Today Tartu is alive again. The summer slumber is over. The students are back.

 The University year starts tomorrow 1st. Sept. This town is a university town. It provides the most employment and brings to the town around 14,000  students who all have to find somewhere to live. So, when they are here the town buzzes with student life. Bicycles, scooters, skateboards and just plain old boot leather transport the parade of students through the streets and plaza's of Tartu. Approximately 1400  are international students from many different countries of the world. The rest come from the towns and regions of Estonia. Their presence adds a rich tapestry of linguistic, cultural and ethnic expression to the daily life of Tartu. Sitting (maybe too often) at our favourite coffee watering hole, we watch them passing by, this way and that, and optimism and excitement stirs in us and seems to validate a positive view of the future of life, the planet and humanity in spite of the gloomy picture so often portrayed in the daily media assault.

The grand main building of the Tartu University

Tartu's university has a right to be proud of its tradition. It was one of the first, if not the first, university to be established in Europe, having been founded by Gustavus, King of Sweden in 1632. From that time on the UT (University of Tartu) as it is affectionately called, has produced more than its share of prominent intellectuals, world renowned scientists and prolific writers and artists. It has had to endure numerous political upheavals, occupations by foreign powers and ravages of out right war. It possesses numerous heritage listed buildings, preeminent among which is the main University Building in Ulikooli Street. It has an academic staff of 1700 and an administrative staff of 1800. It brings an atmosphere of learning, enquiry and debate to the town. The motto of Tartu is...." Heade mõtete linn "...which translates as..."city of good thoughts ". Whilst the university population represents only about 18% of Tartu's total population, its influence is well beyond its pure statistical status.

All this makes Tartu a great place to live, especially if you value informed debate and discussion, and see education as value adding to life in general. We love it here. There is something stimulating about this environment, encouraging us to explore our own assumptions and to seek to listen to, and expose ourselves to, the conversation of this town. If there happens to be a current student in Australia who reads this blog, you could do well to consider completing some of your studies here in Tartu. One thing that would assist you is the fact that all post graduate degrees are taught in english, though the chance to learn Estonian while you were here would be great. All this does not mean that Tartu is the perfect town. Of course it has its problems and challenges, but overall it scrubs up pretty well. With a population of just on 100,000 traffic jams and peak hour horrors are almost non existant.

While I am writing about education, I should mention that children in Estonia don't start school until the age of 7yrs. Given the constant push to get our children in Oz to go at younger and younger ages this seems interesting. I remember reading years ago where an educational expert from the USA declared that children were not ready for school and the schoolyard until at least the age of 7...so maybe Estonia has it right. Not only that, but though their school day starts early, around 8am, it finishes early, just after lunch. And lunch, a hot one at that, is provided by the school! If that was not impressive, then the school also provides a varied after school program for those whose parents are working and not at home to be with their children when school finishes. Maybe, just maybe, there are some advantages of a tax regime that returns to the citizen in worthwhile, relevant and helpful programs such as these. Unfortunately, our Aussie politicians seem terrified by any mention of tax increases to fund such citizen centred activities. We seem totally welded to the questionable assumption that user pays is the only way to go. We have forgotten that the origins of government were to be found in the pursuit of "the common good"....the role of government was to ensure that all its citizens shared in the "common wealth" and that disparity between the rich and the poor was minimised as much as was possible. Our society seems all too often to reward the rich and penalise the poor. Our governments seem all too willing to allow a few to profit from the resources of our land, our common property. Its easy to dismiss these sentiments as "leftist.....socialist..or even communist...(especially if we are among the "winners" ) but just maybe we could take the time to examine how and why government, especially democratic government, originated.
Sorry....I forgot the taboo's on politics and religion!!!!!

And still there's more!!!! Tartu is the home of yet another university. It is known as "The University of Life Sciences " or  "Eesti Maaülikool". It is what we might call an Agricultural University. They offer degree and post graduate courses in all aspects of agriculture and environment and have made a huge contribution to the development of farming and forestry in Estonia in the past 25 years or so. They have around 3500 students of which around 200 are international students. Their staff numbers approximately 950 people. They have a stunning new campus and a number of regional rural sites for their trials and experiments. The rapid development of large scale commercial farming, in both cropping and dairy farming has been very noticeable to us during the 14 years we have been visiting Estonia. I am amazed at the high level of technology utilised, the quality of the production and the wholehearted emphasis upon sustainability, which, I believe, is to a large extent one of the impacts of this agricultural university.

Oh yes, of course, there's the Folkuniversities (two of them) but I might leave them to another time.

So I think its fair to say that education, the pursuit of knowledge and the development of appropriate technologies, is the heat-beat of Tartu.  In many ways, this town of Tartu, holds the future of this emerging country firmly in its hands. As "locals for a year" we are proud of this and confident they are good, safe and caring hands.