Laulupidu/Song Festival
Hi. I am finally back to normal life, ready to start writing about those things I promised to write about, oh, about two weeks ago. Thanks to all those who continued to stop by while I was gone!
Some of pictures I featured in my last post were from the Song and Dance Festival I mentioned in an earlier post. I participated in the Song Festival– which was held during the first weekend in July– singing in the ranks of the mixed choir I joined about a year and a half ago. My choir made up just a tiny portion of the full mixed choir, which numbered almost 9,000 singers, and that number was just a part of the massed choirs, which numbered over 25,000 singers (including children’s choirs, boys’ choirs, men’s choirs, women’s choirs, etc.). So… yes. I stood before an audience and sang as just one of 25,000 voices, all under the control of a masterful conductor, taking part in a tradition that is such an essential part of Estonia’s history. It’s kind of hard to even describe what it’s like. It’s huge, and wonderful, and moving.
That’s the stage, a giant arch with steps underneath it… imagine it PACKED full of people!
And speaking of moving… as you can imagine, getting 25,000 people from one place to another is a logistical nightmare. I’m not gonna lie– the Laulupidu experience involves a lot of being squished together with other people, as well as a lot of standing and just waiting for something to happen. Sometimes we had hours of time to kill, sometimes we had to rush through the crowds to get to the proper place at the proper time, sometimes we had to stand through three and a half hours straight of rehearsal. I was starving after that last one. There was free food offered for the performers in the festival– soup, bread, and kohukesed– but after that one rehearsal I think all 9,000 mixed choir singers had the same idea, and the lines for free soup were unfathomably long. So my friend and I decided to partake in some 
grilled meat šašlokk, which was ubiquitous at the festival. Every second stand you walked past was grilling some meat, so I think the smell of it will forever bring up memories of the Song Festival for me.
I didn’t get a picture of my skewer of grilled pork chunks, but it was served with greasy potatoes and sub-par ketchup (watery and sweet, blech). In general, eating during those festival days was sporadic and took place whenever it could. I carried snacks with me like pirukad, apples, and some yummy PowerBar product my sister had brought from the States (it was like a chocolate peanut butter candy bar!) (it may have been this one). One day I shared this snack of pelmeni with my sister.
For some people, this was the main snack of choice:
…but I mostly stayed away from it during the festival (at least right before I had to sing). I wanted to stay lucid and stable, and besides, there’s no way to get to a bathroom when you’re crammed on the stage with thousands of other people.
Many of the singers enthusiastically waved the national tricolor…
While the massive audience watched and listened (and check out that sky! Estonia has the most picturesque sky sometimes.)
By Sunday evening, the end of the weekend and of the festival, I was drained. My feet hurt and I was ready for a hot sauna and as much sleep as I could possibly get. But, lest this post sound somehow negative– it was so, so worth it. Going to all those choir rehearsals through the cold, dark winter was worth it to stand up there with 25,000 fellow singers, not needing to glance at my song book at all, just being carried away by the feeling of the music and the movements of the conductor’s hands. And all the people! While that was one of the more frustrating parts, it’s also the most wonderful part. On Sunday there was a total of 100,000 people at the festival grounds, including the performers. Only about 1.3 million people even live in Estonia– think about it! Those are incredible numbers. This festival means so much to so many people, to this country as a whole, and I am so grateful that I got to take part in it.
Kohukesed, now in English
Yesterday’s post was the story of my introduction to kohukesed, whose name is unfortunately translated into English as cheese curd snack, which doesn’t sound too appetizing at all. Oh, but it is. It’s made with sweetened kohupiim, which is sort of like farmer’s cheese or quark, and covered with a firm chocolate coating. I can’t remember having been introduced to kohukuesed prior to my time as a student in Tartu. One of Tartu University’s student advisors invited me and some other foreign students to have a picnic. After we’d eaten all our salads and sausages, she announced that she’d brought something good for desert. She explained it like this: “It’s this little thing made from kohupiim and covered in chocolate. Sometimes they put other stuff in it too, like jam or a cookie. Those ones are like a little meal!” The one she handed me happened to be the one that contains both a cookie and jam (which is also the one I photographed for the post), and even though it was slightly smooshed from traveling in her bag, it was sooo good. Soft and sweet, the perfect little size, and it somehow feels healthy although it’s really not (but it is a dairy product, so it has some calcium, which is good, right?). From that day on, I bought my own kohukesed, sampling different brands, finding my favorites. My current favorite is the Leivakohuke (bread kohuke), which I thought sounded very weird until I tried it. The grainy flavors of dark bread combine with the smooth kohupiim to create something like a creamy cookie, and the chocolate coating is dark and intensely chocolatey.
I’m very happy that I got around to writing about one of my favorite Estonian foods, and in Estonian even! Hopefully it won’t take another year for the next Estonian post.
Kohukesed
When I named this blog, I was fully intending to incorporate more Estonian into it. How can it be a bilingual blog if I only write in one language? I’ve been updating (kinda-sorta) regularly for about a year now and I have written no posts in Estonian, so I either need to get started or change the name. And now, I present to you kohukesed (for those that can read it, forgive my imperfect Estonian. For those that can’t, an English summary will come tomorrow).
Kuigi ma olin Eestis käinud kolm korda enne kui läksin Tartusse õppima 2005. aastal, ma ei mäleta, et oleksin varem tutvunud kohukestega või isegi kohupiimaga. Olin Tartus olnud umbes nädal aega kui üks tuutoritest—Tartu ülikooli õpilased kes aitasid välismaalt õpilastel kohaneda—kutsus mind ja teisi inimesi pikniku tegema Tartu laululaval. Pärast kui me olime ära söönud salateid ja vorste (ja ajanud ära paar mesilast, sest mõned meie grupis hirmsalt kartsid), Ursula (tuutor) ütles, et ta oli toonud mida head magustoiduks. Ta seletas neid enam-vähem niimoodi: „Nad on sellised väikesed asjad tehtud kohupiimast ja kaetud šokolaadiga. Mõnikord pannakse teisi asju sisse ka, nagu moosi või küpsist… siis on ta nagu väike eine!” Mina tegelikult saingi seda kohukest milles on küpsist JA moosi (Jänksi küpsisekohuke), ja kuigi ta oli natuke lössis Ursula kotis istumisest, ta oli nii, nii hea. Perfektne suurus, pehme ja magus, kuidagi tundub tervislik kuigi ta tegelikult et ole (aga ta on piimatoode ja seega sisaldab kaltsiumi, eks ole?). Sellest päevast edasi, ma ostsin endale kohukesi. Ursula oli öelnud meile ka, et parim kohuke on Läti toode Karums. Need on tõesti väga head, täidis on eriti kreemjas ja rikas, on peaaegu nagu väike tükk Ameerika cheesecake’i. Aga vahel ihaldan midagi, mis ei ole nii rikas, ja ostan mingit lihtsamat kohukest. Mu praegune lemmik on Leivakohuke. Ootasin, et oleks imelik, aga see rukkileiva maitse seguneb nii hästi kohupiima täidisega ja on nagu pehme kreemjas küpsis. Ma leian, et selle glasuur on eriti hea šokolaadi maitsega ka.
Jänksi küpsisekohuke
Kohuke on üks asi millest ma väga tundsin puudu, kui olin tagasi Ameerikas. Olin neid tutvustanud mu õele ja tema leiutas (kogemata!) kohuke milkshake, mis sisaldas vanilje jogurtit, šokolaadi joogipulbrit, piima ja sünnipäevakoogi maitselist jäätist (sellist asja on Ameerikas olemas küll!).
Ma tunnen nüüd paremini, et olen kirjutanud ühest lemmikust Eesti toidust ja eesti keeles veel pealegi.
Discovered?
On Tuesday morning, I decided to check my blog stats over breakfast. I got a bit of a surprise. 80? 80 hits already today? My previous one-day record was 46. Whoa, I thought, something must be up. Next I checked my email and got my answer: a link to my post about Sunday’s big snowstorm had made it to Toomasmd, the manager of a huge mailing list sent out to Estonians in America and probably elsewhere as well. On a daily basis, items that are of interest to Estonians or Estophiles– articles, videos, and the occasional blog post– get sent out to the list. Wow. I was flattered, but also a tad nervous. My blog has been pretty shy up to this point. By the end of Tuesday, I had over 200 hits, and the link was also posted on the web page of the Canadian-Estonian newspaper.
I’m sure many people only came by to read the snowstorm post, but if any of you väliseestlased or Estophiles have returned once more, tere tulemast (welcome). Nice to have you visit. 
The bounty of Estonia in the autumn
In my last post, I mentioned enjoying the things that nature makes available to us in this part of the world. Sharing my activities from this weekend will be an appropriate follow-up to that. On Friday, my department at work and the department we share a floor with left the building at noon to take a field trip to a bog 60 km outside of Tallinn. Nature walks have nothing to do with my job itself, but some of us decided we wanted to get out of the building and socialize in a more natural setting .
At Kakerdaja raba (Kakerdaja bog– the name comes from a type of bird), we hiked through forests, traversed the bog on a trail made of planks, and listened to stories from our guide, Romeo (…which is not a common Estonian name). The bog offered more than just beautiful views– there were big, ripe cranberries growing along the plank trail, so it was easy to reach down and pop a firm, sour berry in your mouth without even breaking stride (the plank trail is narrow, so we had to walk single file). And just as our stomachs were starting to rumble and we were getting somewhat tired, we reached a forested spot thick with blueberries, even bigger and sweeter than the ones I found in Finland, so of course we made a pit stop there. It was just so satisfying spending a quiet, relaxing afternoon surrounded by a vast expanse of untouched land… complete with snacks.
Then on Saturday, I went seenele (mushroom-picking). It’s very common for Estonians to head to the woods early on autumn mornings to fill their baskets with fresh wild mushrooms. Pille over at Nami-nami has written more informatively about wild mushrooms in Estonia than I ever could, so I recommend heading over there if you want to know more about this custom.
I was heading into the woods for the first time in my life to pick mushrooms, along with the kind co-worker who had agreed to take me with her. The fact that I’d never done it before is one of those things that reminds me that I’m not a “real” Estonian, as I didn’t grow up here, doing the things that other Estonians have done. But now I’m here, and I want to learn how to find mushrooms. I was shown two types of mushrooms that are good to eat, so that was basically all I was looking for… but I couldn’t find any. I found mushrooms, of course, but they didn’t possess the characteristics I was looking for (and many of them had skinny stems, which somebody told me is usually the sign of a shady mushroom. Edible mushrooms generally have fat stems). I enjoyed being outdoors, crouching low to the ground, poking and examining mushrooms that were interesting, if not edible, but after a while I did get somewhat discouraged (my more experienced companions found some mushrooms, but even they were having a difficult time, as there weren’t very many around).
But then, wonder of wonders, in the third area we visited, I found one! And a few more next to it! And later, 2 more! So my grand total for the day came to 5 lousy mushrooms, 2 of which were tiny, but I didn’t care. They were my first-ever mushrooms, mushrooms that I’d picked myself and would prepare in my kitchen. And I know that the next time I venture into the woods, I’ll learn even more, recognize even more, and hopefully find more. And maybe it will even make me more Estonian .
