Visiting a German Vine pearl..

Last week I had the opportunity to visit some vineyards in Groß Umstadt, taste the wines and talk to the winemakers.

It must be said that I have not considered myself as a great fan of German wine and I don't know much about their wine-areas..

So for the un-educated person, that I am, I got to know that Groß Umstadt is called a wine-island. It is not connected to the more known Mosel and Rhein areas. a

The vineyards are mostly located on the southward slopes of the hill just above the small city.

The growers like to grow German favourites: Riesling, Gewürtztraminer, Späte Burgunder, Dornfelder and others. I was surprised that they were also experimenting with Regent as an ecological alternative to other wine-grapes.

Since Groß Umstadt is located within the borders of the historical Roman empire, the locals prefer to call themselves the civilised and the rest (20km east) the hunns or barbarians.

The romans brought wine culture to the german tribes. Vine growing has been decreasing in times during the past centuries. Germans love beer instead.

Grosse Umstadt 10/30/09 11:31 PM

Groß Umstadt vine growers have very small plantations. It is due to historic regulations: one could only buy or rent existing vineyards. You are not allowed to start a new one. So a lot of the growers grow on plots smaller than 2 ha.

But, the quality is exceptional. We could taste some increasingly clean, nuance-rich whites and to finnish it all up: a very smooth, chocholate and coffee vibed red, made from Regent. I was immediatelly turned into Regent religion;)

Visited Vineyards in Southern Estonia Fall 2009

Southern Estonian Vineyards Fall 2009

Since this Blog is increasingly promoted as Ukus and Kertus vineyard blog, I will start publishing more materials about vinegrowing in Estonia. Here you have an album of a trip to Southern Estonia. Jaak Eensalu Annemäe Vineyard - Rondo, Solaris, Cabernet Frank - wine and Liia Kaska vineyard, she grows tens of varieties, mostly table grapes.

Nynäs Slott - eller jag älskar Svenska Slott

Har tagit ännu en liten tur runt Nynäs Slott.

Visserligen var allt vinterstängt, men +19 och soligt var det ändå!

Klicka här för flera bilder!

Eesti Saartelt uus majandustõus?

Kuulsin eile raadios huvitavat lauset: Saaremaa lennuliini käsitletakse doteeringus tee pikendusena. Samuti peaks vist täna parvlaevaühendust käsitlema. Reaalsus on kahjuks hoopis teine.

Sõites täna Võru maakonna lõppu, kulub sõiduks läbitud km. bensiin ja aeg. Ma maksan kas ühistranspordi pileti või oma auto sõidukulud. Tee eest ma ei maksa. Selle summa saab riik kütuseaktsiisi kaudu juba kätte.

Sõites Saaremaale või Hiiumaale koosneb minu teekonna kulu: läbitud km. ja aeg + kütus ning siis sinna lisaks veel: aeg praamijärjekorras + praamipilet?!?

Usun, et see teema ei ole eriti originaalne, kuid kas ma olen ainuke inimene, kellele tundub, et võrdse kohtlemise seaduspärasusest on Saartele sõitjate ja muudesse Eesti kohtadesse sõitjate puhul palju rääkida?

Nõukogude ajal oli kaug-idas käibel eri-hindade ja palkade süsteem, mis üritas kompenseerida elamist kaugetel aladel ning kaupade kallist transpordikulu sinna. Eesti saartel ei ole bensiin odavam, ega palgad kõrgemad. Vastupidi, enamus tooteid on müügil natuke kallimalt kui mandri linnade suurpoodides (v.a. Kuressaare suurmarketid) ja bensiin maksab ühtmoodi kui mujal Eestis. Palgad seevastu tugevalt madalamad kui mandril. Seega maksustatakse Saartel elavad-töötavad-tootvad inimesed kõrgemalt kui mandril asuvad elanikud. Füüsiline isolatsioon ei luba ka tervendaval turukonkurentsil liigselt asju mõjutada.

Kuna paistab, et ametkonnad ei ole suutnud luua parvlaevaühendust, kus kulu Saaremaale sõiduks oleks sama kui kulu sama kaugele mandrile sõiduks, siis räägitakse Silla-projektist. Ja hiljuti üsna vähe sellest.

Kahjuks on tehtavad uuringud praegu suunatud vaid ühele sillale: Suure Väina sillale. Samas pakub merepõhja sügavus ja saarte kaugus võimaluse ühendada ka Vormsi - Hiiumaa ja Saaremaa sildadega. Või vast kõige optimaalsem variant arvestades külaliste arvu: Saaremaa Suure Väina kaudu ja Hiiumaa üle Saaremaa.

Tänases poliitilises võitluses on imelik tõdeda, et ükski arvestatav poliitiline erakond ei kanna seda teemat täie jõuga avalikus diskussioonis. See teema on võrreldav tuumajaama ja euro kasutuselevõtuga ning annaks kindlasti nii poliitilist PR-kapitali kui ka kaudselt tulu seda teostavale parteile. Pealegi on tegu projektiga, mida on võimalik tänasel hetkel rahastada ja läbi viia ning mille tagajärjel näeksime kindlasti mingit konstantset SKP tõusu sillale järgnevatel aastatel.

Saaremaa ja Hiiumaa majandus on viimased 20 aastat kiratsenud otsekui summuti all. Saarte inimesed on visad ja ettevõtlikud. Nad on harjunud ajama asju lolluste kiuste. Ajalooliselt on tegu väga laia suhtlusringinga heade müügimeestega. Eesti vajaks sellist kiirelt arenevat majandust, et lähiaastatel Masu'st tingitud kukkumist tagasi teha. Kasutades Saaremaa ja Hiiumaa majandusi on see võimalik. Enne tuleb siiski võrdsustada ligipääs nendele aladele teiste Eesti aladega. Ainus pähetulev analoog on praegu Petserimaa, mis on samuti raskesti ligipääsetav, kuid põhjuseks territoriaalne kuulumine Vene Federatsiooni alla. Eesti riigi valitsemise all ei ole mandril ühtegi selliselt raskendatud ligipääsetavusega ala.

Kutsun üles arutlema meie Presidendi tihti välja öeldud teemal, - ”maal elamine tuleb oma kuludelt võrdsustada linnas elamisele”. Lisaksin sellele mõttele ka saarte dimensiooni.

Tallinn does Chelsea

This year, Tallinn city will hold a garden exibition in the Old Town parks during the summer that comprises of more than 20 different gardens, presented by professional garden designers from Estonia and abroad.

The areas were prepared in May, all planting will start in June. I'll keep you posted with pics and info on that.

What non-estonians think about the current situation in Estonia

I was positively surprised by the quality of comments in balticbusinessnews.com, commenting Jüri Uustalu's article about the Estonian government hiding its mistakes..

Since the comments are anonymous, I will dare to cite one of the very best. The guy calls himself Buckie.. I really hope, that Estonian decision makers read these comments and start understanding how the rest of the world sees Estonias problems. The local debate has canonized one story and one truth, that has more or less killed the meaning of a debate. Even less help make positive decisions.

"Buckie

05.05.09 16:13

Yes, the government is running around in ever-decreasing circles looking to trim this budget and that budget but they just fail to see the bigger picture – by cutting funding they are killing any potential shoots of recovery before those have poked their heads out of the ground and any seemingly healthy aspects of the economy are being retarded by this attritional and, quite frankly, toxic policy. What has caused me the most alarm in Estonia, and indeed in the other Baltic States, is the lack of any coherent Plan B. Everyone in the opposition – and some in coalition too! – is ready to shoot down the government but nobody seems willing to ask or answer the obvious question, “So what would you do that is different?” Plan A is blatantly flawed but nobody has considered ANY Plan B. So we are left with an invalid where the declared state policies are to do less to assist the increasing unemployed, increase the tax burden on earners who are already seeing their salaries shrink due to wage cuts, cut all “superfluous” state funding in infrastructure, freeze payments to pension funds which were highly hyped at their outset, let’s not bother to go any further – am I the only person adding this all up apart from PerEconProg? What is the aim of this state-sponsored suicide pact? Why, yes, it’s the Euro. The be all and end all of Estonian economic policy. But what will the treasured Euro accession bring? Will it immediately create the green shoots of recovery? The PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) don't seem to believe that and they bemoan the loss of a currency that they can devalue to regain competitiveness in export markets. Of course there has to be a base of goods to export before we can consider that scenario and Estonia's manufacturing sector has been laying off workers to such an extent that it may very well be too late to make any attempt to effectively trade out of recession by ramping up competitiveness levels. PerEconProg has nicely carved up the figures to demonstrate what phenomena have occurred in the employment market since independence. If the main economic thrust has been to offer a service economy then the majority of those in service roles need to look in the mirrors long and hard. In 1995 I wrote an article for a business publication in the UK entitled “Estonia – A Service Economy With No Concept Of Service” and at the time I was gently rebuked by Estonian friends who claimed that I was premature in my evaluation of their efforts as time would prove them to be competent. Well, I could apply the same arguments that I applied then to today’s Estonia but this time the chiding would be replaced with visceral hatred. In that 1995 article I also touched on the Estonian attitude towards education as being praiseworthy and I foresaw educational excellence on the distant horizon. Unfortunately the opposite seems to have occurred with parochial attitudes being hardened by lack of vision beyond the borders of the country. Some of the private educational establishments are shamefully blowing their own trumpets but offering nothing of any note and Tartu University remains, according to a senior Swedish academic with whom I shared a recent SAS flight, “on the level of a second division school in Portugal.” That quote rather surprised me but he assured me that he could only wish that he was not being serious. However I have no experience of the Portuguese second division so I can only speculate. (Please expect the Tartu University graduates on this forum to now jump all over this.) But I digress. One of the saddest things that I have read in this forum recently is the comment at the top of this list from Tallinn #2 when he says, “People have loans in EUR. Don't you get it, then it is impossible to devaluate!” I am sure that he is being ironic but the sad truth is that there are many thousands of mortgage holders in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who really believe that this is some form of economic certainty. Completely baseless. When Krugman compares Estonia to Argentina that fills me with dread. There are bigger issues at stake in this world than a blind and ill-explained drunken stagger to the Euro. This country is being denuded for the sake of one economic policy. But what if Estonia misses that target? What then? What of the basket case that has nothing left to sacrifice? I don’t think that there will be much sympathy from outsiders for a government which bet the farm on black and the dealer turned over red."

Going on a date with Chaka

I have been visiting Stockholm for the past days and at last it hit me: Stockholm is a city with night-life. I hadn't been to the world famous jazz club Fashing for almost 20 years now, so I decided to check on whats going on there.

There was something quite unique taking place in Fashing on this Satuday night. A band called Any Old Sunday, consisting of child-young swedish youth performed Chaka Khan all night with a devotion that I have not been able to witness anywhere else.

The band was excuisite, the arrangements copied exactly the sound of 70's to 80's. It was like going back in a time-machine. On stage there were four girls performing the exact vocal arrangements of Chaka Khans music. The two solists EllyEve and Tina Talajic took turns in singing all Chakas hits with real youth energy. Elly had the high notes, Tina the grounge' lows. If I could find anything missing, then it was the bit of jazz, that we love about Chaka these days. But she is decades older and more mature. The girls sounded honestly like a very young Chaka.

In the mensroom, I was approached by an older man, who asked if I had come to Fashing before and what did I think of the band.. I told him this was my first time in 20 years and I've heard a lot of bad jazz there before, so today was just a pleasure. The man explained that his son is living together with the singer Elly and he was so exited... How nice;)..

Well, to make a long story bit shorter: all my youth I did dream of soul and funk taking hold in Sweden. Looking at that band made me an eery feeling that I had dreamt this all up.. The soul was there and I really connected with that music. So did everyone else, it seemed too..

"Den energiska kvartetten Any Old Sunday blandar finess med attityd och bjuder tillsammans med Misses Papillon på en fartfylld kväll full av dans och spelglädje.

Any Old Sunday: Aleksandar Brdarski – bas, 
Aaron Mellergårdh – trummor,
 David Larson – keyboard,
 Efraim Olofsson – gitarr. Misses Papillon: EllyEve – sång,
 Tina Talajic – sång,
 Marlene Strand – kör, 
Graciela Chin A Loi – kör"

Laulame Eesti võlast vabaks!

Tekst Laulupeol laulmiseks:

Laevutage laenulaeva, viige ära maksuvaeva, tagasi Rootsi randa, Svenssonite kanda,

Siis kõik kroonid kahel otsal lausa löövad laperdama, svenni taskus tokerdama:
eestlane läeb edasije, taretagust kündimaie, vorstiraha teenimaie,
Võlg see mingu võõrale!
küll siis kalev jõuab koju,
eesti rahval õnne tooma,
eesti krooni euroks looma...

Palun täiendage, saab pika värsi valmis. Suured tänud Anneli Niitsoo ja Kristina Märtin;)

How about an Estonian-Finnish Confederation?

I have been watching the cat-fight between the Estonian politicians lately and a mind-boggling idea has laid root in my head.. What if.. ? Estonia would join Finland in a confederate manner, taking over 100% Finnish legistlation, currency, etc. etc.?

Why? Why do companies merge? Why does 1+1 sometimes make 3?

Well, to start with, Estonia and Finland lie very close one to another. A merely 80km of sea separates the two capitals Tallinn and Helsinki. Most of Northern Finland has a very arctic climate, making it quite difficult to deal with agriculture. The Finnish and Estonian languages are merely dialects of finno-ugric. The temperament of the two nations is very similar. There are ca 5-6 million Finns and about 1 million Estonians in their respective countires. Estonia has a lot warmer climate, a lot of agriculture suitable land and very few people. Estonia has a very high governing cost, very young political culture (mostly missing culture) and a very limited leadership potential. Both countries have a russian speaking minority.

The two countries would make one new entity that would resemble Sweden in economy and geograpy. The two countries would finnish off the possibility for Russia to ever expand towards west again.

Why this is a crazy thought? Well, the Finns are a lot more advanced in economy (Nokia etc;), politcs and culture. The Estonians think they have the higher culture and are of course the smartest of all. So this would exclude any direct merger of the countries. But a federation would give Estonia full autonomy. Both countries would join one federal government that is located in Helsinki and the Estonian language would be one of the official languages of the land. The both countries allready share the melody of the national anthem, there will be some conflict about who is the big brother since it is clear that the Estonian establishment will have a weaker starting point in that situation. They would have to compete from a bit weaker position.

But think again. Estonia is too small to ever guarantee its inhabitants a standard of living that suits a European country. The cost of governing is very high from the local to country level. There is just too few tax payers, no matter how high the taxes will be. The political culture has not evolved according to western-european standards. You can clearly see primitive conclusions and simple solutions that resemble the Soviet past. Estonias neighbour Russia is using that weakness every day against Estonia.

Uniting the two countries would give a minimum critical mass of tax payers for the country to raise to new levels. Both countries lie in the EU, Finland has adapted the Euro, Estonia is about to adapt it. The only difference is the Estonias membership in Nato. But that can be corrected.

The purpose of this posting is to create the thought process. Please think with me and maybe there would be a way to proceed?

Yakov Shebelev

a poem / Economic crisis Eastern Europe anno 2009

My Wife says: What are we going to have for dinner tonight?

Me: Memories of Yesterday

My Wife: What about Tomorrow?

Me: Tomorrows Dreams...

Intresting rare videos of Marju Kuut on YouTube

Today I found some very rare videos of Marju Kuut from 60's to 80's.. Since our leaving the country, the Soviet system erased most of her videos and tapes. This is lucky that someone has copied them and shares them on YouTube. Today it feels truly Retro!

Wonderful Holiday in Saaremaa

Saaremaa 2008/2009 New Year

I want to share with you some really nice pics taken on the last weeks of 2008 and first weeks of 2009 in Saaremaa at our little vineyard.

We arrived at something that looked more like the Great Britain, +7, late fall. Then as the days went by, temperature fell to -1 and by the last week of 2008 we had a wonderful -18c and 20cm of snow. I managed to prune all the vines before the snow came, so all the vines got nicely covered during the really cold days.

This was the most wonderful short holiday of the past year.