Christmas in Estonia (part 1)

Tallinn Christmas Market - just beautiful!

So, it’s our first Christmas in Estonia and life is certainly different! Living in Tallinn is a wonderful experience. The Old Town looks like a fairy tale. The atmosphere in the Christmas market is just wonderful. There’s even real live reindeer; and I sometimes have to pinch myself as I hurry through the town en route to meetings to remind myself I’m not dreaming - we really do live and work here. 

 

 

Around the Region corps officers and teams are really busy and the regular food parcel distributions take on an even more urgent feel. Families appreciate the special ‘goodies’ that are added to the parcels and which turn these regular donations into something a little special.

 As a brass player I have remained an active band member throughout my officership. December (or even November, in Portsmouth!) has always been marked out as the carolling season. With just a handful of brass players in Tallinn, our carolling programme bears very little relation to what we were used to in the UK.  With the help of a couple of friends who played Sousaphone and Saxophone, we managed to get a small group together to do our first carolling session this week.  Before we went ‘public’ we had a band practice and it was quite funny seeing people learn carols that SA brass players at home know from memory. But when we took to the shopping centre, people stopped to listen and the carols seemed to be well received even though there were more than a few dodgy notes.







 

Christmas collecting is tough work here. I don’t for one moment use that phrase to denote

The band in Solaris Centre, Tallinn

the physical struggle that colleague Salvationists experience in the USA or UK throughout December.  In Tallinn we have just 2 kettle stands – the Solaris shopping centre and the Stockmanns department store. Both of these are very smart, very high end retail areas.  The stores are as nice as you would find anywhere in the world – with all the international brand names. So the environment is really pleasant and the kettle stands are warm and comfortable. The kettles are staffed from 12 noon to 8pm and volunteers take 1 or 2 hour slots. Other than the ache in my poor bad back (consequences of a silly slip up with my motorbike 10 years ago!) I really can’t complain. But, I confess I have found my slots on ‘kettles’ quite challenging.



Very interesting backdrop for today's kettle stand!!

 There are three problems: the first is that I miss the Christmas banter with passers-by. Now, I know that’s largely my own fault. My 5 months of Estonian lessons have not yet given me the confidence (or vocabulary) to say much. So conversations have been - ‘hello’, ‘thank you’ and ‘Happy Christmas’. And even that has been difficult as a large portion of the community speak Russian! The second problem is that these conversations have happened so rarely. In the UK the Salvation Army is well known. We have some very generous supporters who give large donations – but we also have many people who generally think we are OK types of people and who are happy to drop a ‘quid’ in the bucket as they pass by.  The flow of people is often quite brisk and the chats, if only superficial, come thick and fast. Not so here. My experience of this week is that during the course of an hour I might get anything between 2 and 10 donations. By the way, 10 was an exceptionally good slot, today’s 1-hour slot saw only 2 ‘customers’. So it’s really boring standing as crowds walk by oblivious to your presence.  Which highlights the 3rd problem; no one really knows who we are here in Estonia. The uniform is not recognised, the Red Shield and the iconic kettle mean nothing and there is very little awareness of our work – all of which make it very hard to generate public support.

 There is one strange phenomenon, though. Some people drop a few cents in the kettle – but others

My very first Estonian Christmas dinner

 put in a note – and a 10 or 20 Euro note at that! I’d be interested to know the reason behind their generosity. Do they know us from overseas or have they some idea of what we do in Estonia? I’d love to ask them –but I can’t speak enough of the language!!!! So frustrating.

 OK – that’s my moan over.  Alongside the kettle programme it has been great to participate in some of the Christmas parties. There’s never a shortage of food, the hall is always laid out beautifully and people seem to have a great time. On Thursday we tasted our first Estonian Christmas dinner. It’s rather different to what we are used to. Turkey is replaced by blood sausage (black pudding we would call it back home), and Brussel sprouts are replaced by beetroot and sauerkraut. It’s an acquired taste (!) but we enjoyed it. This Sunday is the last Sunday in Advent and we are really looking forward to experiencing worship over the Christmas festival. The hard work and motivation of the corps leaders has been so encouraging. It’s been great to see corps volunteers hard at work and to get to know people a little better.



Kopli corps Christmas party

 If I’m honest – I’ve realised how much we take for granted the ‘brand awareness’ that we have in the UK, along with the blessings of a good corps band and songster brigade and the ministry opportunities that are opened up at Christmas when you have quality musical sections.  So, if you have groups like that in your corps and are feeling a little weary after your 100^th rendition of ‘Silent Night’, be thankful for the blessings!

 Time to wrap up this week’s ‘rambling’ and head down to the corps to help get the hall ready for worship tomorrow. I’ll give you an update on our experiences of Christmas week next time.