I live in Estonia for a very long time now, over a decade. I love the kodukohvikud (Home Cafes) but the framing of "inviting strangers" is a little odd.
It's not free. While there is a lot of theoretical opportunity for bonding, it's still just a temporary commercial enterprise.
For anyone who has lived here, it's a known fact that Estonians won't exactly engage with strangers in a warm way, if at all. Smiling at strangers is considered poor social form here and it doesn't matter if you're a foreigner or native.
It does increase social cohesion amongst neighbors at least for a week or two. Kodukohvikud are a unique experience but it's not really "inviting strangers in my backyard" in the way a free community oriented and socially engaging event would be. Naturally, the article will only show the very few who have a story to tell while ignoring the fact that 90% of them don't have one to tell.
You get your keefir, you get your viineripirukas, pay for it, eat isolated with your family on a table and that's all most of the time.
It's akin to someone who makes pizzas to sell in the terrace to passersby. Really cool, quite nice but again, weird framing because you wouldn't say that about "Jean Paul who sells pizza from his balcony", so to speak.
I still love it, though!
jaen 2 hours ago [-]
> Smiling at strangers is considered poor social form here and it doesn't matter if you're a foreigner or native.
It's not. Insincerity and mindless, automatic smiles might be a little bit frowned upon. Genuine, but subtle smiles (as appropriate for strangers) are appreciated, at least for the younger generation. The older generation might still be somewhat "traumatized" by the Soviet occupation and its cultural effects.
someoneeestis 2 hours ago [-]
Well, you can tell that to all the Nõmme, Tondi, Pirita, Kesklinn, Tartu, Viljandi, Karksi-Nuia amongst other places I've lived where I've smiled and said "Tere hommikust!" to as they turned their face away and pretended I didn't exist.
I've also lived in Amsterdam and even people on the street who were not my neighbors smiled and said good morning and often that triggered a little conversation and laughters.
Like I said, I'm Brazilian and I've also lived in Ireland where people are super warm. There is no "insincerity" and "mindless" assumed, only the desire to make our days a little more bearable, warm and welcoming.
The younger generation is better indeed but they also come with a new set of anti-social behavior. Just like every generation, really. Not blaming either one in here.
The attitude always shifts a little when I speak Estonian, though and for that I'm happy enough. I have adapted but will never stop smiling at the shops or at the people who live nearby. I don't expect them to be like me but I also won't erase myself as if I'm being insincere because I'm simply not. I rather be a positive force for change.
To each their own, I reckon. I guess a good neighbor it's the one you don't talk to.
jaen 1 hours ago [-]
I didn't imply that you were being insincere...
re: the greeting, I think introverts around the world do not necessarily appreciate being randomly greeted by strangers, they just get used to it if the culture is like that. From that perspective, I don't think just a random greeting from a stranger always makes people feel more warm and the days more bearable either. It's more of a correlation rather than causation.
People have different personalities and different associations.
someoneeestis 1 hours ago [-]
Totally agree with you, introverts everywhere will frown upon that. But there's a inherent difference between the "general" aspects of the culture and friendliness of every country. I was just highlighting a general aspect of Estonian culture.
I've also had amazing and unforgettable memories in Estonia with people who I never saw again in my life. It's just harder in here.
As for correlation, a single stranger certainly not. But I have lost count of how many Estonians visited UK/Ireland/Spain and came back telling me they were so happy about being an "amigo" or at having incredible customer service that didn't make them feel unwelcome like a chore.
It does matter.
embedding-shape 2 hours ago [-]
Things like these tend to differ wildly based on how big the population is at the place. In many countries, people in small towns will smile and greet you even if you're a stranger, while in metropolitan areas people won't even look in your direction unless some emergency or out of the ordinary stuff goes on. Also the geographical location can matter, especially in larger countries, not sure this applies to Estonia though, worth considering maybe :)
Could be one of you is sharing the experience of life in a city, while the other is sharing the experience of some smaller places, or just two places very far away from each other?
someoneeestis 1 hours ago [-]
I've lived in both biggest cities in Estonia and small towns as well as Dublin and Amsterdam. So I've experienced either side of the coin. The fact is that the collective conscience of Estonians (and perhaps Baltics in general) works like that. I love this place with all my heart and I'm not claiming to hold any absolute truth, but perception built over 12 years here and years in other places.
I'm totally okay with disagreeing, I was just answering in earnest.
rauno56 4 hours ago [-]
It's a pity, but one should probably expect some commercialization after almost 20 years of these kinds of events being held all over Estonia. The experience varies a lot from place to place, though, and many smaller places still have that homespun feel.
someoneeestis 4 hours ago [-]
I personally don't mind the commercialization of it. Like you said, it is only to be expected, especially in hard times like now (though I'd argue that just increase prices for everyone). I was not making a point against it as they have to (and should) charge a price. As far as I understand, they always did and I'm really glad to give my money to a neighbor instead of a corporation like Bolt.
But what I would personally like on the other hand is that the smiles and the welcoming attitude would not happen only within the kodukohvikud and in peak summer sun but all year round. A big dose of empathy would make life easier for all of us.
And I speak Estonian. I can't even begin to imagine how cold it is for those who don't. I'm also Brazilian, so my genuineness and expectation of welcoming conversations surely set a high bar.
scorepeon 6 hours ago [-]
American living in Tartu here. You're not wrong. There has even been a trend of having professional catering which is disappointing.
That being said I'm super excited for this weekend's event in Tammelinn[0]. I'm on a mission to find who has the best rabarberikook.
Heh, there's also https://www-kambja-info.translate.goog/syndmus/avatud-aiad-2... right next to Tartu. This Saturday. If you have a car, come by ("Puzzle Café") and say hi - I'm making pulled pork burgers and.. other stuff that I still need to figure out (24h to go!) :)
someoneeestis 3 hours ago [-]
I love that for you! I hope you have an amazingly successful Saturday!
someoneeestis 5 hours ago [-]
I lived in Tartu for four years and hold great memories from our city of good thoughts.
Enjoy the Tammelinn event and bless the city for me!
Tomte 7 hours ago [-]
Swabia has something similar for wineries: Besenwirtschaft is a temporary small restaurant with very lax regulations. The main obligations are: at most 4 months open, at most 40 chairs, only cold food (often bread with lard), the wine does not have to be produced by the owner themselves, but the grapes have to be.
They are „advertised“ by hanging a broom outside (Besen is broom).
You tend to go visit a few over an afternoon, because they concentrate on certain wine-making towns.
croisillon 5 hours ago [-]
Austria has “Heuriger” on a similar rule
jcattle 4 hours ago [-]
Or Buschenschank in Styria (where you traditionally don't get warm food, only "Brettljause")
jahnu 4 hours ago [-]
Buschenschank In Vienna too. Nussberg is my favourite place to be.
Heuriger in Vienna are permanent buildings and can serve warm food and drinks other than wine and may open all year round.
markvdb 10 hours ago [-]
Similar in neighbouring Latvia. Friends who recovered their grandparents' nationalised farm organised one there. They got to meet neighbours who lived there during the occupation. Pictures surfaced of the transformation into five tiny apartments in the late 1940s.
Can't imagine the food safety institutions even considering pop-up home cafes in my native Belgium.
AyyEye 9 hours ago [-]
> Can't imagine the food safety institutions even considering pop-up home cafes in my native Belgium.
Many states in the US have "cottage food" laws that allow low-risk foods (think baked goods, jams, jellies, candies, nuts, etc) to be labeled "this is an unregulated unlicensed cottage food product" and sold without a license. Belgium may have something similar.
If you are visiting Sweden in the summer look for the sign "Loppis" where ppl are selling used goods.
EGreg 9 hours ago [-]
Orthodox Jews do it every Sukkot :)
y-curious 6 hours ago [-]
Oh sweet, they welcome non-Jewish strangers too? I didn’t know that, I assumed it was just for their own community
voicedYoda 6 hours ago [-]
We invite everyone, Jewish or not. We've hosted so many people, strangers and friends alike. It makes more sense to Jews, but it's also a great conversation to have with others.
Nail2680 9 hours ago [-]
I attended a Sukkot, druing which the host jokingly called the tent a "Jew Fort" and they had some lovely food and burned some herbs and overall had a great time. I really like the religious festivals that integrate more people. Like Holi, where I got to throw a lot of colored sand or something at people and eat good food. I feel like events like that really help integrate communities.
Not Estonian, but a Swedish fellow I knew always had a summer event with lawn darts and other odd games and food each summer
martheen 5 hours ago [-]
Sikh's similarly serve communal meal, langar, which invite everyone to come and eat together. As a non-Sikh, being invited to such events is such an educational experience because they're a very small minority in my country so pretty much everything I see was new to me.
Markoff 6 hours ago [-]
TLDR to earn (tax free?) money, it has nothing to do with hospitality
tauntz 3 hours ago [-]
It depends - for some, it's a commercial event. For others, like me, it's just an opportunity to challenge yourself and see if you can make delicious food for a bunch of people :) I'll be happy if I can cover the cost of ingredients this weekend, but if not, that's fine too!
Markoff 3 hours ago [-]
TLDR you still want money from your visitors, no matter whether to cover expenses or make profit, that's not what we call hospitality back here in central Europe. Hospitality is when you don't expect anything in return for inviting someone somewhere, can't imagine inviting someone to my place and then charge them my expenses, that's very USan way of invitation...
iammjm 8 minutes ago [-]
That’s your personal and rather narrow definition of hospitality, and that’s also coming from someone from Central Europe. There definitely can be hospitality with reciprocity, like when my friends host a party and invite me and everybody brings drinks or snacks or drugs or anything else they want to contribute, or even leave some money if they didn’t manage to bring anything
tauntz 2 hours ago [-]
I was not commenting on the "hospitality" definition but on the "earn tax free money" aspect. Just saying, that the goal, for most (?), is not.. this.
tjomk 4 hours ago [-]
Let's go the US way and arrest children for doing lemonade stands. How dare they not get a license and pay their taxes to Uncle Sam! /s
Markoff 3 hours ago [-]
Or maybe let's just not pretend people are inviting strangers into their gardens because they wanna meet them as that clickbait title pretend and not just to earn money.
baal80spam 3 hours ago [-]
> arrest children for doing lemonade stands
Get your facts straight. This is the EU-way. It literally happened in Poland - a child got fined for a lemonade stand.
helsinkiandrew 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
shevy-java 4 hours ago [-]
They don't really though. Ask them how many strangers from Russia they invited each summer.
type0 1 hours ago [-]
You're not invited, so maybe you should go back to Russia
tonyedgecombe 3 hours ago [-]
Russians think they don’t need an invitation.
rfrey 1 hours ago [-]
Just go take the food.
Rendered at 11:15:44 GMT+0000 (UTC) with Wasmer Edge.
It's not free. While there is a lot of theoretical opportunity for bonding, it's still just a temporary commercial enterprise.
For anyone who has lived here, it's a known fact that Estonians won't exactly engage with strangers in a warm way, if at all. Smiling at strangers is considered poor social form here and it doesn't matter if you're a foreigner or native.
It does increase social cohesion amongst neighbors at least for a week or two. Kodukohvikud are a unique experience but it's not really "inviting strangers in my backyard" in the way a free community oriented and socially engaging event would be. Naturally, the article will only show the very few who have a story to tell while ignoring the fact that 90% of them don't have one to tell.
You get your keefir, you get your viineripirukas, pay for it, eat isolated with your family on a table and that's all most of the time.
It's akin to someone who makes pizzas to sell in the terrace to passersby. Really cool, quite nice but again, weird framing because you wouldn't say that about "Jean Paul who sells pizza from his balcony", so to speak.
I still love it, though!
It's not. Insincerity and mindless, automatic smiles might be a little bit frowned upon. Genuine, but subtle smiles (as appropriate for strangers) are appreciated, at least for the younger generation. The older generation might still be somewhat "traumatized" by the Soviet occupation and its cultural effects.
I've also lived in Amsterdam and even people on the street who were not my neighbors smiled and said good morning and often that triggered a little conversation and laughters.
Like I said, I'm Brazilian and I've also lived in Ireland where people are super warm. There is no "insincerity" and "mindless" assumed, only the desire to make our days a little more bearable, warm and welcoming.
The younger generation is better indeed but they also come with a new set of anti-social behavior. Just like every generation, really. Not blaming either one in here.
The attitude always shifts a little when I speak Estonian, though and for that I'm happy enough. I have adapted but will never stop smiling at the shops or at the people who live nearby. I don't expect them to be like me but I also won't erase myself as if I'm being insincere because I'm simply not. I rather be a positive force for change.
To each their own, I reckon. I guess a good neighbor it's the one you don't talk to.
re: the greeting, I think introverts around the world do not necessarily appreciate being randomly greeted by strangers, they just get used to it if the culture is like that. From that perspective, I don't think just a random greeting from a stranger always makes people feel more warm and the days more bearable either. It's more of a correlation rather than causation.
People have different personalities and different associations.
I've also had amazing and unforgettable memories in Estonia with people who I never saw again in my life. It's just harder in here.
As for correlation, a single stranger certainly not. But I have lost count of how many Estonians visited UK/Ireland/Spain and came back telling me they were so happy about being an "amigo" or at having incredible customer service that didn't make them feel unwelcome like a chore.
It does matter.
Could be one of you is sharing the experience of life in a city, while the other is sharing the experience of some smaller places, or just two places very far away from each other?
I'm totally okay with disagreeing, I was just answering in earnest.
But what I would personally like on the other hand is that the smiles and the welcoming attitude would not happen only within the kodukohvikud and in peak summer sun but all year round. A big dose of empathy would make life easier for all of us.
And I speak Estonian. I can't even begin to imagine how cold it is for those who don't. I'm also Brazilian, so my genuineness and expectation of welcoming conversations surely set a high bar.
That being said I'm super excited for this weekend's event in Tammelinn[0]. I'm on a mission to find who has the best rabarberikook.
0. https://tammelinnaselts.ee/kodukohvikutepaevadest
Enjoy the Tammelinn event and bless the city for me!
They are „advertised“ by hanging a broom outside (Besen is broom).
You tend to go visit a few over an afternoon, because they concentrate on certain wine-making towns.
Heuriger in Vienna are permanent buildings and can serve warm food and drinks other than wine and may open all year round.
Can't imagine the food safety institutions even considering pop-up home cafes in my native Belgium.
Many states in the US have "cottage food" laws that allow low-risk foods (think baked goods, jams, jellies, candies, nuts, etc) to be labeled "this is an unregulated unlicensed cottage food product" and sold without a license. Belgium may have something similar.
You can even check all menus and availability online (unfortunately only in Latvian): https://majaskafejnicas.lv/destinations/
Not Estonian, but a Swedish fellow I knew always had a summer event with lawn darts and other odd games and food each summer
Get your facts straight. This is the EU-way. It literally happened in Poland - a child got fined for a lemonade stand.