Hi. 

Just arrived back in our apartment at Vaarika 1-25 Tammelinn Tartu. We have been out to yet another free concert put on by the French Horn players in Tartu. They have had a visiting teacher from Portugal for a week or so and gave a concert to demonstrate all they have learned from this expert player. He also played some pieces and showed how versatile the french horn can be.  As it was a lovely warm evening, about 15 degrees C, we went for a walk around central Tartu and discovered they had set up a motor cross course in the park and were into a competition between riders from Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania. You never know what will happen here.

I mentioned our apartment. In Estonia a majority of people live in apartments. These apartment blocks can be quite large. In Tartu they seldom exceed 4 - 5 stories, but in Tallinn they can be 10 - 20 stories high. Our block is three stories and contains 30 apartments, mostly 2 bedrooms. Ours has 5 entrances, and in each entrance there a 6 units. (2 on each floor x 3 floors ) We are on the ground floor and only have 6 steps to climb to reach our door. 

Our apartment...lower balcony second from the left is our kitchen balcony.

One of the main reasons for apartment living is the fact of heating. The heating in apartments comes from the town central heating stations. These generate hot water, here with the use of gas, and circulate this water over remarkable distances to heat the apartment blocks. Stand alone houses seem to  to provide their own heating, much of which is done by wood burning heaters. There is also much less maintenance to do especially with regard to the land or gardens around stand alone houses. Care of the block is complicated by the long winter and not quite so attractive as a quarter acre block is in Oz. The apartments are not generally very large in area, though some of course can be bigger. Our apartment is quite a good sized one with 2 bedrooms, lounge, separate kitchen, toilet and bathroom. In addition it has a generous entrance hall which is necessary for the removal of shoes and the hanging of coats that this climate necessitates. Still, this apartment is just on 65Sq. meters, much smaller than the average home in Australia. Somehow here they seem quite adequate and we are constantly amazed at how much stuff people seem to be able to fit into apartments, many of which are considerably smaller than ours. In addition most apartments have a basement which includes space for more storage like winter tyres, skis, sledge, bikes and if your lucky a sauna. There seems to be a reasonable balance between rented and owned apartments and prices seem to range from around 30,000  to 150,000 Euros. Many of the apartment blocks built during the occupation lack considerably in the quality of both materials and workmanship. Nowdays there is a lot of a activity in renovating these apartments and improving the finish and fittings. Our apartment was built just as occupation was ending and suffers from the same quality issues. This means there is plenty of renovating work for me to do and already we have upgrade the kitchen area, replastered areas after some very shoddy work done fitting new double glazed windows and of course lots of painting.

                                                                     

                                  
       Our kitchen before.............................................and after renovations .                



 Most have a small balcony, ours opens off our kitchen, and provides a place for some flower pots and a cuppa when the sun is shining. Currently we have a lovely display of pansies, which we have discovered are the only flowers that can cope with the zero or sub-zero temperatures at this time of the year. Soon, we are told we will be able to plant other varieties but that must wait until nighttime temperatures climb above zero. To us Australians, used to "our block of land" this apartment living may seem less than attractive. On the other hand, it does have numerous positive aspects, not the least of which are the environmental benefits and the retarding of urban sprawl. One slightly strange part of this experience is the surprising fact that we hardly see our fellow apartment dwellers. We have met some, but given our proximity to one another contact is minimal and noise from neighbouring apartments is almost non existent. Overall, we are finding the experience comfortable and enjoyable, and maybe, in the future this is the way thing will go in Australia also.


Quite a number of families, particularly those who live in apartments, have what they call summer houses. I want to make this a subject of the next blog, as these summer houses play quite a different role in family life than do the "holiday house" in Australia. Unfortunately, modernisation, especially the Western brand, is putting extreme pressure on some of these unique cultural phenomena, but this is a story for the next post.

Well, enjoy your life in Australia, cause on any reckoning its really a paradise.

 
PS. Remember last time I wrote about the storks.....well we were out driving the other day and went past this house that had its own stork family.....you can just see the mother stork sitting on the eggs. This will give you something to 'stork' about.