Wikimedia Estonia

I’ve met Ivo, a university student of about my age in last October to discuss the possibilities and benefits of setting up a Wikimedia chapter in Estonia.

At the time he has just finished giving a lecture on how to use Wikipedia in the Tartu local library and I was confident that if he could get a couple of more people that share his enthusiasm, they could achieve a lot for free culture in Estonia.

Fast forward to the present, and Wikimedia Eesti has been established and approved by the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation as an official chapter.

This past year has not been spent in vain; however, as a couple of projects, like an image gathering drive and an article writing contest have been started on the Estonian Wikipedia  and from what I gather from their recent grant request, a project involving Estonian schools is well in preparation, as well.

Please join me in welcoming Wikimedia Eesti to the network of Wikimedia chapters and wish them luck for their first projects.

Estonian Parliament

The Estonian Parliament is a curiously eclectic building in the heart of Tallinn’s Old Town just behind the ornamental three-domed building of the Russian Orthodox Nevsky Cathedral.

This building complex blends completely into its surrounding like a chameleon, so much so that each side of the building comes from a different century. The backside of the building is actually the original town walls blending into a medieval castle.

Inside the building one finds the usual accessories of parliamentary buildings with a courtyard to solve any parking problems of cabinet members and deputies, large reception areas with exquisitely woven carpets and overhanging chandeliers, offices and of course the debating chamber.

The blue room that accommodates the hundred or so MPs is situated in the blue part of the building and as a nice feature it receives natural light from the courtyard, which surely helps the deliberation and cuts down on the electricity bill.

The long way home

I am finally back in Budapest, after quite an exhausting journey that has taken many turns and twists. After 5 hours of sleep and some last-minute packing I was on my way to Tallinn airport witnessing the snow covered plains and forest of Estonia and the sunset at around 4 pm.

At the airport I was among the first to check in, which was not much help as my plane was an hour late, meaning that I was going to miss my connection in Frankfurt. Finally, we landed just as my second plane was supposed to take off, and I was taken by the airport bus to a gate about a kilometer away from the gate I was supposed to be at half an hour earlier

Fortunately, the second plane was delayed as well so I could make it (after covering the 1km distance between my arrival and departure points in record time, they moved my gate much closer). In the end we took off twenty minutes after we were supposed to land already and had a smooth ride.

After the pilot missed the bridge connecting to the terminal by about a metre and had to order the anxious passengers back to their seats, I was finaly at home again:

Paterei Prison

Pictures from Paterei prison that was operational until 2005, and now serves as a "culture park" for tourists, parties and weddings in Tallinn.

Sunset in Paldiski

Sunset in Paldiski
Originally uploaded by bdamokos

From the town where Lilja 4-ever was filmed. Unfortunately this town is as bleak in real life as was in the film -- even the setting sun over the Baltic Sea cannot help much as the shore is cut off by the railway and the harbour.