In my pre-debate tournament frenzy of stress and poor time management I have been trying to find an interesting and pertinent topic involving Eastern Europe to write about. I've had ideas and even though I'd do a whole historical analysis but it's Tuesday morning *cough cough* and before our last class I want to write on a more lighthearted topic that we can all relate to.
I came across this article about how unique Estonians are when compared to individuals from other nations. I would never have googled this per se but when I found it on a Baltic news site I figured it might spark a little interest amidst otherwise depressing political subjects. An article by Toomas Hobemagi (say that three times fast) says that "this nation has tens of theatres, concert halls and universities, hundreds of libraries, museums, choirs, dance groups, thousands of poets, musicians and other artists, etc, etc."
When looking at Estonia per capita people wonder how in the world they have published so many works of literature in such a short time. Estonians seem to have a particular aptitude for the arts and, as this article says, nearly everyone has an interesting hobby. From botany to inventors to yogis, Hobemagi speculates that this is due to a fear of the mundane. Everyone wants to be an individual so they try to adopt unique interests and hone their skills.
I thought this was really interesting in a social sense because what we often hear implied about Eastern Europeans is that they are harsh, hardworking people who love futbol and war and nothing else. Here is the link to the article:
http://balticbusinessnews.com/article/2009/11/17/Estonians_a_gifted_nation_with_a_twist
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