-working

people here who both speak the languages of

some of Estonia’s neighbouring countries and

are able to offer top quality services.

“It is very important for Tieto and for other

foreign corporations that Estonia has a high

level of applied and higher ICT education,

which offers security for making long-term in-

vestments,” added Heinsoo.

As a responsible employer, Tieto is investing in

the training and development of its workforce.

According to Heinsoo, the company organizes

competence groups who take responsibility

for the skills development of analysts, devel-

opers, testers and project managers.

“We always prefer to fill any open positions

with our own staff members, thus offering

them opportunities to develop. Last year we

initiated the ‘Tieto Geek-off Camp’, which is

an international apprenticeship and work pro-

gram for young people interested in the field

of software development”, she explained.

Arvato Offers Services from Estonia in ... Mandarin Chinese

Arvato is a leading international service provider

which thrives on digital technology.

Every day, over 66 400 Arvato employees in

more than 35 countries are at work helping

customers achieve success in the market.

Arvato designs and implements solutions for a

wide variety of business processes throughout

integrated service chains.

Arvato, or Arvato Services Estonia OÜ to give it

is full name, was founded on 21 January 2006

with the company not wasting any time in start-

ing their activities in effect at the same time –

just two days later on 23 January 2006!

Site manager Matthias Müller states that the

main focus of the company is on providing com-

munication and contact services to its partners:

“Activities in Tallinn currently supported include

customer care, technical support, contract

management, customer retention, back-office

services, and outbound- and telemarketing in

various languages, starting with the languages

spoken in the Baltics and Scandinavia and even

stretching as far as Mandarin Chinese!” Müller

outlined.



Right now, 250 full-time employees work for

Arvato in Tallinn. During the seasonal higher-

employment period, this number will increase

by 100-150.

Estonia was chosen because of its strategic lo-

cation at the interface of the Western Europe-

an, Nordic and Russian markets, which helps

Arvato to provide support in German and all

languages of this region, as well as offering

lower infrastructure and operating costs than

would be the case in some other locations.

Arvato currently benefits from the cost sav-

ings, high level of education and good com-

munication skills that having a shared service

centre in Estonia offers.

This is of course augmented by the staff them-

selves, plus the capacity to offer otherwise

unsustainable services (such as supporting the

Russian consumer market while simultaneous-

ly maintaining the stability of operating within

the EU).

These solutions include digital marketing, fi-

nancial services, customer relationship man-

agement (CRM), supply chain management

and IT services, as well as all services related to

the creation and distribution of printed prod-

ucts and digital storage media.

Arvato is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bertels-

mann SE & Co. KGaA.

Stora Enso – Pioneers in Accounting Shared Services

Stora Enso is the global rethinker of the pack-

aging, paper, biomaterials and wood products

industry. The company employs some 27,000

people worldwide, its global sales in 2014

amounted to €10.2 billion and operational

EBIT to €810 million.

In 2010, Stora Enso set up a shared services

centre in Tallinn to help achieve greater effi-

ciency for its accounting services. As of today,

Tallinn has been successfully established as a

key location for the group’s Finance Delivery

function. Their shared services centre incorpo-

rates a range of supporting functions delivered

to the whole group, including Finance Delivery

help desk and a number of process support

competencies.

Tallinn was chosen as the location for the Stora

Enso shared services centre after an extensive

search. Tallinn stood out from the crowd for

numerous key features, such as the high qual-

ity of the local labour force, the availability

of foreign language skills, particularly Nordic

languages and English. The great ICT infra-

structure and Tallinn’s close connections with

Helsinki were also considered big advantages.

Finnair Appreciates Tartu, Intellectual Centre of Estonia

The Finnish National air carrier Finnair has

moved its accounting tasks to Tartu as the

Estonian university town has many specialists

which enables the company to find staff more

easily. At the same time, running operations

from Tartu saves on costs.

The activities of Backoffice Services Estonia

OÜ (BOSE), which is completely owned by

Finnair, is set to offer data management, data

processing and accounting services within the

group.

BOSE has created 100 new jobs in Estonia

during the past five years and today it already

employs 140 members of staff. According

to leela lepik, Head of Shared Services at

Finnair, the goal of the company this year is

to develop its service package and increase

efficiency.

In 2013, the turnover of BOSE was €2.7 mil-

lion. The turnover of the whole of Finnair in

2013 was over €2.4 billion.

Axinom Develops Wireless In-Flight Entertainment

Axinom is one of the leading European tech-

nology vendors, with subsidiaries in Europe and

North America. Axinom’s solutions serve major

European brands in the aerospace, IT, telecoms,

retail, and media & entertainment sectors.

Axinom creates value for its customers by lev-

eraging all the newest technologies to design,

build, and deploy cutting-edge digital prod-

ucts and services. These solutions help cus-

tomers to increase profitability, improve their

speed-to-market, and accelerate growth.

With a combined team of digital strategists,

interactive designers, leading-edge technolo-

gies and dedicated managed service special-

ists, Axinom is delivering amazing digital expe-

rience across all forms of digital media.

Axinom provides software development

services in the following areas:

• Contentdelivery,protectionandDigital

Rights Management (DRM);

•Cross-PlatformMediasolutions;

• AirlineMediasolutions–In-FlightEnter-

tainment (IFE);

• MediasolutionsforMicrosoft’sXboxLive

multiplayer gaming system.

Originating in Germany, Axinom expanded to

Estonia back in 2004 and has expanded in that

time from just one employee to 60.

Over the course of those 10 years, Axinom

Estonia has become a technological centre of

its parent company. “Estonia is an innovative

country and very rapidly developing in areas

we need. You can almost breathe in IT in the

air in Estonia, and this is very important for Ax-

inom because of our innovative nature, where

we have to solve problems that no one has

ever tried to solve before. Our area experts

work on designing, architecturing, develop-

ing and testing innovative products each and

every day. We find that Estonia is important for

us because of the highly motivated and skilled

professionals who work with us. In other

words because the people are the real value!”

states Oleg Knut, the Managing Director of

Axinom Estonia.

According to oleg Knut, Managing Director of Axinom Estonia, a new trend in IFE is the so-called hybrid systems, which enable the use of the plane’s own built-in screens form passenger entertainment in conjunction with the passengers’ own devices.

Phot

o by

Kal

ev L

illeo

rg


“ From getting a free bus ride by swiping a smart card that then tracks your movements (all public transport here is free if you’re a Tallinn resident) to using a special code to

mail a package from locker to locker, Tallinn residents use advanced technology every day. All ID cards have chips in them, and parking is paid electronically using a mobile phone code.

Unsurprisingly, Tallinn has its own version of Silicon Valley in the form of Ülemiste City, which is located near to the airport. It hosts a large number of tech enterprises, with both SMEs and more established companies.

Eleanor Ross, virgin.com

ulemistecity.com

JELD-WEn chooses Tallinn to house its Shared Service Centre

JELD-WEN, one of the worlds leading pro-

ducers of windows and doors, has recently

opened a new office in the Ülemiste City

complex in Tallinn, in order to take advan-

tage of the local available talent pool as well

as the favourable economic climate.

JELD-WEN chose Tallinn above all the other

candidates due to Tallinn’s greater availability

of required competences in the local work-

force market, the similarity of its business

culture to other locations where JELD-WEN

operate, and the potential Tallinn offers for

scaling its operations in a flexible way.

Today, the JELD-WEN Shared Services Centre

(SSC) primarily focuses on sales-related ad-

min support to JELD-WEN Northern Europe-

an units, but it also offers other centralized

services such as finance and communication

management.

By creating shared service centres which

serve the entire region, JELD-WEN is able to

concentrate its operational tasks into clear

geographic locations, with higher efficiency,

lower costs and better productivity.

JELD-WEN’s Tallinn SSC serves as a paragon

of this approach.

Perfect Home AS, one of the largest

“Homeparty” companies in the Scandi-

navian region, provides a variety of home

decoration products and gift items.

Founded in Norway 20 years ago, the com-

pany is also active in Sweden and Finland.

Thanks to its wide network of distributors –

over a thousand in total – designs unique to

Perfect Home can be found in many homes

all over the Nordic countries.

Since spring 2014, Tallinn has been the loca-

tion for Perfect Home Logistics OÜ, a subsidi-

ary of the Perfect Home Group.

The warehouse, which serves the entire

Scandinavian market, was brought whole-

sale to Estonia and reconstructed here, as

were all support services – finance, IT, cus-

tomer service and design!

The reasons behind Perfect Home widening

their activities to include Estonia were the

company’s plans to move into the EU zone

and at the same time benefit from Estonia’s

innovative economic environment.

Tallinn is also logistically ideally based for the

company, as all freight can be carried by sea.

Goods reach Estonia from Asia via Muuga

Harbour just outside Tallinn, move on to

Finland and Sweden and then overland to

Norway.

Perfect Home consider their experience in

Estonia to date to have been a resounding

success, and are now preparing to make the

move into e-trade.

This will mean that the Perfect Home col-

lections can soon be purchased in the Baltic

states as well.

Rentalwise Opens Office in Tallinn

Rentalwise, whose headquarters are in London,

opened its second office in Tallinn in 2014. As

at the start of 2015, the office employs 12 staff

members from different countries – the UK, Russia,

Lithuania, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, China and

Estonia. A team with so many different languages

spoken by its staff members really understands

the needs of its international clientele. Rentalwise

have plans to employ a further 20 people by the

end of 2015, with a view to expanding to as many

as 60 within a couple of years of that.

Estonia was selected as the location for the office

because some of the core investors had already

been living and working here and were thus fa-

miliar with the local business climate and Estonia’s

flexible opportunities. In comparison with the rest

of Europe, Estonia has a very rapid and innovative

banking system and the same can be said of its

business register. For example, the versatility of

Rentalwise’s partner LHV Bank has enabled them

to develop their e-Commerce function, so they can

quote their prices and accept payment in various

different currencies.

The company’s IT partner, Triptec, has also boosted

innovation, which has helped Rentalwise to take

their sales software to a totally new level.

In comparison with other car rental companies,

this novel approach to car rental and the associ-

ated customer services makes Rentalwise really

stand out among their competitors.

Kaie Trump, CEO of Rentalwise Estonia, explains:

“In recent years, car rental companies have been

adding helpful extras to their services, including

GPS, mobile phone and tablet computers, which

all help to deal with the fear of travelling alone;

but the car booking procedure can still be a bit

daunting for many customers. Most car rental bro-

kers are not providing sufficient customer services

to meet customer expectations, and there are also

problems related with the lack of innovative car

rental software providers operating in the market.”

However Rentalwise is only just beginning with its

first expansion, the company is already looking to-

wards Asian markets.

The travel sector in Asia is growing rapidly and

Rentalwise’s focus on developing local language

customer services will naturally help greatly in en-

tering this market!


ORkLA GROUP PURSUES EFFICIEnCY AT EvERY LEvEL

Orkla is a leading supplier of

branded consumer goods and

concept solutions, directly to

the grocery and out-of-home

sectors in the Nordic and Bal-

tic regions.



At the end of 2013, Orkla announced plans to establish a shared ac-

counting centre in Tallinn, Estonia, with a view to increasing the effi-

ciency of the Group’s accounting processes. In previous years, Orkla had

already acquired Estonia’s most well-known chocolate producers, Kalev,

as well as the food manufacturer Põltsamaa Felix.

In fact, the manager of the accounting centre, Kristiina Koel, says that

the Tallinn office had already effectively been established a year earlier

by another Norwegian company, Riber & Søn, which Orkla had just ac-

quired, a week before Kristiina and her eight co-workers started in their

positions.

The functions which were transferred to Estonia are accounting services

such as supplier invoice processing, follow-ups of receivables and other

transaction-based tasks.

Now, after more than a year of carrying out accounting for different

companies in the Orkla Group, the decision to stay in Tallinn has really

paid off – in fact Orkla has estimated their savings to total around more

than €2m per year.

According to Kristiina Koel, the accounting centre has taken over more

and more businesses, step-by-step. Orkla concentrates on four different

business areas: Food, Confectionery and Snacks, Home and Personal

and Food Ingredients, and the goal is that by 2016, all the accounting

being done by these companies and which use SAP accounting soft-

ware will be taken over by the Tallinn centre. Hence the year 2015 is

very significant for the centre.

For example since the beginning of March, Koel has been responsible

for relocating to Estonia yet another five companies’ accounting func-

tions from Norway and Denmark. All together, Orkla now services 13

companies, with 27 employees in Tallinn.

“Usually, when accountants apply for a job at Orkla, they have never

seen accounting on such a massive scale when it comes to information

that has to be worked through. For example, we provide accounting

services for Orkla Food Norge, which alone has 13 factories. We train

our employees ourselves because the processes are company-specific,”

says Kristiina. She adds that the ideal candidate to qualify for the job is

someone who has experience in accounting and SAP software and who

also knows some of the Nordic languages. “As it is quite hard – though

not impossible – to find employees with all these qualifications, then we

have to choose people with at least one of these skills. In addition, they

can take Norwegian language courses in the office and/or extra training

to use SAP software.”

Language courses for both beginners and advanced students are com-

mon in the centre and take place all year round.

“Norwegian is mostly needed in our customer team, but for an ac-

countant it is good to understand in general what invoices concern, or

to answer a colleague from Norway in their mother tongue,” Koel goes

on. She also describes knowing Norwegian as a mark of appreciation

towards the employer since Orkla is one of Norway’s oldest business

conglomerates having started off as a very local family business (in fact,

the company’s history dates back over 350 years!).

Orkla’s accounting centre is also a good example of Estonians’ innova-

tive and fresh way of thinking and approach to company management,

Koel says.

She explains that at the very beginning, the first thing they changed in

order to make the process more effective, was archiving all documents.

Previously within local accounting teams it had been standard practice

to print out all documents and archive them in boxes. But SAP is a very

efficient software and can store all the documents and attachments

electronically.

“Centralising shared services are usually all about cost effectiveness, but

frequently they also entail innovative thinking to simplify and accelerate

the processes. It is also important to pick up and tie together the best

practices from every company,” Koel concludes.

Orkla ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and their headquarters

are in Oslo, Norway. Orkla’s operating revenues for the full year totalled

€3.3bn, compared with €3.2bn in 2013. Operating profit amounted

to €348m in 2014.


It is through the call-centre in Tartu that residents of various different

Swedish towns and smaller settlements are able to order transport for

themselves, if they are unable to move around on their own or to use

public transport.

Agnes Salundi, Head of Samreis Eesti, says that about 4 per cent of

the roughly 9m inhabitants of Sweden need such transport service (so

approaching 400 000 people), many of them on a daily basis.

Customers include not only people with disabilities and the elderly, but

also children with ADHD or over-active children who need to be trans-

ported to school and back whilst their parents are at work.

Drivers of such transport solutions naturally have a high-responsibility

job as they have to keep an caring eye on the customers more than is

the case with, say, regular taxi services.

From its Tartu centre, Samreis services 12 areas in Sweden – four coun-

ties and eight local governments – as well as the Norwegian capital

Oslo. The transport required can then be ordered on the basis of a cer-

tificate issued to the individual by their local authority where they live

in Sweden or Norway. Users can then book a trip via the call-centre by

providing information about the addresses they need transport to and

from, the time they need to arrive and whether or not they have any

other equipment which needs to be transported, in much the same way

as you might do with a taxi.

Proceeding on this basis, a Samreis employee then confirms the booking

on the computer system which is subsequently sent automatically to the

company providing the transport service.

The Swedish system budgets for that individual paying a fare for social

transport which is the equivalent to the same trip by public transport,

with the rest being subsidised by the state. Such a service is typical of

Scandinavian welfare states, where the state plays a big role in helping

people. The logo of Samres AB itself states “we help people live worthy

lives”.

Samres Provides Transport Services from TartuSamreis Eesti AS, a subsidiary of the Swedish company, is a

call-centre operating in the South Estonian university town of

Tartu, where it employs over 50 people. in March 2015, Samres

celebrates a decade of operations in Estonia.

Swedish company Samres AB operates call-centres for mobility services, medical service transportation, and other call-based transportation requests. Samres focuses on coordinating and planning trips for those in need, often between home and work or school.



Modern technology to the rescue

But how do Samreis employees in Tartu know the local conditions of

Swedish towns or have the knowledge to describe their specific loca-

tion to drivers? Salundi explains that as you might expect, much use is

made of existing technology and the internet with its variety of maps

and location services, such as Google Maps, which nowadays provides

a street view, so in fact the employees do not need an intimate personal

knowledge of local conditions, nor even need to have heard of the

locale in question before the request has been made. In addition, Sam-

reis holds detailed maps of hospital complexes in their catchment area,

which enables them to direct the drivers to precisely the right entrance

to pick up a customer.

“We receive about 2 000 calls daily – these are not all orders by custom-

ers; Samreis also provides public transport information service in one

county for example. But the work can be quite stressful and we need to

provide operative information to people fast as well as to be responsi-

ble.” In addition this all takes place in Swedish or Norwegian!

Language skills include regional accents and dialects

Salundi explains that, perhaps unsurprisingly, language skills are the

most important quality needed to work for Samreis, with planning and

computer skills secondary. Samres thus decided to bring their call-centre

to Tartu for the very reason that the university town is home to more

qualified people with the necessary language skills than some other

locations in Estonia.

However, as the offices expanded, it was no longer easy to find good

quality staff: “Today we offer language training to our staff members on

a 6-month language course which takes them to [Common European

Framework from, A1-C2] B2 level. This is already a higher intermedi-

ate or pre-advanced level, where employees are able to understand the

concerns of customers and to offer solutions and make themselves un-

derstood appropriately. But it certainly is not easy to speak a foreign

language throughout the entire working day.”

Salundi adds that in the case of Sweden, since the service is provided

nationwide and not just in the capital, one also has to take the quite

significantly different regional accents and dialects into account there,

so call-centre workers need to learn something about those as well.

Whilst Samres headquarters are based in Lund, Sweden and one call

centre is located in Tartu, there are seven more call centres worldwide in

locations as diverse as Chisinau, Moldova and Dakar, Senegal, employ-

ing 300 people in total! One of the founding members of the call-centre

in Senegal is in fact a former assistant to Agnes Salundi, who was previ-

ously based in Tartu! Whereas Estonia’s main advantage lies in its vicinity

to Sweden and thus the similar cultural and linguistic space, it is the

very low labour costs which make Senegal an attractive location. But

the Senegalese employees, who usually speak French as a lingua franca

(quite literally in this case!) in addition to their native language(s) have

also proven successful in learning Swedish.

“It was quite difficult to explain to staff from the family-oriented culture

of Senegal the cultural difference, and the guiding principle at Samres,

that strangers take care of one’s family members. The first question they

asked was ‘why don’t the person’s relatives just drive people when and

where needed?’” Salundi explains, illustrating just one of the cultural

differences and considerations in Samres/Samreis’ interacting with the

Senegalese employees.

A young and educated workforce

Although employee backgrounds are not the most important factor for

Samreis, language skills require a rapid learning ability which means

in practice that most Samreis employees are relatively young and have

university degrees.

Salundi explains that their experience demonstrates that it is more dif-

ficult for older people to master a new language than younger ones.

Furthermore, as Samreis also offers higher than average salaries, the

turnover of staff is very low. This is why it pays to train people.

“Of course we learned the hard way at first by offering language cours-

es to people who then decided to not come work for us, and our train-

ing was wasted. Then we made the language study a part of the job, in

other words whilst they are studying we are already paying a part salary

to employees.”

Salundi says that unfortunately as a result of the training Samreis em-

ployees are highly valued by competitors, which makes the company

somewhat vulnerable to headhunting and poaching.

There are several other call-centres in Tartu where people with Swedish

skills are also highly sought after. But as mentioned already, Samreis

has managed to retain Samreis employees mostly because of the great

working conditions including amenable workmates, and by being a reli-

able employer which offers better opportunities.


Starting from fairly humble beginnings as Itella Information, and spe-

cialising primarily in billing solutions during the first decade of its exist-

ence, today OpusCapita offers a complete package of financial man-

agement solutions.

In addition to verifying and digitizing documents, accounting is a grow-

ing area for OpusCapita. Cash management, payroll, travel expenses and

sales and purchase invoices are all within OpusCapita’s areas of expertise,

and what’s more they are all offered by OpusCapita’s Estonian office.

With their Shared Service Centre (SSC) lying in the heart of Tallinn,

OpusCapita digitizes as many as 20 000 invoices every day, which large-

ly emanate from its mother company, OpusCapita Group Oy – who

have a large number of clients based in neighbouring Finland.

Karl-Eric Schneider, the CEO of OpusCapita AS, states that even if a

client sends their invoices on paper and in the land mail one evening,

they can be sure that they will be digitized and electronically stored by

the following evening.

The whole system is actually highly automated, and computers can ver-

ify over 70% of documentation, so the relevant employees only need

to double-check the remaining 30% of the data. All told, OpusCapita

Group handles almost one BILLION invoices every year, a third of which

are held electronically.

To show just how effective OpusCapita can be, Schneider gives an im-

pressive concrete example: “We could digitize all invoices sent within

Estonia per day, within one day!”

However, the OpusCapita office is not working at full capacity yet,

though plans are to increase its productivity and to carry this out quite

rapidly: “We have the output, which allows us to manage more clients’

financial processes and to grow rapidly,’’ continues Schneider.

OpusCapita Offers Automated Financial Services From Estonia

‘’Hence we aim to hire 60 employees every year, in addition to the 220

employees already working for OpusCapita AS today. I also think there

is no need to shy away from the fact that doing this work in Estonia

costs less than it would be in Finland,” he continues.

Schneider points out that since OpusCapita mostly train their own em-

ployees and need people who simply “like and understand numbers”,

they haven’t experienced any lack of potential employees. But the plan

for next few years is principally to increase the number of serviced cli-

ents rather than to expand OpusCapita’s process areas.

Marion Hein, SSC manager at OpusCapita is convinced that Estonians

are very effective and diligent in both digitizing and in accounting.

“We have proven our effectiveness during six years of working here in

Tallinn. We also acknowledge that whilst digitizing is a simpler line of

work, relatively speaking, payroll accounting services for Finnish clients

is much more complicated area. This also means having a good knowl-

edge of the Finnish language and being able to communicate directly

with the clients,” says Hein.

Karl-Eric Schneider adds that one of the biggest mistakes companies

still make is simply not paying adequate attention to their financial

management costs. That is exactly where OpusCapita can come in, and

help out by automating many formerly time-consuming processes.

OpusCapita Group has operations in nine countries and a vast experi-

ence accumulated with over 10 000 customers, with end-users in more

than 50 countries. In 2014, OpusCapita’s net sales totalled €260m.

OpusCapita is part of Posti Group Corporation and has its head office

in Finland.



ALDO JäRvSOO: Estonian Ambassador of FashiontExt By Kristi Pärn-Valdoja, Mood magazine

/ Photos By tanel Veenre

“A good mood makes me get busy and start creat-

ing,” announces Aldo Järvsoo, one of the most dis-

tinctive and celebrated Estonian fashion designers

and founders of the brand Embassy of Fashion. it

really is as simple as that!

Having known Aldo for years, i have never seen him

either upset or indeed posing as a tortured genius

searching for inspiration. But that doesn’t mean

the creative spark doesn’t burn brighter with Aldo

than most... it may sound like a cliché, but without

people like Aldo this world would be a much duller

place.

Life in Estonia asked Aldo about his career and life.

Phot

o by

Mag

nus

hein

met

s

45 SPRING 2015 I LIFE IN ESTONIA #37

Many male fashion designers re-call how they used to sew dresses for their sisters’ dolls during childhood. You also come from a large family. Did you also discover your passion for fashion in this way?

I think I did sew something for dolls when I

was very young (my sister’s, not mine). When I

went to art school, I did not have any particu-

lar artistic talent and my interests were all over

the place in fact. I liked sculpture the most,

then drawing, with architecture in third place.

So up until the final year in high school, I was

sure that I would go to study either architec-

ture or interior design. But there were several

fashion contests held that year and I took

part just for fun and won. I was just doing my

thing, never thinking that someone might ac-

tually want to wear my designs or like them.

It was my tutor who prompted me to pursue

fashion design in fact.

Did studying fashion at the Esto-nian Academy of Arts meet up to your expectations?

I believe I got a world-level general arts edu-

cation there. The Estonian Academy of Arts

is a really special school: No other Estonian

university has graduates who exhibit all over

the world whilst being professors of the school

at the same time. The concentration of excel-

lent tutors was and still is amazing. That said, I

found studying to be fairly automatic and did

not fret about it too much.

How did you find your very first customers?

I was so wrapped up in what I was doing that

I was totally surprised when two women came

by after a show and asked to buy a dress of

mine ‘or vest or whatever it is ...’

Actually my designs were a bit ambiguous

back then. It never ceases to surprise me how

new, young designers will constrain them-

selves in designing, say a top or a blouse, rath-

er than just letting their imagination run riot.

So would you prefer clothes made of paper or plastic bags?

Actually, yes, because that also gives you free-

dom. No major designer has started out by

making a standard item with his or her own

ready-made label. Not ones who I find inter-

esting anyway.

Many designers in Estonia dream about making it to Paris. Do you have any similar ambitions?

I have always said to people, I am doing well

here, so why are you prompting me to go? If you

are good at what you do, your work will find its

way to different countries through the Internet

anyway. You don’t need to participate in trade

fairs - it is so yesterday! What matters today are

contacts and whether you are any good.


I CULTURE

That said, I don’t fear I wouldn’t get work if

I relocated to, say, Milan. But I’m doing well

here and would only move if my partner

Tanel Veenre, an internationally acclaimed

jewellery designer, were to get an offer

elsewhere.

There are many overseas design-ers who have created great col-lections which were then prompt-ly bought up by the big houses, so they never really developed their own brand. Where do you stand on this?

I would never sell my soul to a big company!

For example when the ‘Supernoova’ fashion

competition took place here, there were many

talent scouts representing big labels looking

for young designers. I got some good offers.

But that would have meant moving away

from Estonia, which I didn’t want.

Selling out on the things I really value in life, all

of which are free (for instance love and good

friends) is not for me – I realised this when I

was very young!

But if you got an offer from Saint Laurent for example?

I would of course at least consider it. But

working as a designer for YSL is much tough-

er than my own working life right now. OK, I

would be able to buy myself a summer house

in Capri and go there…. like, once a year. To-

day I can rent a villa there for a week once

a year as it is! That situation doesn’t improve

with retirement, either.

Rifat Ozbek, one of Turkey’s top designers, quit

just like that when he realised that he would

rather enjoy life with his partner instead of go-

ing to fashion meetings every morning to dis-

cuss what colour is going to be ‘in’ next season.

So you don’t attend those types of meetings?

Sometimes I have to, but I also have those

conversations with myself. I design collections

and private orders - I don’t have my own fash-

ion line as such. And f even if I were to work

abroad, I would still do private orders rather

than large collections several times a year.

I recently interviewed the super-model and actress Laetitia Casta, who said that fashion is no longer what it used to be — there are too many trends and collections, too much commerce.

Yes, the frantic pace and the money have re-

ally infiltrated the world of fashion and each

collection is expected to create a ‘wow’ effect

and really sell.

But it is still a fact that there has been noth-

ing really new in the last three years. With the

exception of Miuccia Prada, everyone keeps re-

peating what has been already successful in my

opinion. Alexander McQueen was the last true

artist - after his death there has been nothing

new in my opinion.

What about 3D printing and new technologies? Does fashion really have to be so high tech as well?

Well, if high tech improves some practical qual-

ity of clothes, then it is a good thing. But the

main trend in the fashion world mirrors that of

the food industry – moving towards using natu-

ral, organic materials.

3D printing hardly measures up to this criterion,

though in future there may be ‘smart’ materials

which do fit the bill.

ALDO JäRvSOO

Born on 5 December,

1976 in Tallinn.

Studied fashion design at

the Estonian Academy of Arts.

In 2009, founded the Embassy

of Fashion together with Estonian

fashion designers Ketlin Bach-

mann and Riina Põldroos

www.embassyoffashion.com

Founder and board member

of Estonian Union of Fashion

Design.

Creative director at

Tallinn Fashion Week.

Has participated in about 50

fashion shows and exhibitions in

Estonia, Finland, Sweden Luxem-

bourg, Belgium, Holland, Ger-

many, France, Portugal, Russia,

Latvia and Lithuania.

Most significant awards: Annual

award of the Estonian Union of

Folk Arts and Handicrafts (2010),

Kuldnõel award for Best Estonian

Fashion Designer 2008 (2009),

Grand Prix at fashion design

competition ‘Supernoova’ (2005

and 2006), 1st place at Smirnoff

Fashion Awards 98 Estonian pre-

round (1998), best young fashion

designer - Väike Nõel (1998), 1st

place at competitions for young

fashion designers in 1994-1995.


Fashion designer

kETLIn BACHMAnn:

Aldo is an extraordinary person.

He is joyful and energetic and is

able to infect anybody with his

good mood, being nice even on

the worst days. He has mastered

the art of living.

As a colleague I cannot appreciate

Aldo enough. He is very support-

ive. He has a good eye, a flawless

sense of composition and when-

ever there is an argument, he

is usually right … Actually he is

always right! You could fill a very

thick book about Aldo’s influ-

ence and role in Estonian fashion

design.

Aldo is such a florid and active

character that it is impossible to

sum him up in a few sentences.

There is that age-old rhetorical

question: ‘Who would you take

with you on a desert island?’ I

would take Aldo. Really, I think

all of Aldo’s friends would do

the same. You can always rely on

Aldo; with some trick he would

get us off that island. Building a

raft is not a big deal, he would win

the hearts of the natives, tame all

the wild beasts and equip us with

everything necessary for life. He

would also transform our time on

the island into a fun and memora-

ble adventure. As always...

Do you sometimes catch yourself thinking that there are so many problems in the world: wars, star-vation etc. and here am I work-ing on something not perhaps so essential…

Of course! But I have also seen a woman overcome

some form of depression when she gets a beautiful

dress. I think that in our society today, beauty really

plays a helping role. But I never liked large state-

ment collections.

In the past when designers created some war-

theme collections, it even seemed quite exciting.

But now the threat of war seems somewhat closer

to home, it is no longer a topic to play with. But

even in Ukraine, life goes on in some sense – there

has been a fashion week there recently!

So you wouldn’t send models on to the catwalk in provocative political T-shirts á la vivienne Westwood?

No, because those are two totally different things.

If I wanted to make a difference in the world or

do something personally to help, say, Ukraine, I

would become a volunteer and not create a fash-

ion collection which has no real input. This is the

‘Facebook’ phenomenon - it does no real help to

like or share a photo of a starving child. But money

transfers and real action are what really helps.

To that end, Vivienne Westwood’s charity cam-

paigns and work as a spokesperson definitely help

more than statements limited to the catwalk.

karl Lagerfeld has said, “Criticism? If someone says something negative about my work, I either learn some-thing or think that the person has a double chin and fat legs … it is natu-ral that someone ugly would criticize someone successful.” What do you think about his comments?

Yes I totally agree! I have been doing this job for

over 20 years now and if I read comments as I did

in the past, I would probably notice that it is the

same envious and bitter people now who were

writing the negative comments back then. Of

course I think what I do is good, because I would

not knowingly create something which I thought

was bad and then put it on the catwalk! At the

end of the day the only opinions I care about are

those of my friends.

How do fashion designers in Estonia get on with each other? After all, you are each other’s competition!

I don’t think of it as competition. We all have our

unique signature, our own customers, so we really

do get along in fact. There are those customers

who want variety, so they do order from all the

different Estonian designers. So I see no reason

to be jealous of someone else. Jealousy gets you

nowhere.

After all, if someone is doing well, they are prob-

ably working from early morning till late, they have

created jobs and hired good people, put in all their

savings to the project and so on.


I CULTURE

TAIvO PILLERFounder and designer of

interior design company shishi:

Aldo has a real sense of lightness

and freedom − it emanates from

his personality and his designs.

The dresses designed by Aldo

have an organic and natural feel

and he is just like that as a person

as well

MART HABER executive director of shishi:

I have known Aldo for 17 years. He

is my best friend, a person with a

genuine heart and amazing ener-

gy. When you see Aldo’s designs,

you sense that he has a connec-

tion to the universe. He is always

able to surprise and come up with

the most diverse stuff, whether it

is collections influenced by ethnic

things or some dresses made out

of crazy ribbons. We have partied

hard together, travelled together,

and I hope we continue to do so.

He has a gift of sensing, doing

and seeing things in his own way.

You emphasize the importance of being from Estonia quite a lot. What do you like most about this country?

Home, family, friends. The nature and the people.

I find it appealing that Estonia is so compact. It has

helped me create my own cosy world here which I

love. Of course that doesn’t mean that I don’t like

to travel and meet people as well!

On that note, what is your travelling situation nowadays?

I used to travel a lot before in any case, but at the

moment I am really going for it. This is partly be-

cause my partner travels due to work, I like to tag

along to spend time together. Second, in the old

days, I couldn’t plan my time properly and was so

buys with the company I had less opportunity to

take a trip. I also travel alone more, which I didn’t

use to like. I even plan to do a tour of some of the

Latin American countries.

Do these trips also influence your designs?

Very much so. At the very least I’ll get inspiration for

materials when I discover interesting fabric shops.

Lately I have really found inspiration in Istanbul, it

is just such a cacophony of cultures there! I always

take my notebook with when I travel, with the aim

of making sketches like ‘real’ fashion designers,

but I never do!

Do you like to watch what people are wearing?

I do when I’m abroad, where people are often

more relaxed about what they wear than they

are at home in Estonia. For instance in Northern

Italy, where people are surrounded by fashion of

course, bright colours are the thing. Even the old

people wear strident clothes like green trousers

and pink sweaters – things which older people in

Estonia wouldn’t wear in a million years!

So what do you think about the fashion world’s seeming love affair with the colour black?

Some people do just look really good in black.

Theoretically I am one of them, but besides two

suits, I don’t have actually have anything black in

my wardrobe!

[vogue International Editor] Suzy Menkes wrote a couple of years ago that fashion journalists seemed then to have an unwrit-ten pact to wear black, Giving the impression that they were going to a funeral, but nowadays it’s quite normal to see fashion journalists who almost preen and parade them-selves at a show rather than cover-ing the collection. Have you noticed this?

Yes that is true! On the one hand it is fun to have

young, fresh blood on the scene, but on the oth-

er if it means people are wearing a uniform of

über-trendy clothes just as much as black used

to be. Personally I can’t stand uniforms, which

destroy any personality the person might have!

The coolest dressers it has to be said are models,

perhaps unsurprisingly as they are surrounded

by style on their day job, though they tend to

relax and where more casual stuff when they’re

not working – but they still look great!


Do you ever get fed up with the fashion world?

No I don’t! Really!! But at the same time I am

not totally consumed by it; for example I don’t

follow style.com. I do buy the Italian Vogue,

but I generally like what I do and I am afraid

that it would spoil my taste if I saw other peo-

ple’s collections too much and even subcon-

sciously let them influence my designs.

But of course trends are still in the air even if

you don’t visit fairs or shows – colours are ei-

ther in or they aren’t and tend to predominate

in everyone’s collections anyway.

Jean Paul Gaultier has said that there is nothing more interesting than bad taste. Do you agree with him?

No, not really. People tuned into good taste

are very interesting. The role of the designer is

to make a person look and feel fabulous – this

is something more based on emotions than

anything else.

Thanks to Tanel I am heavily involved in the

world of jewellery which is ironically where I

see the most interesting fashion designs. Peo-

ple at these shows see their clothes as a back-

drop to either their personality or the jewellery

being modelled – pretty much the inverse of

the fashion world, and I don’t really like the

latter approach.

Yves Saint Laurent put ladies into tuxedos, Coco Chanel freed them from the corset. Are there any more fashion revolutions on the horizon?

Nothing new has been invented for a long

time. That said, I think that the development

of materials mimics that of smartphones. If

this trend continues we may reach a situation

where winter jackets vary their thickness with

the temperature, things like that.

But will these garments then transform into anevening gown, for instance?

No, probably not! But an evening gown which

changes colour − that may be feasible in

future.

What motivates you at work?

A good mood. Really – don’t laugh! I have not

always been such a jolly person, but due to

one chronic inherited illness, which manifests

itself in depression, I know what pain it is, and

so I have learned to avoid depression. I just

block it out altogether.

What about life beyond the fashion world?

I like interior design. I also used to love garden-

ing but we never really get the chance to make

it to our summer house. And spending time

with my friends of course. That is one of the

most important things, I trust and confide in

my friends and they return the favour.

Can you name one star of stage and screen who you would love to design a Red Carpet outfit for?

I have always really liked the British actress

Tilda Swinton - making something for her

would be awesome. But here in Estonia …

I have already designed for most celebrities

actually.

And whenever there are new cool musicians,

actors etc. breaking on to the scene and who

you want to meet, you end up meeting them

the week after in any case! Just another ad-

vantage to Estonia’s compact size!

Finally, is there anything in fash-ion history which you would like to have invented yourself?

No, really not. As I implied, I don’t have the

jealousy gene at all.

Ok let’s put it this way, has anything already been invented by someone else which you couldn’t live without?

Pins! Honestly! Without them the world would

be a much less convenient place...



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Making it to the shortlist of nine films was seen as the best of all pos-

sible outcomes, but making it into the top five − no chance! But still

miracles do sometimes happen…

At first the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated ‘Tange-

rines’ for a Golden Globe. But this choice created confusion. ‘The most

unexpected film to get shortlisted was Estonia’s “Tangerines” − which

absolutely no one saw coming’, wrote the respected independent film

journal Indiewire. This was even more the case given that the Canadian

film ‘Mommy’, the Belgian movie ‘Two Days, One Night’, and ‘Winter

Sleep’ and ‘Wild Tales’ (Turkey) − all considered favourites which had

already won prestigious awards − did not make it onto the shortlist.

‘I’m stunned!’ announced producer ivo Felt, adding after a pause,

‘Let’s be honest, the hopes of making it to the Oscar shortlist are very

modest, but thanks to the Golden Globes nomination, they are surely

higher than they were.’

But then something strange happens ... the Academy of Motion Picture

Arts and Sciences announces the pre-selection of films for the Academy

Awards − and ‘Tangerines’ is on the list again!

From this moment on, people keep an eye on the Estonian film, even

though most publications still see its chances of making it onto the

shortlist proper as being next to non-existent. Only three of the 17 ex-

perts from the popular US Internet predictions page ‘Gold Derby’ pre-

dict that ‘Tangerines’ will be among the five nominees, in fifth place.

Some hope springs from the fact that one of the critics is Scott Feinberg,

one of the greatest authorities in the business, and analyst on the Hol-

lywood Reporter.

‘Whatever happens next will just be a bonus,’ reports Felt who is natu-

rally over the moon. The goal, to make it onto the shortlist has been

reached!


Mission ImpossibleBy tiit tuumalu / Photos By allFilm

Had anyone said just a year ago that the Estonian movie

‘Tangerines’ (Estonian: Mandariinid) would be nominated

for an Oscar, they would probably have been laughed

out of the room. Placing somewhere between 10th and

20th, of the 83 shortlisted foreign language films, as was

predicted by most overseas experts, was considered

respectable.

And this bonus does indeed follow. On 15 January, the Academy an-

nounces in Los Angles that the other films on the shortlist with ‘Tange-

rines’ are ‘Leviathan’ (Russia), ‘Ida’ (Poland), ‘Wild Tales’ (Argentina) and

‘Timbuktu’ (Mauritania).

Little Estonia, where only five feature films were produced in the whole

of 2014, is suddenly firmly on the map of the global film industry!

‘It is like a fairy-tale,’ exclaims Georgian director of the movie, Zaza

Urushadze, who doesn’t make it onto the plane in Tbilisi − his emo-

tions are running so high that he cannot fly!

In Estonia people follow the fate of ‘Tangerines’ with a similar passion

usually reserved for the exploits of the Olympic gold medallist Gerd

Kanter or the world’s most-performed living composer Arvo Pärt!

People really believe in the film. Cinemas start to screen it again more

than a year after its original release. The fashion retailer Baltika decides

to offer the producer Ivo Felt, director Zaza Urushadze, Director of

Photography Rein Kotov and the leading actor Lembit Ulfsak the cloth-

ing to make them look suitably distinguished whilst representing ‘Tan-

gerines’ on the other side of the world, free of charge. Recognising the

potential of promoting Estonia abroad, Enterprise Estonia decides to

support the film campaign with an additional €50 000. Felt has really

drawn a trump card!

Yet the story of how this film was born is not an easy one. The screen-

play sat gathering dust for a couple of years as there was trouble finding

a reliable producer; the whole project seemed too risky.

It actually barely made it as the film representing Estonia at the Acad-

emy Awards at all, only garnering a few more votes than Martti Helde’s

film ‘in the Crosswind’ (original title “Risttuules” − ed), which tells the

story of the Estonian national tragedy, the deportations of 1941 when

nearly 10 000 people were deported to Russia.

The story of ‘Tangerines’ takes place in Abkhazia, a region on the shores

of the Black Sea close to Georgia, in villages founded by Estonian mi-

grants to the area some 130 years ago. It is 1992 and there’s a bloody

war. Supported by Russia, Abkhazia wants to break away from Georgia

under whose rule it lies. An ethnic Estonian villager, Ivo, takes in two

wounded soldiers into his house in a deserted village: one Georgian

and one Chechen fighting for Abkhazia. At the same time, he helps

his neighbour Markus to pick the tangerines in his orchard before the

predations of war ruin the harvest.

‘It is not a war film. It is a film about people who happen to live in the

wrong place at the wrong time but, regardless of this, they try to remain

human,’ says director Zaza Urushadze.

As Abkhazia has since declared its independence, albeit an independ-

ence which states recognize being countable on the fingers of one hand,

and has closed its borders to Georgia, the film was shot in Georgia.


I CULTURE

Estonian Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) and Chechen fighter Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze) – the main protagonists of the movie ’tangerines’

Estonian actor, Lembit Ulfsak, and Georgian director, Zaza Urushadze,

during the shooting period

60

The appropriate location was found about 20km from the border, near

the Natanebi village between Photh and Batumi. The tangerine orchard

was already there, the ‘village’, consisting of a few farmhouses, was

built as part of the production.

The result is a great example of cooperation between Estonia and Geor-

gia − two countries sympathetic to each other’s developments − and the

great symbiosis of the two film cultures. The author of the screenplay

and the director is Georgian (Zaza Urushadze), the Director of Photogra-

phy Estonian (Rein Kotov), the main roles are played by Estonian actors

(Lembit Ulfsak and Elmo Nüganen) and Georgians (Mikheil Meskhi and

Giorgi Nakashidze), and the producer is Estonian (Ivo Felt).

The budget of €680 000 was supported by the Estonian state 58 per

cent with the Georgian state stumping up the remaining 42 per cent.

This on its own is what gave Estonia the right to nominate the film

for the Academy Awards, notwithstanding the fact that the Georgians

consider it equally their film.

The fact that a film is put forward to the Academy does not mean any-

thing on its own.

To make it stand out, especially in the case of smaller countries like

Estonia, there needs to be an energetic promotional campaign, which

mostly means special screenings

just for the Hollywood press,

guilds and members of the Film

Academy as well as commercials

placed in influential publica-

tions like Variety and Hollywood

Reporter.

In addition, all publicists have

their own personal strategies for

attracting the attention of the

Academy members.

Since regaining its independence

in 1992, Estonia has put forward

no less than 12 films for the Acad-

emy Awards. But ‘Tangerines’ is

the first film with an organised campaign behind it, which was run by

the agency MediaplanPR. MediaplanPR’s manager Tatiana Detlofson is

an experienced publicist who has taken several films to Oscar nomina-

tions in the recent years, among them the Belgian movies ‘Bullhead’

and ‘Broken Circle Breakdown’.

‘50 per cent of the success story of “Tangerines” is due to her work,’

confirms Felt.

Naturally a campaign like this costs a lot whilst providing no guarantees.

The promotional campaign for ‘Tangerines’, including the long trips of

the primary crew members across the Atlantic, totalled just over €100

000! Whilst this may sound extravagant, it’s worth considering that the

promotional campaign of one of the original favourites − the Belgian

movie ‘Two Days, One Night’ − is claimed to have come to nearly a

million dollars, and this movie did not even make it to the pre-selection

round! (Marion Cotillard was nominated for the best leading actress).

The situation is most unusual even for Ivo Felt, not to mention Zaza

Urushadze. The guys feel like rock-stars, although they would really just

like to make more films.

Since the end of October 2014 they have been on tour in the USA,

screening the film and ‘creating a stir’ as Felt puts it.


ESTOnIAn FILM In nUMBERS In 2014

State support: €7.3m

Premieres: 49, including

5 feature films

Market share: 4.7%

Permanent cinemas: 12

Cinema visits: 1.97 per capita

Average ticket price: €4.90 Markus (Elmo Nüganen) and Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak)

The guys don’t have an attitude of ‘wait and see’, it has to be said. The

fantastic response from the audience at various, festivals and the 2nd

Runner-up prize and standing ovations at Palm Springs led to Felt get-

ting the idea of trying a shot at the Oscars.

Furthermore, the critics started to warm to the film, albeit gradually.

‘The deep humanity of the film. The universality of its message: no mat-

ter what is the reason for war, do not sink into becoming an animal.

Great acting by Lembit Ulfsak. Very well written screenplay and tactful

direction by Zaza Urushadze,’ gushes Serge Rakhlin, chairman of the

foreign-language film committee of the Hollywood Foreign Press As-

sociation on the phenomenon of ‘Tangerines’.

A film needs to reflect the times. ‘The anti-war theme is current in the

world today, when weapons are being used in so many places,’ said

Stephen Farber, President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

But, in the end, ‘Tangerines’ did not win an Oscar this time, with the

honour going to the Polish movie ‘Ida’.

The Estonians and Georgians are not sad, though. Or if they are, they

don’t let it show. ‘We get to go home,’ says Lembit Ulfsak happily, if

cryptically, after the Oscars ceremony.

Hopefully this is just the beginning. The illustrious Samuel Goldwyn

Films have acquired the U.S. rights to ‘Tangerines’. And there have al-

ready been queries from Hollywood about the newly-released Estonian

film ‘1944’ which details another tragic year in Estonian history when

brother was pitched against brother during war. It is no surprise then,

that the expectations surrounding Estonians films have been raised. This

is the lasting service done by ‘Tangerines’.


I CULTURE

‘Tangerines’ is the first Estonian feature film to be nominated for an

Oscar, but the Estonians Ivo Felt, Rein Kotov and Lembit Ulfsak are not

the first Estonians to get on the Oscars list in some way. In fact the first

and, to date, only Estonian who has been personally nominated for an

Oscar is Tanel Toom with his film ‘Confession’, in the live action short

film category in 2011.

In fact, he did not represent Estonia but the UK, since the film was his

graduation film from the National Film and Television School there. The

same film brought Toom a student Oscar. Tanel Toom is currently in

pre-production with his first feature film ‘Truth and Justice’ (Estonian:

‘Tõde ja õigus’) which is based on the classic Estonian novel by A. H.

Tammsaare, first published in 1926.

Lembit Ulfsak, Zaza Urushadze and Ivo Felt getting ready for representing

’tangerines’ on the other side of the world.

Phot

o by

Mih

kel M

arip

uu, s

canp

ix


In THE CROSSWInD (RISTTUULES)

‘In the Crosswind’ will reach more than 50 French theatres this March.

14 June 1941. Without warning, tens of thousands of people in Estonia,

Latvia and Lithuania were removed from their homes. Without any sort

of trial, men faced being sent to prison camps and women and children

were deported to Siberia. The aim of this extraordinary operation – car-

ried out on the express orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin – was noth-

ing less than to purge the Baltic countries of their native inhabitants.

The film is based on a true story, and uses extraordinary visual techniques

and language to tell the heart-wrenching tale of the fate of thousands

of Estonians. Erna, happily married and the mother of a young daugh-

ter, is sent to Siberia. For her, time takes on another dimension. Fighting

starvation and humiliation in inhuman conditions, her soul seeks and

finds freedom in the letters she sends to her husband who has also been

sentenced to a prison camp.

Awards at Gothenburg Film Festival (Sweden), Premiers Plans

(France), Warsaw Film Festival (Poland), Thessaloniki international

Film Festival (Greece), Mannheim-Heidelberg international Film

Festival (Germany), Black Nights Film Festival (Estonia).

The new Estonian-German-Finnish co-production ‘The Fencer’ (Estoni-

an: ‘Vehkleja’) – partly based on the real life of Estonian sportsman and

coach Endel Nelis – will premiere in Estonian cinemas in spring 2015.

In 1952, a young fencing champion Endel arrives in Haapsalu to work

as a physical education teacher. But he is an introvert and finds it dif-

ficult to communicate with his young pupils. Soon, fencing turns out to

be a form of therapy both for the children, all of who are dealing with

a grim everyday post-war reality, and Endel himself. But the vindictive

headmaster holds a grudge against Endel, and decides to find out the

real reasons for his coming to town.

The film is directed by Finnish director Klaus Härö, in leading roles Märt

Avandi and Lembit Ulfsak (Ivo in ‘Tangerines’ ed.).

Other interesting films from recent years

‘1944’, director Elmo Nüganen – Estonians fighting in both Ger-

man and Soviet uniforms meet on the battlefield during the Second

World War.

‘Kertu’, director Ilmar Raag – an unusual love story in a small village

which brings out the hidden relations of a family and a community.

‘living Pictures’, director Hardi Volmer – the tragic history of Esto-

nia in the 20th century is told through the eyes of the inhabitants of

just one apartment.

‘Mushrooming’, director Toomas Hussar – a high level public of-

ficial gets lost in the forest. where civilisation becomes just a com-

forting memory

In the Crosswindwww.allfilm.ee/risttuules Risttuules

ALLFILM presents by MArttI HeLDe cAst LAUrA petersOn, tArMO sOnG, InGrID IsOtAMM pHOtOGrApHy erIK pÕLLUMAA e.s.c. by pÄrt UUsberG DesIGner reet brAnDt DesIGner AnnA-LIIsA LIIVer ArtIst LIIsI rOHt

by LIIs nIMIK DesIGner JAnne LAIne by pILLe rÜnK & pIret tIbbO-HUDGIns DIrecteD by MArttI HeLDe

A FILM

DIrectOr OF OrIGInAL MUsIc prODUctIOn cOstUMe MAKe-Up

wrItten AnDprODUceDsOUnDeDIteD

Märt Avandi in the leading role in ’the Fencer’

Phot

o by

Mih

kel M

arip

uu, s

canp

ix


I CULTURE

From Hip-Hop, to Metal, to Classical Music Rave - Tallinn Music Week Has It All!By siim nestor

Despite her youth, Helen Sildna is already respected old-timer

in the Estonian music industry. Having worked for the largest

concert organizer in the Baltic states, she became an independ-

ent promoter some years ago. For the seventh year running,

Sildna’s main project right now is the showcase festival ‘Tallinn

Music Week’, (TMW) which this year will be held from 25-29

March, 2015.

We asked Helen about TMW, how it differs from other festivals

worldwide and what attendees can we expect from the event.

Phot

o By

Lau

ra K

alla

svee


During every TMW the Estonian capital de-

velops its own unique sense of time. Most

rock clubs and nightclubs in Tallinn put on a

diverse and lively music program during TMW,

showcasing the most exciting current Estonian

artistes and a growing number of performers

from elsewhere as well. Tallinn Music Week

effectively takes over galleries, restaurants, re-

cord shops, theatres and cinemas − even some

churches. By the standards of most music fes-

tivals, the timing at TMW is immaculate − all

the live performances in dozens of venues in

the city take place exactly according to sched-

ule. You can even set your watch by it!

Helen Sildna and TMW have already received

numerous important awards and recognition

in Estonia. It seems that her efforts are now

also being recognized further afield. The

Guardian and The Observer in the UK have

chosen TMW among the top five recom-

mended festivals in the world to visit this win-

ter and spring. In autumn 2014, Sildna was

rewarded for her efforts at the Tampere Music

Awards, which is part of the Finnish showcase

festival ‘Musiikki & Media’, for her outstand-

ing contribution to introducing Finnish music

to audiences outside Finland. To highlight

the importance of this award, it should be

noted that the five previous recipients of this

award have all been gentlemen in their ‘60s

and ‘70s.

Tallinn Music Week takes place for the seventh time this spring. So how much has the Festival grown over this time?

Helen Sildna: Whereas in the first year of the

festival, there were 68 bands from three coun-

tries, this year we have about 200 artistes from

22 countries. We had about 4 000 visitors to

the festival in the first year but this had grown

to 23 000 visitors last year, with about 2 000 of

them coming from our neighbouring countries

- Latvia, Finland, Russia. If these figures aren’t

substantial growth, we’re at a loss to know

what is!

Have the underlying concept and direction of the festival also changed during this time?

We started very specifically with a festival

which focused on the music business − we

talked a lot about the export of Estonian

music, explained the meaning of showcas-

ing. Today we have made great steps towards

TMW becoming a top city festival. We still

have the conference and the showcases, the

business side of things in other words, but our

aim is to become a real city festival with a lot

of music as the core focus.

As our festival concept is not based on show-

casing headliners as such, which can work to

the detriment of other performers; we focus

on new and exciting things instead. We want

people to come to discover something new,

not to see an old and favourite performer. This

also applies to fields which are more distant-

ly-related to music.

So what will be the musical highlights of TMW 2015?

A new phenomenon for this year, which is a

personal favourite of mine, is the ‘classical

music rave’ which will take place on Friday,

27 March, 2015 in the newly opened venue

Kultuurikatel (Tallinn Creative Hub − ed.). As

one might suspect, this will be an event where

DJs combine classical music together to great

effect. They will mostly be playing the works

of Estonian composers. It is not something

you can necessarily dance to, perhaps it is

more about listening, but that actually de-

pends on the personal approach of every DJ.

If this sounds a bit ambitious or unpromising,

you need only take a look on YouTube to find

plenty of clips demonstrating how some DJs

are more than able to play classical music in a

way which really makes people want to dance.

Perhaps as many as 80 per cent if not more!

From Hip-Hop, to Metal, to Classical Music Rave - Tallinn Music Week Has It All!By siim nestor


I CULTURE

The DJs performing at this year’s ‘classical

music rave’ are Nick Luscombe from the UK

and Valgeir Sigurðsson from Iceland, who is

also the founder of the record company Bed-

room Community. Luscombe and Sigurðsson

will be joining local stars Sander Mölder and

Aivar Tõnso. As well as this, Brendan Walsh,

someone who himself has a classical music

background and has initiated the organization

of classical music raves, is attending. He has

already led ‘classical raves’ in places as diverse

as Amsterdam, London, Sao Paolo and more.

I am personally really happy about an evening,

organized by the British record label Fat Cat

Records, where the main performer is set to

be the legendary folk musician Vashti Bunyan,

probably the biggest name at the festival this

year.

Fat Cat will bring along C Duncan as well, and

the event will take place in cooperation with

the local record company Õunaviks. The lat-

ter are due to present performers such as Mari

Kalkun, cirkl, Kago and many others.

In the last couple of years, TMW has included the best restaurants of Tallinn in its programme. So will the collaboration with restaurants continue?

Yes, we are cooperating with 15 restaurants

under the slogan ‘Tallinn Music Tastes’. The

choice of restaurants it has to be said is totally

subjective − they are the favourite Tallinn res-

taurants of our own organizing team! We are

not introducing the restaurants themselves, so

much as their Head Chefs. Over the course of

TMW, each of these restaurants will produce

a one-off fantasy menu using their favourite

ingredients.

It is natural that people who visit Tallinn will

also want to know where the best places to

eat here are, and we are essentially helping

them to avoid the tourist traps and to find the

really good places instead.

Apparently foreign artists are increasingly interested in coming to perform at TMW?

Overseas bands are really more and more in-

terested in participating, which is great. So

their share in comparison with local artists

is on the rise, which is also desirable. We do

not necessarily want Estonian artists to have

a higher concentration at the festival; we are

interested in raising the overall quality regard-

less of where performers are from.

Whilst we want attendees to see something

different, TMW should not be solely about in-

troducing newcomers or amateurs to the mu-

sic business itself; in other words everything in

our program needs to be of the highest stand-

ard and tried and tested elsewhere.

What style of music should atendees really pay attention to at this year’s TMW?

It is very interesting to observe how Estonian

folk- and traditional music artists are start-

ing to attract serious attention. In addition to

Nuudi and Mari Kalkun, these are Trad. Attack

and Aparaat. I think that artists representing

this style of music will do very well in the near

This time we have quite a few artists from

Denmark. This year Music Export Denmark

chose Tallinn for their ‘SPOT on Denmark’ se-

ries, which travels music festivals around the

world. 50 bands from Denmark wanted to

come and perform at the festival. Of those,

eight bands actually are coming, and they are

all very different. I have the feeling that Den-

mark is where the most interesting stuff is hap-

pening currently in the Nordics.

When talking about the Nordics specifically, it

is quite difficult to get Swedish artists as they

tend to be internationally successful already.

But this year we also have really many Swedish

performers. Kate Boy will be performing as will

Jennie Abrahamson, who is already quite a big

name outside Sweden.

future. They should be great performers at fes-

tivals abroad and not just festivals which spe-

cialize in world music, but also rock and jazz

festivals.

Things are also getting exciting on the Esto-

nian jazz scene − including the activities of

Kadri Voorand, Peedu Kass with their different

projects.

It has to be said that there is no showcase-

festival in the world which mixes absolutely all

music genres. Up to now we have been unable

to include any Electronic Dance Music (EDM)

in the program, but even so I am not aware of

any other showcase events in the world which

run the gamut from hip-hop to metal and all

the way to classical music, as TMW does.

Estonian Voices

if you are interested in classical

music, go to Rotermann Salt Stor-

age (Thu 26 March) and Niguliste

kirik (St. Nicholas’ Church) (Fri

27March)

if you are interested in folk-

music, go to Klootsri Ait (Thu 26

March /Fri 27 March) and Must-

peade maja (House of Blackheads)

(Fri 27 March) in the Old Town, and

Vaba Lava (Sat 28 March) in Telliskivi

Loomelinnak (Telliskivi Creative City)

if you are interested in metal

and hard rock, go to clubs Wood-

stock/Rockstars’s (Thu 26 March /

Fri 27 March) and Protest (Fri 27

March)

if you are interested in jazz, go

to NO99-teater (Fri 27 March)

if you are interested in indie

and/or more experimental musi,

go to Sinilind (Thu 26 March), Von

Krahl (Sat 28 March), and cinema

Sõprus (Fri 27 March/ Sat 28 March)

if you are interested in pop, go

to Rock Cafe (Fri 27 March/ Sat 28

March) and Von Krahl (Fri 27 March)

if you are interested in electronic

music, go to Paar Veini (Fri 27

March) in the Old Town, and Erine-

vate Tubade Klubi (Thu 26 March

/ Sat 28 March) and F-hoone (Sat

28 March) in Telliskivi Loomelinnak

(Telliskivi Creative City)


But if TMW were to become less centred on the music business and on facilitating contacts and experiences between people within the music busi-ness, isn’t there a danger that it could become more about ‘sex n’drugs’ than ‘rock n’roll’?

Well, at the end of the day everybody wants to have

a bit of fun and let their hair down! Most showcase

festivals around the world take place over weekends

and many people in the industry are kind of fed up

with that state of affairs. This is because they, like

most people, might want to do something over the

weekend which is not directly linked to work! So yes

I hope that we have more crazy and cool parties and

fewer Powerpoint presentations!

There are many industry get-togethers all over the

world with more and more being created every day.

But our decision to not confine ourselves to being

just a narrow industry event, but rather to boast a

festival which is fun for everyone, has ironically been

successful in becoming more interesting for the

music industry people themselves, too.

In terms of the emotion generated we have been

compared with Iceland Airwaves, which does not

feature conferences and the industry sector at all.

Alternatively TMW being compared more and more

withSXSW(‘South by Southwest’, the world’s most

important showcase festival in Austin, Texas − ed.) in

its early years. In other words people were no long-

er inclined to visit that festival simply because it had

grown out of all proportion.

SXSWalso takesplacealmost at the same timeas

TMW, and I have even heard people say they would

rather travel to Tallinn than to Texas!

Are there any other additional programmes this year?

In collaboration with the gallery Temnikova & Kasela

and with the Development Centre of Estonian Con-

temporary Art we are initiating the project ‘TMW

Arts’. The main emphasis of the arts program falls on

the Tuesday of festival week, when ten galleries open

exhibitions and the Tallinn Arts Hall screens art films.

This sub-program follows a similar logic to that of

TMW. Whereas the main festival showcases the cool-

est music in Estonia and the region, TMW Arts will

focus on the most important current Estonian artists

who work internationally.

Another new thing this year is our collaboration with

the Põhjala Brewery, which will for the first time ever

organize the Tallinn Craft Beer Weekend during the

festival week. This is a festival of handmade beers,

showcasing small breweries from Estonia and else-

where. There will be a TMW stand there. The idea

is that people who come to discover new music in

Estonia to also have access to the most interesting

breweries from around the world.

It is our desire to provide only the best to our festival

guests, be it what they listen to, watch, eat or drink.

In other words the total experience should have no

downsides or even lesser attractions.

Music will always be the heart of TMW, but we are

working towards fulfilling the goal of becoming a

true city festival where you can experience everything

that is fresh and cool in Europe at the moment. We

hope that only a couple of years from now as many

as 5 000 guests from abroad will visit the festival.

I CULTURE


Estonian Guitar Hero Really Tearing up the Music Scene in the US

By Piret järVis / Photos By andy saPP

“So gentlemen, you have been nomi-

nated for a Grammy, by the way.”

This is the text message laur Joamets

found on his mobile one November

morning last year!

The 26-year-old Estonian is the lead gui-

tarist in the American country artist Stur-

gill Simpson’s band, whose much-lauded

second studio album “Metamodern

Sounds in Country Music”, was nominat-

ed for “Americana Album of The Year” at

the Grammy Awards.

“i wasn’t exactly doing somersaults, but i

was definitely happy,’’ says laur.

Born and raised in Tartu, a town with

only around 100 000 inhabitants, laur is

talking to Life in Estonia from his new

hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.


‘’When we recorded the album, I mentioned a couple of times to the

band that ‘this is going to be some Grammy shit.’ I wasn’t actually say-

ing that we were going to win a Grammy, I just understood that the

album sounded different from anything else I’d ever heard,” recalls Laur

confidently, when asked about the type of emotions which seize some-

one who has just been nominated for a Grammy.

Although as it turned out the band did not win the Grammy this year,

Laur says that he was confident about their success: “As a musician I

am overly critical. I know what moves me, and with the passing of time

that is fewer and fewer things. But when we were recording this album

in December 2013, I felt really touched by it. So I was totally convinced

that we would be nominated for a Grammy,” says the musician.

“The most important talisman I have from Estonia is the Estonian lan-

guage itself,” Laur goes on. ‘’I came to the States as a 24-year-old and I

am 26 now €but I only realised that I really was an Estonian when I was

25. I became aware of it when I saw that the English I spoke – which

was always praised by Americans or Brits visiting Estonia – was actually

all wrong. Language is, to a large extent, made up of slang and so it was

very difficult for me to communicate with people when I came here,’’

Laur explains. ‘’Especially when you come from another part of the

world with your stiff British English which you have learned in Estonia.

Fortunately things have changed and I can already crack jokes which are

as equally crazy as my band mates’ ones!” he laughs.

Laur, better known in the States as Lil’ Joe, was invited to join Sturgill Simp-

son’s band in August 2013 and since then things have turned out quite

surreal for the young guitarist. In addition to the Grammy nomination, he

has performed on both David Letterman and Conan O’Brien’s shows, and

his talent has been praised in both the New York Times and Rolling Stone!

“Mr. Joamets is vicious, an ostentatious talent given to filling small holes

with outsize filigree. He’s almost as able a narrator as Mr. Simpson, as

on the opening of “It Ain’t All Flowers,” which flirts with ZZ Top-esque

swamp-blues rock, or on “Long White Line,” which opens with four

different guitar approaches in four consecutive passages,” gushed the

New York Times in an album review.

Laur, who has also studied cello in his youth, started out in bar bands

when he was 13, filling in for gigs for his dad. Today he is considered

one of the most genial and able guitarists in Estonia, who orientates

between very different music styles with playful ease.

Before travelling to the US, he played in the Estonian rock band

Dramamama and earned his living by playing in the house band on the

Estonian version of “Pop Idol” as well as on the Tallinn-Helsinki ferries.

His repertoire as a guitarist had consisted mostly of rock, blues and pop,

prior to joining the band, and cowboy boots, line dancing and country

music was not part of his day-to-day life up to then.


I CULTURE

Sturgill Simpson himself, however, had seen videos of the Estonian gui-

tar wizard and he was amazed by what he saw. He decided to take the

plunge and invite a musician who hitherto had had nothing to do with

country music into his indie-country group (indie-country differs from

mainstream country and popular country, in that, as its name suggests,

it takes influences from rock, blues, indie and even punk).

But before recording the album, Laur experienced conflicting emotions:

“I was extremely on edge ... I was really, really scared. There were mo-

ments when I felt, okay I have done my best, but it was not good or cool

enough. I thought I would have to return to my old life in Estonia and,

of course, I wasn’t so happy about that. But fortunately the producer of

our album, Dave Cobb, gave me some really great motifs, which led to

new ideas and fortunately I am still here in the United States! So today I

am able to say for the first time in my life that I am proud of the album

which we have recorded,” says Laur.

He goes on to explain that country-style guitar playing is a bit like

sports.“Technically it is very demanding, interesting and exciting. Often

the tempo of the songs is so fast that one just has to achieve things

which one would otherwise be too lazy to do.”

Laur admits that the life of a musician in one of the most exciting bands

in the US today – in January they signed a deal with the Atlantic Records

– is not “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” by any means.

“When you are performing every day for four to six weeks in a row,

you have to save your energy. It is different in Estonia. There bands

perform mostly on weekends which means you can take it easier, and

drinking and partying before and after performances is fine. But here it

was made clear to me from the start that we are working. You have to

be professional. And I have followed that rule. So young musicians take

note: the ‘60s and ‘70s are over!’’

“While you are just busy getting drunk and doing illegal stuff, you have

two options facing you: one of them is that you sober up and then will

not get anything done at all. The second option is that you die. There is

actually no glamour at all in the life of touring musicians today!”

However, Laur would not change his life today for anything else and,

whilst he does feel homesick every now and then, coming back to Esto-

nia once a year helps to alleviate that. In addition the US ‘mentality’ is

becoming increasingly dear to his heart.

“About a year ago a journalist asked me if I get fed up with the Ameri-

can ‘keep smiling’ attitude. Back then I admitted I did. But the real

reason was that in Estonia there is no equivalent to ‘keep smiling’ – we

are not used to it. It is true that people in the USA smile a lot, and most

of the time it is a matter of politeness. But if you compare it with people

staring at each other with grumpy faces, then which do you prefer? Do

you prefer the ‘honest’ grumpiness or the ‘fake’ smile?’’ he asks.

Sturgill Simpson


Excerpts from the following US publications:

Rolling Stone “Watch Sturgill Simpson

Cut live Song in Historic Nashville Studio”

Watch the clip above, and stay tuned all the way until the

outro, where lead guitarist laur Joamets – a native of Esto-

nia − cranks up the reverb, slips on a glass slide and catapults

the whole thing into outer space.

The New York Times “A Kentucky Singer

Faces Down a Manhattan Crowd”

Part of honky-tonk singing is an acceptance that you are not

always the , did not settle for that. He and his band − Miles

Miller on drums, Kevin Black on bass and the outstanding

lil’ Joe (Laur’s nickname in America − ed.) on guitar, who

extracted tremendous meaning from some subtle moves −

were resilient and forceful, toying around with bluegrass and

Southern rock in addition to the hard country of the 1970s.

The Fader “Estonian Guitarist Sets

Country Music Ablaze”

After the revelation that is discovering Sturgill Simpson,

there’s the delight of learning that his guitarist, laur

Joamets − a sensational player who flashes winks of hard

rock between fallen-from-heaven slides and growling blues −

cut his teeth not in some Austin back room but in the post-

Soviet state of Estonia.

“But today I prefer it when someone at least attempts to smile at me,

instead of being grumpy. Estonians simply are much more introverted

as a people and this has its charm; but I have really become quite used

to American optimism now,” Laur explains.

Yet some things will never be good enough in America, says Laur, in-

cluding: Põltsamaa strong mustard! And black bread. It is also unbear-

able not to see your family and relatives. OK, you might not see them

so often in the first place, but when you are in a more complex situation

then you realise that blood is blood and this is missing here. If things

should go wrong, then the only people you can really rely on is your

own family. Thank God I have a very caring family. I can always depend

on them.”

But what are the stories and tales about Estonia and Estonians which

the musician tells people on the other side of the world?

“For example I tell them that in the 1940s-50s the saxophone was a

forbidden instrument in the Soviet Union,’’ Laur explains. “According

to Soviet propaganda, there was just one step from the saxophone to

treason: ‘Today you play the saxophone, tomorrow you betray your

homeland’, went the slogan. And you could be actually jailed for hav-

ing western LPs at home in the 60s and 70s,” he goes on.

“For me the most important thing is going on stage and being able to

play music which I like myself – to audiences who enjoy it. I learned to

speak this language – the language of the guitar – every day in Estonia,

but I was not able to follow my heart on a daily basis. A well-paid boat

or TV studio job is one thing, but touring the world with your band is

something totally different,’’ he continues.

“In Estonia the offers I got only came from TV shows. But here I under-

stand that I can now do what I have prepared my whole life for. I have a

place in the world and this is all I want to do in life. Every person should

find what they are good at in this life and to concentrate on it. We live

once and we are surrounded by uncaring shit. So teach yourself to be

good at something,’’ he advises.

“This is where I am today. This life is not easy. It is fucking complicated.

But my parents raised me to be an honest person. I need things to be

honest. To be honest to yourself and to others. I could not do that in

Estonia and this is why I am here today.”

Sturgill Simpson


I TOURISM

Two Restaurants, But Just One Chef de Cuisine: the Best Restaurant in Estonia 2014 By ene KaasiK, KÖÖK MAGAZINE / Photos By lauri laan


Two Restaurants, But Just One Chef de Cuisine: the Best Restaurant in Estonia 2014 By ene KaasiK, KÖÖK MAGAZINE / Photos By lauri laan

The modest façade, melting into the surrounding environment, in no way hints that the Best Estonian Restaurant 2014 is hidden just behind it.

It was the aim of the creators of the restaurant in question to face on to

the Bay of Tallinn rather than onto any street or road. And anyone who

enters this establishment is in for a real treat − only when you enter do

you discover the view to the sea and the real essence of the restaurant

that is NOA...

Everybody behind the creation of this development got along perfectly

with each other, and that shows. It is due to this great collaboration

between interior designers, architects, builders and the owners of NOA

that the best restaurant in Estonia was born.

Actually the building hides not one but two restaurants, but only one

Chef de Cuisine.

Creating two restaurants was also the original intention of the owners.

With its Scandinavian style, the colourful NOA is on the right when you

enter, and offers a simpler everyday menu − a good place for lunch or

to enjoy dinner with the family.

On the left, behind a mysterious door, is the other restaurant, the NOA

Chef’s Hall (or NOA Peakoka Pool) which is only open for dinner and

boasts a more refined decor and style.

Interior architect Tarmo Piirmets had a clear vision when creating the

interior design for both NOA restaurants. He imagined two brothers,

one a village fisherman with a simple lifestyle who goes out to fish on

the Baltic Sea, the other, elder brother meanwhile enjoying a wealthier

lifestyle, travel on the far-flung seas and consequently bringing back

more exotic, refined tastes and ingredients.

It was NOA Chef’s Hall which received the title of the best restaurant

in Estonia. This establishment is the signature restaurant of Head Chef

Tõnis Siigur, who has a very free rein to do whatever he wishes.

NOA Chef’s Hall has no regular menu and visitors can choose between

five or six courses created by the Head Chef for this evening. Each

course is accompanied by an appropriate beverage selected by the

sommelier.

The Head Chef’s menu does not change wholesale, but step by step.

In one week one course may change, but perhaps the name of the

dish will stay the same and only its look and content will be somewhat

different.

Over the course of one month, Tõnis Siigur will change about half

of his menu. In other words this is the culinary laboratory of NOA,

where in the perfect moment new ideas and thoughts are born, and

as the working environment on this side of the restaurant is calmer,

the team has the necessary time needed to test out and implement

new ideas.

NOA Chef’s Hall is the height of culinary arts. The dishes are by no

means run-of-the-mill. It is a game of raw ingredients, textures and

tastes but also in terms of the presentation − the food here is art.

The Chef de Cuisine himself presents the dishes each evening, offering

comments as he does so. It is a kind of a culinary journey where the

limits of tastes and the cooperation of the senses are put onto the test.

NOA fits perfectly onto this far outpost on the border of Tallinn’s munici-

pality, and seems as if it has always been there. It is worth a visit even if

only to enjoy the amazing view of the sea (though we recommend you

try at least something from the menu too!).


I TOURISM

The story of nOA

NOA is the brainchild of Tõnis Siigur, Martti Siimann and Marko

Zukker, who met whilst developing another top restaurant, OKO, lo-

cated at the Kaberneeme marina, 30 minutes from the centre of Tallinn.

Since OKO was a seasonal summer project, the three needed a more

permanent establishment to make things work for them in the long-

term. It didn’t occur to any of them to create the best restaurant in

Estonia.

We asked two of this triumvirate, Martti Siimann and Tõnis Siigur, about

the NOA concept.

Were there always plans to have two restaurants at nOA?

Martti Siimann: Yes there were, simply because at NOA we cannot

offer the same kind of dishes as at NOA Chef’s Hall.

First, we would not be able find so many customers and second, it

would not be technically possible to create such gourmet foods for the

larger crowds.

When you want to have a quick lunch or enjoy a meal with children,

NOA is the right place. If you want to enjoy a more distinguished dinner,

you should go to NOA Chef’s Hall.

NOA has a time limit of three hours (in other words you have to be out

of there, in the nicest possible way, within three hours − which is more

than enough time for the type of meal we offer there).

The Chef’s Hall on the other hand has no time limit − you can book a

table for the whole evening, come and sit as long as you want to enjoy

your meal and the environment.

Do nOA and Chef’s Hall share a kitchen?

No, both have separate kitchens; only the storage area is shared.

The preparations for NOA Chef’s Hall take place in a separate kitchen

with its own ovens, stoves, and display counter. The kitchens are in gen-

eral very different from each other. If someone should make the claim

that the food is not being prepared at the facilities at the side of Chef’s

Hall, with this only being for display, then he or she is mistaken. Admit-

tedly, we do not actually fry the food when the guests are present. As

well as safety implications, it is not pleasant to have people in their

fancy clothes smelling of fried fat!

The preparations start early − at 8am. The team visits the market, even

the forest; wherever ingredients are to be found. Only the final touches

are made in front of the customers. The kitchen team has very long

working days, lasting until midnight or later.


The 50 Best Restaurants

Seven years of experience in choosing the

top fifty restaurants in Estonia demonstrates

that the local cuisine on its own offers

a great reason to visit the country. Each

year, about a third of the restaurants in

the rankings are new, and there are eater-

ies ranging from farm-restaurants, with

just the one staff member, to top gourmet

establishments.

How Are the restaurants ranked?

In spring, the 50 best restaurants in Estonia

are chosen from among approximately 1

300 entrants, with the selection based on

the votes of the key workers at the restau-

rants in question.

The final positions are determined by an

international jury made up of 30 representa-

tives of the food and drink media − 12 from

Estonia and 18 from abroad.

Each restaurant is visited covertly by six

to eight jury members at different times.

The judging is conducted by the method

developed by the Swedish restaurant guide

‘White Guide’, with a 100-point system, and

each judge fills out an evaluation sheet, in

which a restaurant can achieve up to 100

points maximum (up to 40 points for food,

up to 20 points for beverages, up to 25

points for service and up to 15 points for the

overall atmosphere).

This year, to borrow a sports term, a photo

finish was needed to determine the NOA

Chef’s Hall as the winner as no less than

four restaurants received equal score for

their food!

The TOP 50 Estonian restaurants can be

found at www.flavoursofestonia.com.

THE TOP 10 iN 2014 WErE:

Noa Chef’s Hall (Tallinn)

Alexander (Pädaste Manor, Muhu island)

Horisont (Tallinn)

Tchaikovsky (Tallinn)

Põhjaka (Mäeküla, Paide, Järvamaa county)

Ö (Tallinn)

Oko (Kaberneeme, Harjumaa)

Moon (Tallinn)

Ribe (Tallinn)

Leib Resto & Aed (Tallinn)

nOA Chef’s Hall was named the Best Restaurant in Estonia, whilst nOA only came in 20th. How can two restaurants in the same loca-tion and with the same ownership place so differently?

At first, it seemed surprising to us too, but

when we thought about it, it made sense.

It was our aim from the get-go to keep the

Chef’s Hall as a so-called development centre

and NOA as the more mainstream eatery.

We never set out to create a restaurant just for the ranking tables. When we

compare the two aspects of NOA, for one thing Chef’s Hall is only open from

Wednesday to Saturday, but NOA is open every day. This naturally establishes

one big difference between the two places.

Are you happy to be named the best restaurant in the country?

Of course we are! We are also delighted that NOA is anything but traditional.

The restaurant just turned out so well and we are very pleased with it.

Actually we would have been equally happy with third or fourth place for the

Chef’s Hall. We cannot really claim that it is heads and shoulders above the

other top restaurants. We are just different, that’s all.

The standard of restaurants here has gone up so much in the last five to seven

years that it is really difficult to get to the top now. There has been a big leap

forward in the last year in particular.

Many restaurants either have already caught up, or are about to catch up, with

the best restaurants as of now. I am only too pleased about these develop-

ments. It is much more fun to go out to eat in Tallinn and in Estonia in general

these days, when there are so many great places and you don’t have to choose

between the same five restaurants as was the case a bit before.


I TOURISM

Tõnis Siigur, Chef de Cuisine of nOA

Tõnis needs no introduction in the Estonian culinary circles. Ten years

working as the Chef de Cuisine at Stenhus restaurant proved that he

has a strong will, steadiness and the ability to work hard from day to day

and season to season in the same single kitchen.

The food created by Tõnis has always borne its own clear signature,

but it has changed with time and fashion. What was always certain,

though, was the fact that Tõnis was ahead of his time – he always

thought at least two steps ahead and did not follow what others were

doing at the same time or even what they were doing before him.

He received his first international recognition whilst working at the res-

taurant Bordoo, when Relais & Chateaux presented him with the ‘Ris-

ing Chef Trophy 2013’ award.

After Bordoo came OKO, which was a big hit simply due to Tõnis’ name

even before it opened. There were always more customers than seats at

OKO, and there was so much positive feedback that the team decided

to create NOA in Tallinn.

Tõnis Siigur thus got ‘his own restaurant’ − NOA Chef’s Hall − where he

can, within reasonable limits, test out his culinary ideas.

His style has become bolder, stronger, more robust (in a good sense) and

more earthy. Once again Tõnis is ahead of the curve.

The culinary masterpieces created at the NOA ‘lab’ if you will, combine

simple but high-quality ingredients with modern technology, high-flying

ideas and more down-to-earth rustic touches as well. But Tõnis Siigur’s

long range ambitions are higher still – he plans to ‘set sail’ with his NOA

restaurant, out of Estonia altogether.

At one point Siigur had many followers. Many young people came to

gain experience under his supervision, and subsequently learned every-

thing from their master. Getting a place in Tõnis’ kitchen came to equal

winning the lottery. Nonetheless he has never liked to advertise himself.

There is a distant sense of grandeur about him, which some people

may take for arrogance. This in fact is not the case. He is just extremely

demanding both of himself and of others.

With his thorough, hard-working and determined manner, Tõnis would

probably already have the desired Michelin star if he lived in, for in-

stance, Sweden.

How did you develop the menu at nOA?

Tõnis Siigur: We had a big list of all the various things which could be

included on the menu.

The first real choices arose from the initial idea of having a vegetarian

section. We then had the main divisions of the menu: plants, fish, meat

− plus of course desserts.

Things took their own course from then on. As we had never made a

distinction between starters, soups and main courses, it was logical to

have at least some starters and soups.

When the main menu plan was set, we started to discuss which foods

should definitely be on the menu and which items we definitely did not

want there.

We do not follow a set style in NOA. We have a wide range of foods,

and therefore there is no set regional, forest- or seafood-theme, for

instance.

What is the most popular dish at nOA?

At the moment the most frequently sold dish is veal, even though we

are located by the sea so one might assume it was fish. That is the big-

gest surprise for us − we created a seaside restaurant but people still

want meat.

I guess the dry age cabinet in the restaurant foyer gives us a boost too.

This was a great idea, but in practice we could have ten of them. It was

clear within the first week that one cabinet would not suffice with all

the customers. Today it looks more like a show… at the same time it is

sufficient for NOA Chef’s Hall.

Did you believe that you would make the best restaurant in Estonia?

The more time passes, the less I am interested in such rankings. Really!

Of course it is a good feeling to win and the moment when it is made

public is great, but it is not massively important for me.

It is good for the restaurant and raises our profile, but I have higher

ambitions. I am more interested in international awards than those pre-

sented nationally.

Are you able to realise your full potential at nOA?

One is able to realise their full potential only if they have no restrictions

whatsoever. NOA is not a hobby project; the restaurant has to function

as well as make an income. But I can certainly do more things and work

more freely now than ever before. And so I am very happy at NOA.


For more travel details, please consult the

sources below: www.visitestonia.com

(Estonian Tourist Board), www.riik.ee/en.

Tourist information centres are located in all

larger towns.

The Tallinn Tourist Information Centre in the

Old Town is located at 4 Kullassepa Street - no

more than 10 steps from the Town Hall Square

(ph.: + 372 645 7777, e-mail: turismiinfo@

tallinnlv.ee). A wide selection of maps, bro-

chures and publications in several languages

(largest selection in English) can be found

at local bookstores and tourist information

centres.

visaEstonia is part of the Schengen visa area, grant-

ing the nationals of EU and EEA member states

free entry to Estonia. The required travel docu-

ment for entry is a national ID card or passport.

In addition to the citizens of EU and EAA

states, nationals of numerous countries can

extend their visit up to 90 days in any 6-month

period. The required travel document for en-

try is a valid passport. A comprehensive list of

countries is available at the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs website at www.vm.ee/eng. Citizens

of countries not listed require a visa to enter

Estonia.

Visitors arriving in Estonia with visa

must have national passports valid at

least 3 months after their planned de-

parture from Estonia.

Children aged 7 to 15 years of age

must have their own passport when

travelling to Estonia or be registered

in their parents’ passport, including

a photo next to the name. Persons

above 15 years must have a separate

travel document with a photo.

ArrivalBy plane: The modern and user-friendly Tal-

linn Lennart Meri Airport is located just 3 km

from the city centre and provides an easy ac-

cess to most hotels and restaurants located in

the city centre. Among other amenities, trav-

ellers have access to a free WiFi area in the

transit zone. The airport’s 24-hour customer

service telephone is +372 6058 888.

Tartu Airport is situated near Tartu, hosting fre-

quent flights to Helsinki.

By ship: The Port of Tallinn, hosting over 6

million passengers annually, is undoubtedly

the main gateway to and from Estonia. Large

passenger ferries depart daily to Helsinki and

Stockholm. Cruises from Tallinn to St. Peters-

burg depart less frequently. The 85-km Tallinn-

Helsinki ferry journey takes approximately

2 hours, and slightly less by hydrofoils and

catamarans in service from spring until late

autumn. Travellers should note that different

ferry lines depart from different terminals and

harbours. The City Port with its four terminals

is a 10-15 minute walk from Tallinn Old Town;

the Paldiski-Kapellskär line uses the Port of

Paldiski, about 50 km from Tallinn.

By car: Visitors from Central and Western

Europe can drive to Estonia via Latvia. Ikla

and Valga border checkpoints greet travellers

entering or departing the country. The most

popular border crossing in eastern Estonia on

the Russian border is Narva, located on the St.

Petersburg-Tallinn road. Other border cross-

ings with Russia include Luhamaa, Koidula

and Murati. On the Estonian-Russian border,

all traffic is subject to border formalities both

when entering and leaving Estonia.

By coach: When travelling between the Baltic

states and nearby locations such as Poland and

Germany, coach travel might be the most con-

venient option. Regular connections to Tallinn

and Tartu depart from all major cities in the

Baltic countries and St. Petersburg. Eurolines

and Lux Express offer comfortable Riga Airport

transfers from Tallinn, Pärnu, Klaipeda, Vilnius,

Panevezys, and Šiauliai. Prices start from €20.

By train: An overnight train service from Mos-

cow to Tallinn is available.

CustomsThe limit on import of alcoholic beverages

from outside the EU is one litre for beverages

over 22% alcohol content, and two litres for

beverages up to 22%, and four litres for wine.

Import of tobacco and tobacco products from

non-EU countries is limited to 40 cigarettes or

100 cigarillos or 50 cigars or 50 grammes of

tobacco products. Counterfeit goods, includ-

ing pirated CDs, video and audio tapes, are

prohibited by law. A special export permit is

required for specimens of plants and animals

of endangered species, protected species and

hunting trophies (please contact the Nature

Conservation Department, Ministry of the En-

vironment for details). Articles of cultural value

produced in Estonia more than 50 years ago

also require special permits (please contact the

National Heritage Board).

We suggest travellers consult with the Esto-

nian Customs Board help desk (ph.: +372 880

0814 or www.customs.ee) for details.

Practical Information For visitors

Getting Around EstoniaInter-city public transportation Public buses are the easiest, cheapest and

most convenient solution for visiting Tartu,

Pärnu and any other larger Estonian town.

Buses from Tallinn to Tartu depart in every 30

minutes and to Pärnu every hour. On week-

days, seats to these destinations are almost al-

ways available even immediately before depar-

ture (watch out for special events). For week-

end travel or trips to more remote locations

with fewer connections, it is advisable to buy

a ticket in advance. The Tallinn Bus Terminal is

located at 46 Lastekodu Street. The timetable

is also available online at www.bussireisid.ee

and ticket information is available by phone:

+372 6800 900.

Trains from Tallinn to Tartu leave 3-4 times a

day, and it takes a little more than 2 hours to

get to Tartu. The Balti Station is situated just

outside the Tallinn Old Town and sea port, a

taxi or tram No. 2 (from the port). Trains are

comfortable and you can use WiFi in the first

class.

Travelling by car

Travellers hoping to see more of the country

and the rural areas it would be best advised

to travel by car. The roads are quite good and

traffic is light. Crossing Estonia from north

to south or west to east by car takes ap-

proximately three to four hours. All major car

rental agencies have offices in Tallinn. It is also

possible to rent the car in Estonia and drop it

off at a rental agency in Latvia or Lithuania. The

speed limit in rural areas is 90 km/h and in cit-

ies 50 km/h. In some areas the highway speed

limit is increased during the summer months.

Headlights and seat belts (front and back) must

be on at all times. Acceptable blood alcohol

limit in Estonia is up to 0.2 % BAC.

Local TransportTaxis: Taxis must clearly display their fares,

driver’s taxi service licenses, and a meter. The

initial charge for entering a taxi ranges from

2 to about 4 euros. Different taxi companies

have different rates, but the average charge

per kilometre is 0.5 euros. There is no addi-

tional charge for ordering the taxi by phone,

and it usually takes the cab just five to ten min-

utes to arrive. All taxi drivers must give you a

receipt (in Estonian, ask for “Kviitung, palun”).

Locals usually give the exact fare and no tip.

Public transportation: Tallinn has a public

transport network of buses, trams and trolley

buses. Schedules are posted at bus stops and

tickets available at newsstands (the yellow and

blue “R-kiosks”) and from the driver. Check

the prices and timetable for Tallinn bus lines

for any bus stop at www.tallinn.ee/eng.

Tickets for visitorsThe Public Transport Card Ühiskaart may be

purchased for a couple of euros. Smart card

and e-tickets can be purchased from post of-

fices and online at www.pilet.ee. Personalise

the card for a small charge at the point of sale

or for free at www.pilet.ee/yhiskaart.

If you are using pay-as-you-go credit, your

smart card automatically calculates the cheap-

est fare within the next 24 hrs (never more

than one-day travel card). Validate your jour-

ney with the Ühiskaart immediately after en-

tering the public transport vehicle.

You can also buy tickets from kiosks and from

the driver (single ticket €1.60 and student tick-

et €0.80). Try to have the exact change (cash

only) when purchasing from the driver. The

ticket is valid for one journey only in that spe-

cific vehicle. Discounts are available only for

ISIC Scholar and Student Card holders. Hold-

ers of a validated TallinnCard are entitled to

a free ride.

AccommodationsAll major hotels in Tallinn have been newly

built or completely renovation in recent years.

Despite annual additions to the number of ho-

tels and rooms, it can nonetheless be difficult

to find a hotel room on a short notice (particu-

larly over the weekend). For the best selection,

we urge visitors to Tallinn and the rest of Esto-

nia to book hotel rooms in advance. For more

details, see the Estonian Tourist Board website

at www.visitestonia.ee.

MoneyEstonia uses Euro and Estonians are keen users

of card payment facilities, with most hotels,

stores and restaurants accepting Visa, Mas-

terCard, Eurocard, Diner’s Club and American

Express.

Traveller’s checks can be exchanged in most

banks but are less likely to be accepted in

shops. Eurocheque is the most widely accept-

ed traveller’s check, but American Express and

Thomas Cook are also accepted.

Banks can be found scattered around the cen-

tre of all major Estonian towns. Most banks in

Tallinn are open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. on

weekdays, while some offices are also open

on Saturday mornings and offer currency ex-

change services. Exchange offices can also be

found in larger hotels, the airport, harbour,

railroad station and major shopping centres.

ATMs are conveniently located around town

with on-screen instructions in English, Russian

and Estonian.


I TOURISM

Telephones and InternetEstonian country code is 372. Dial 00 for out-

bound international calls.

The GSM mobile phone system is available;

please check compatibility with your operator.

Public Internet access points have been set

up all over Estonia. They are located in local

libraries and post offices. There are over 100

wireless free Internet zones around the coun-

try, many of them in rather unexpected places

- beaches, Old Town squares, stadiums, and

concert halls.

Emergencies112 is the emergency number for ambulance,

police and fire department. The police can

also be reached directly at 110. Emergency

numbers can be dialled free of charge. Select

pharmacies are open 24-hours-a-day in many

major towns. The one in Tallinn is located at 10

Pärnu Road (opposite the Estonian Drama The-

atre); the one in Tartu is located in the Town

Hall building (Town Hall Square).

national HolidaysEstonians celebrate January 1 as New Year’s

Day, a rather slow and quiet day as people

recover from the festivities. Shops open late

and banks are closed. February 24, Independ-

ence Day, is celebrated with a parade of the

Estonian Defence Forces at Vabaduse väljak

(Freedom Square). May 1 is a bank holiday,

similar to Good Friday and May Day. June 23

is the biggest holiday of the year as Estonians

celebrate Midsummer Eve and the Victory

Day in commemoration of the 1919 Battle of

Võnnu, and June 24 is St. John’s Day (Midsum-

mer). August 20 is the Day of Restoration of

Independence (1991). December 24 (Christ-

mas Eve), December 25 (Christmas Day) and

December 26 (Boxing Day) are usually spent at

home with families.

FoodTraditional Estonian cuisine consists of simple

peasant food, such as cottage cheese, pota-

toes and bread, all of which are still important

components of the local diet. The Estonian

dark bread is the main staple missed by Esto-

nians abroad. Typical Estonian dishes do not

feature prominently on restaurant menus, and

traditional home cooking is more likely to ap-

pear at small eateries in remote areas.

Modern Estonian cuisine is based on the age-

old tradition of locally sourced, pure ingre-

dients, influenced by Scandinavian, German

and Russian cuisines. Estonian culinary scene

has been on the rise for about a decade now

with new gourmet restaurants popping up

frequently all across the country. The list of

the top 50 Estonian restaurants can be found

at www.flavoursofestonia.com

DrinksThe main drinks in Estonia are beer, wine and

vodka. In the 1930s Estonian vodka made it into

the Guinness Book of Records as the strongest

vodka in the world (96º). Local brands of beer

enjoy a very strong market position in Estonia.

The two main breweries are Saku and A. Le

Coq. Saku is Tallinn-based, and its corporate

colour is navy blue while A.Le Coq is brewed in

Tartu and its colour is red. There are also many

smaller breweries. A full list of Estonian beers is

posted at www.BeerGuide.ee

Spirits also include some traditional liqueurs.

The famous Vana Tallinn (Old Tallinn) has a 45º

alcohol content, and is coincidentally made

from 45 ingredients - the recipe is known only

to a handful of people. Indeed, the legendary

19th-century kristallkümmel (caraway liqueur)

has made its long-awaited comeback.

Estonian wines, made from currants or other

local berries, are rather sweet. Wine lovers

usually prefer imported wine, of which there

is an ever-increasing selection at stores and

vinoteks. A very popular and refreshing non-

alcoholic drink is kali, made of bread, malt, rye

or oats flour and yeast; it has a characteristi-

cally dark brown colour.


EntertainmentThe entertainment scene in Estonia is vibrant

year-round, providing visitors and locals alike

with a long list to choose from. Concerts, festi-

vals, theatre and parties – Estonia has it all. Op-

era and ballet theatres in Tallinn and Tartu offer

world class plays for affordable prices starting as

low as 10 euros. For more information on the

concert schedule see www.concert.ee; the

programme for the national opera is posted

at www.opera.ee. Tickets can be bought at

the box offices or via ticket agencies located in

all larger supermarkets, or via Internet www.

piletilevi.ee, www.piletimaailm.com and

www.ticketpro.ee

Even the most sceptical museum-goer is bound

to find something intriguing in Estonia’s large

selection of museums, which feature every-

thing from history, art, photography to toys,

chocolate, musical instruments, even wax fig-

ures and many other topics. Most museums

are closed on Tuesdays and many on Mondays

as well. It is advisable to have cash on hand

as many museums do not accept credit cards.

Tallinn is also bustling well into the night with

booming and blooming club scene. Clubs are

usually open and packed with energised vibes

from Thursday to Sunday, with Friday and Sat-

urday drawing the liveliest of crowds. In addi-

tion to local and resident DJs, clubs frequently

present guest performers from London, the

US and other club hubs. For those looking for

a more mellow night on the town, Tallinn’s

street are brimming with bars and pubs, many

of which offer live music even on weekdays.

Rather take in a movie? Films in cinemas are

shown in the original language with subtitles.

ShopsQuality handicrafts, designer goods

and food are available at supermar-

kets and smaller boutiques in all larger

towns. Typical opening times of super-

markets in Tallinn are from 9 a.m. until

9 p.m. Department stores close a few

hours earlier on Sundays and, in smaller

towns, may be closed on Sundays. Small-

er food shops may have shorter opening

hours. Some 24-hour shops can be found

as well. Other shops usually open at 9

a.m. or 10 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. or 7

p.m.; they often close early on Saturdays

and are closed on Sundays. Most shops

accept credit cards, with the exception of

smaller stores and stores in rural areas. Al-

cohol is sold from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

SouvenirsSouvenir and shopping preferences vary

hugely but there are certain souvenir gifts

that have gladdened many a heart. Esto-

nian handicraft comes in many forms. There

are woollen sweaters and mittens with local

ethnic patterns, linen sheets and tablecloths,

crocheted shawls and veils, colourful woven

rugs, handmade jewellery and glassware,

baskets, and an array of wooden spoons and

butter knives made from juniper. Fine and ap-

plied art for show and purchase is on display

at art galleries around the country, featuring

graphics, glass, ceramics, hand-painted silk

scarves and leatherwork. Various herbal teas

from wild plants are available at pharmacies.

Local honey – pure or flavoured, e.g. ginger, is

another delicious treat. In rural areas, you may

find hand-milled flour. And those who keep

coming back swear by the Estonian black rye

bread. To bring home local spirits, popular

choices include Vana Tallinn or kristallkümmel

liqueur or local beer. And there is no place bet-

ter than Estonia to buy Estonian music.

CrimeAlthough common sense is advisable in all

destinations, Estonia gives no particular rea-

son to be excessively worried. Do not walk the

unlit and abandoned areas alone at night. Do

not leave bags or items of value in the car, as

not to tempt car thieves or robbers. Pickpock-

ets may operate at crowded tourist destina-

tions in Tallinn, so make sure your wallet and

documents are stored safely.

LanguageThe Estonian language is the only official lan-

guage of Estonia and spoken by about a mil-

lion people worldwide. Many people are flu-

ent in English, particularly the younger urban

generation. Knowledge of foreign languages

is naturally a must for hotel staff and numer-

ous other professions in the service sector. A

great number of people also speak Finnish

due to Finland’s close proximity and the great

number of Finnish tourists. German is less

widely spoken and Russian language is spoken

mainly by the older generation. Estonians do

not expect short-term visitors to master the lo-

cal language. Still, local people are thrilled and

pleased to hear a foreigner say “Tere!” (Hi!) or

“Aitäh (Thank you) in Estonian.

EstoniansEstonians are typical Nordic people – they are

reserved, not too talkative and speak rather

monotonously, with very little intonation. All

this may give one the impression of coldness

bordering on rudeness. But rest assured, this is

not the case, and the speaker may actually be

extremely well-meaning, even excited. There

are several well-known Estonian sayings, such

as “Think first, then speak”, “Weigh every-

thing carefully nine times before making a

move”, and “Talking is silver, silence is gold”.

It is, therefore, no wonder that the people are

not very good at small talk, do not waste too

much time on grand introductions, and usually

come straight to the point. This is why Estoni-

ans’ English may sometimes sound shockingly

direct. There is, however, often a subtle irony

involved in Estonians’ utterances - delivered

with a serious face and just the slightest twin-

kle of the eye.

Estonians are relatively individualistic. There is a

saying that five Estonians mean six parties. Even

though people agree on the final objective, they

insist on reaching it in their own ways. Estoni-

ans also value their privacy. In the old days, it

was said that the neighbour’s house was close

enough if you could see the smoke from the

chimney. Modern, tight-packed urbanites flock

to remote countryside on the weekends to enjoy

more space and privacy.

Even though guests at birthday parties and

concerts are rather quiet and subdued in the

onset, they warm up eventually and turn into

a direct opposite of their day-character, as you

are likely to see in Tallinn’s clubs.


I TOURISM

MARCH-APRIL

March 26-29

Tallinn Music Week 2015

Tallinn Music Week is the biggest

musical talent showcase in the

Nordic and Baltic area. The larg-

est indoor music festival attracts

over 15,000 music lovers from

Estonia and neighbouring coun-

tries. It is a meeting point for the

audience, musicians and music

industry professionals.

tmw.ee

March 27-28

Tallinn Craft Beer

Weekend 2015

TCBW is Estonia’s first interna-

tional craft beer event organised

by Põhjala Brewery. It takes place

at the Telliskivi Creative City – a

meeting point for the creative

industries in the bohemian part

of the town. The lineup of about

twenty breweries includes the

best of Baltic craft breweries as

well as participants from other

European countries and the US.

The festival will be held in coop-

eration with Tallinn Music Week.

4-12 April

Pärnu restaurant Week will

take place for the first time. Dur-

ing the Restaurant Week, partici-

pating restaurants offer a two-

course lunch menu for 10 euros

and a three-course dinner for 15

euros. The menu will be available

on the website www.parnures-

taurantweek.ee.

5 April

The Great Towers Vertical

Challenge

Tallinn TV Tower and the World

Federation of Great Towers will

organise a popular international

running contest which will con-

quer the Tallinn TV Tower as well.

Registration for the TV Tower

stage is open for English speakers

at www.towerrun.eu

10-19 April,

in Tallinn and Tartu

9th Japanese Animation

Festival JAFF offers screenings

of over 20 animations in different

genres - for adults, adolescents

and children.

www.animefest.eu

15-17 April,

in Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu

Diverse Universe Performance

Festival 2015 is an annual festi-

val born in Pärnu. It is one of the

biggest festivals in Europe dedi-

cated to performance art. The

festival travels through Europe,

bringing together over 200 artists

and offering visitors exciting per-

formances and workshops.

diverse2014.tumblr.com

17-16 April

26th Tallinn international

Festival “Jazzkaar 2015”

Tallinn International Festival

Jazzkaar is the biggest jazz festi-

val in the Baltic states, which has

been held since 1990. This year’s

headliners are David Sanborn,

Gregory Porter, John Scofield and

Ester Rada. www.jazzkaar.ee

18-19 April,

at Tallinn Tondiraba ice rink

Simple Session 15

Simple Session is a world-re-

nownedBMXandskateboarding

contest with 14 years of history,

bringing together the globe’s

greatestBMXridersandskat-

ers for a weekend of incredible

action. Best contenders, hottest

new names, a dazzling show and

mind-blowing energy!

session.ee/2015/home/

23-26 April

10th Haapsalu Horror and

Fantasy Film Festival “HÕFF”

HÕFF is an independent festival

focusing of screening best films

from the darker side of cinema

- fantasy and horror, forgotten

classics, filmmaker and country

retrospectives, extreme films and

celebrated guests.

2015.hoff.ee

MAY

1 May

85th Grand race

around lake Viljandi

This event is popular among run-

ners and Nordic walking enthusi-

asts throughout the country. The

11.5 km race offers a stunning

course with diverse scenery that

makes the fun run even more

memorable. Participants must

complete a circuit of Lake Vil-

jandi - choosing their own route

around it.

viljandijarvejooks.ee

6-9 May, in Tartu

Prima Vista literary Festival

The theme of the festival in 2015

is “Wild word”. The festival patron

is Valdur Mikita. As always, Prima

Vista takes place in another Estoni-

an town as well - this time in Põlva.

kirjandusfestival.tartu.ee

6-10 May

8th international Jõhvi

Ballet Festival

Jõhvi International Ballet Festival

was founded in 2006 and it is the

only ballet festival in Estonia. The

main guest of the 2015 festival is

Teatri di Milano.

www.concert.ee/

johvi-ballet-festival

10 May

SEB Tartu Marathon

(23/10 km running and

Nordic walking)

The main event, the 23 km dis-

tance is the most popular of its

kind in Estonia. You can also run

the 10 km course, or cover either

distance by Nordic walking. The

finish line is at the Tartu County

Sports Centre in Elva. Children’s

races are also held as part of the

event in Tartu, Otepää and Elva.

www.tartumaraton.ee

15-17 May

38th Türi Flower Fair

The Türi Flower Fair presents gar-

dening firms, forestry schools and

private gardens, who have special

offers designed to help hobby gar-

deners improve their gardens.

www.tyrilillelaat.ee

22-24 May, in Viljandi

19th international puppet

theatre festival “Theatre in

a Suitcase”

The programme consists of

shows, followed by discussions led

by stage directors. At the end of

each day, Surprise Act of the Day

is nominated by the audiences.

Street performances and work-

shops are free for the participants.

www.viljandinukuteater.ee/media/

festival2014/KAVA.pdf


UPCOMInG EvEnTS


I TOURISM

22-27 May

Pärnu international opera

music festival “PromFest”

“PromFest” is a festival for lovers

of opera music. The festival was

launched in 2005.

The programme mainly focuses

on young singers and audiences.

www.promfest.ee

23 May, in Tallinn

SEB May Fun run

The SEB May Fun Run is a spring

sports event for women. The

event comprises a 7 km timed

race, an untimed race and a

walking/Nordic walking event.

The day culminates in a spring

concert. Everybody taking part

receives a memento of the race,

plus surprises. Everyone who

completes the main distance

will receive a special Viking Line

voucher for a free return ferry

trip to Finland.

www.jooks.ee

27-31 May, in Tallinn

7th Tallinn literature Festival

“Headread”

HeadRead brings together writ-

ers from Estonia and abroad to

spreading the message of the

written word. Workshops, literary

walks in different Tallinn districts,

children’s mornings, poetry cafes

and lots of other exciting events.

headread.ee

MAY-JUnE

30 May-1 June,

Tour of Estonia 2015

Tour of Estonia is an international

cycling event belonging to the

UCI calendar of tours and pass-

ing through the beautiful towns

and villages of Estonia. It consist

of three stages:

* 30 May 1st stage:

Tallinn-Tartu 190 km

* 31 May 2nd stage:

Tartu GP 150 km

* 1 June 3rd stage:

SEB Tartu Cycling Rally

(road cycling, 133/71 km

www.tourogestonia.ee/en

30-31 May, in Narva

“Baroque ironwork“

The summer season at Narva For-

tress’ Northern Yard opens with

the international blacksmiths’

festival “Baroque Ironwork”

where blacksmiths from Estonia,

Finland, Russia, Lithuania, and

Latvia show different products

and methods and share their

expertise.

30 May-6 June

Tallinn Old Town Days aim

to introduce and value the Old

Town’s history and cultural

legacy. The festival is free for the

public. This year’s slogan time

is “Masters through centuries”

- the 2015 festival welcomes

blacksmiths, wood sculptors,

basket weavers, stone sculptors,

but also bakers, glassblowers and

other masters who have given

Tallinn its reputation as a home

of masters.

JUnE

4-7 June

35th Viljandi international

Hanseatic Days

European Hanseatic cities will

convene to their annual festivity

in Viljandi. Over 80 representa-

tions from all over Europe will

attend. The town will be buzzing

with concerts, performances,

workshops and lots of other fun

activities.

www.hanse.org/en/

international-hanse-days/

hanseatic-day-2015-in-viljandi/

4-7 June

Tallinn Treff Festival 2015

Tallinn Treff Festival is an inter-

national festival of visual theatre

with the goal of introducing and

popularising modern puppet

arts, preserving and continuing

puppetry traditions and surpris-

ing with art forms we never even

knew existed. The festival is or-

ganised by NUKU puppet theatre

from Tallinn, Estonia.

www.nuku.ee

6-7 June, in rakvere

Male Dance Festival THrEE –

THrEE TiMES MOrE A MAN

THREE signifies these elements as

aspects of the essence of human-

ity, and when turned on end, this

becomes the letter M represent-

ing the initial letter of the word

man. Approximately 3,500 men

will perform 32 dances specially

choreographed for the third in-

stalment of the Estonian Male

Dance Festival.

meestetantsupidu.ee

8-12 June

Tallinn Guitar Festival

The festival offers an irresistible

selection of music and meetings

with the brightest stars and top

guitar players from Spain, Brazil

and elsewhere.

www.kitarrifestival.ee

12 June

The food culture festival

Good Food Festival – Grillfest

For two days, 200 caterers from

Estonia and abroad serve their

best fare. We have outdoor res-

taurants, cafés and even a pet

restaurant. You can enjoy good

food, national fishing champion-

ships and food competitions.

The festival has performances by

excellent artists on various stages;

music styles offer something to

every taste. Both days of the

festival end with magnificent

fireworks. Everyone is welcome

to the Grillfest: the entrance is

free of charge!

www.grillfest.com.ee

13 June

Narva Energy run includes a 7

km run, walking/Nordic walking

and a 21.1 km run. The running

trail goes along the streets of

Narva, passing historic bastions,

fortifications, the Alexander’s

Cathedral and many other ex-

citing buildings. It is a unique

possibility to run on the most

eastward track of the European

Union, on the beautiful shore of

River Narva.

www.jooks.ee/narva/

19-21 June, in Pärnu

The WATErGATE Festival

The festival features large and

small concerts, top sports events

and fun activities both for the

young and old. The festival has

venues all across the town.

22 June, in Eidapere,

rapla County

8th Estonian Wife-Carrying

Championships and rapla

County Tug-of-War Open

The wife-carrying competition

has become something of a

national festival over the years.

Taking place alongside it is the

Rapla County Tug-of-War Open,

as well as the Eidapere Strong

Man contest and the 3rd Eida-

pere Swing competition to see

who can make it all the way over

the top and down again on the

traditional village swing. There is

a bonfire in the evening and live

music.

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Life in Estonia Spring 2015

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