After months of build-up and clearing the final hurdles, Estonia has officially been given the go-ahead from Brussels to become the 17th member of the eurozone at the beginning of next year.
The EU on Tuesday gave the small country the green light for taking on the currency as of Jan. 1, converting at the current exchange rate of 15.6466 Kroon per Euro.

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Published: July 19 2010

To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine -- now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide -- Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
Visiting a tiny land like Estonia, I'm impressed by the resilience of a small nation. How can just over a million Estonians survive the centuries wedged between Russia and Germany? With the agenda of tyrants to the East and West, I'd think Estonia would fare like a sheet of Kleenex in a flushing toilet.

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Published: July 12 2010

Young people from Russia, Finland, but also for example from Japan, Serbia, Turkey, France, US, Romania and Italy have already signed up to spend three weeks of their summer vacation in Tallinn in order to learn Estonian language at the Tallinn Summer School, intensive language course organized for the fifth year in a row by the Tallinn University.
In fact, even though the Tallinn University summer program offers 16 different courses, including Russian, English, Spanish and Italian language, but also for example Social Marketing, Digital Photography, and Creative Writing in English, it is the Estonian course that is most popular, and is offered both for beginners as well as on advanced level. Twenty scholarships were offered to the best applicants by the Estonian Institute, the association supporting the teaching of Estonian language abroad and to foreign students.

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Published: July 12 2010

Euro is about to come and the Estonian society is worried about what is going to happen then. Dr. Robert Pefferly Jr., Associate Professor of Economics at Estonian Business School (EBS), spoke with Estonian Free Press to express his point of view and his analysis of the current situation.
What is your personal vision about the economical situation in Estonia during the last years?
What we just went through is a totally traditional classic bubble with prices fluctuating around a strange attractor based upon (real) fundamentals.
It is used to take about 20 years to repeat the cycle, now it seems to take approximately from 5-9 years to go through the entire cycle. The information technology revolution (now over 120 years old) seems to be increasing our cycle speeds too.

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Published: July 12 2010

The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, near the Blue Ridge Mountains in southwestern Virginia, commemorated the 66th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy on Sunday, June 6.  Bedford was selected for the National D-Day memorial because the town suffered the greatest per capita loss of life of any U.S. town during the Normandy invasion during World War II. 
The memorial includes statues of western Allied leaders, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry Truman.  Normally, a memorial honoring D-Day, when 66 years ago over 160,000 troops from the United States, Britain, France and Canada stormed the beaches of Normandy, would cause little consternation.  However, the memorial also includes a new statue – a bust of dictator Joseph Stalin - a source of considerable controversy.

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Published: June 21 2010

On the morning of Thursday, June 10, representatives of embassies, ethnic organizations and groups, the Congress, and individuals gathered at the Victims of Communism Memorial at the intersection of New Jersey Ave. and Massachusetts Ave., NW, in Washington, DC, to commemorate the more than 100 million victims of communism. The Memorial was dedicated on June 12, 2007, by President George W. Bush, and is visited frequently by officials, diplomats, and individuals who wish to honor these victims.

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Published: June 21 2010

There are usually disadvantages and various degrees of unpleasantness involved in showing up late to a party. It all depends on how late you arrive. Just an hour or two late, and the appetizers tray is either empty or you have to settle for slim pickins’. Several hours late, and you have two choices. You can once again discover how silly inebriated people are, which gets old quick, or you can boost your alcohol intake to catch up with the others. If you’re very late, arriving in the early morning hours, the house will likely be in disarray, and many partygoers will have left or nodded off on the sofa.

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Published: June 14 2010

25 May (BNS) - Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and Deputy Speaker of the Chinese Parliament Jianmin Hua underlined that relations between Estonia and China are very good.
Ansip has been on visits to China on three occasions, twice as head of government and once as mayor of Tartu. "I have enjoyed every minute of my stays in China," Ansip said. Jianmin Hua is in Estonia for the second time.

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Published: June 14 2010