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EESTI ELU reedel, 13. märtsil 2020 — Friday, March 13, 2020
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Second and third generation Estonian family members look to the future in honour of grandparents Meinhard and Selma Põldma For the Põldma and Lillakas families, the decision was unanimous. “This is a team effort from our family,” said family spokesperson Paul Lillakas of Toronto. “We represent the second and third generation of Estonians and are fully committed to helping our culture thrive. It’s up to us to carry this forward.” “We are honouring our grand parents, who were such a positive in fluence on us, and who did so much for the Estonian community.” The Lillakas and Põldma families – children and grandchildren of Meinhard and Selma Põldma – have pooled personal resources to make a Viru Vanemad family legacy donation to the new International Estonian Centre (IEC). “We live in six different cities in Canada, and every single one of us, in cluding our spouses, was on board with the decision,” Paul explained. “We feel that by coming together as a family, and each one of us giving to the best of our ability, we can help build this new centre and the future of our community.” “The non-Estonians in our family are consistently blown away with the strength of our community,” Paul said. “They are just as committed to and excited about this project as the Estonians. We are all in this together.” Meinhard and Selma were deeply involved in building up the Estonian community in Toronto, like so many
hardworking and energetic members of their generation who came to Canada from Estonia. “Vanaema and Vanaisa instilled in us a very deep sense of ‘eestlus’, and what it means to be Estonian,” Paul said. “They were incredible – involved in choirs, church life, guides, scouts and summer camps – all the organiza tions that built our community here.” “Nothing made them happier than to see us involved in the Estonian com munity,” he remembers. “They were so supportive and interested in everything we were doing.” Paul, who is a Toronto-based pro fessional chef well known and re garded for his work with the media in dustry, says there are many “delicious opportunities” for the IEC to develop new cultural connections. Paul said that Toronto’s vibrant multicultural food scene, and its ap petite for learning about new and different types of cuisine is flourishing. He feels there would be tremendous interest in Estonian food culture here. The family also believes that the new centre will foster the growth of existing and new Estonian cultural events. Having one central location to hold events and festivals is much bet ter than having them spread out across the city at different venues as is the case now. “It is so exciting to think of having a new, fresh and modern centre to
come to and bring our family and friends,” he said. “It will help accelerate our culture, give us a chance to meet and connect with new Estonians and build attendance for the events that people work so hard to organize.” “I speak for the whole family when I say we are very excited about the future,” Paul said. “I know my grand parents are smiling down at us.”
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Reform Party asks about influence activity in Russian schools in Estonia
New parking survey at Estonian House
history. She said teachers attend Russian speech therapy courses The opposition Reform Party that are unavailable in Estonia. asked the education minister Reps did not know why a his about Russian influence ac tory teacher preferred a refresher tivities reaching Russian course in Russia. schools in Estonia. Reform “Such nuances are rather the Party politicians find that business of the internal security history teachers of Russian service on the level of the schools prefer Russian train person. I can see no objective ings to Estonian ones. Minis reason to seek training outside ter of Education and Re Estonia, the need to go into search Mailis Reps said that such historic detail today,” Reps just one history teacher said. working at a Russian school Johannes Kert said that more attended a training in Russia than one history teacher of a last year. Russian school has received Reform Party MP Johannes training in Russia and that only Kert said that a generation given a few attend courses in Estonia. alternative information of Esto Kert added that teachers bring nian history is being brought up back textbooks from Russia that in Estonia in the context of inreflect Russia’s treatment of creasingly intense Russian prohistory. paganda. He gave the example Dmitri Rõbakov, who teaches of a national defense education class in an Ida-Viru County history and social education at two Russian schools in Tallinn school. “The subject was NATO and and has received the European why Estonia is a member when Citizen’s Prize, admits using suddenly half of the boys in Russian materials from time to class get up and leave the class- time. “History is taught by the room, saying that is not what their history teacher has been teacher and not the textbook, with everything depending on telling them,” Kert recalls. Kert said Russia has invited how professional the former is. history teachers of Estonian Even if you use sources or materials from Russia, you schools to participate in refresher should use them skillfully. That training. Minister of Education and said, 90 percent of material Research Mailis Reps (Center) used is from Estonia,” Rõbakov said that a total of seven teach- said. ers attended trainings in Russia Mailis Reps said that particilast year, one of whom teaches pants of every refresher course
Sunday, Nov. 17. 12:08 pm – 20 cars Fri. Nov. 22. 1:47 pm – 23 Fri. Dec. 13. 2:15 pm – 27 Fri. Dec. 28. 11:21 am – 12 Mon. Dec. 30. 11:51 pm – 17 Thurs. Jan. 10. 10:51 am – 28 Sat. Jan. 12. 10:05 am – 34 Mon. Jan. 11. 9:41 am – 24 Fri. Jan. 16. 2:41 pm – 29 Fri. Jan. 24. 10:41 am – 37 Sat. Jan. 25. 9:51 am – 41 Sun. Jan. 26. 11:51 am – 9 Thurs. Jan 30. 11:41 am – 27 Fri. Jan. 31 1:45 pm – 31 Thurs. Feb. 14. 9:55 am – 19 Thurs. Feb. 14. 12:16 pm – 33 Sat. Feb. 16 9:10 am – 11 Fri. Feb. 28 10:36 am – 38 Wed. Mar. 4. 3:10 pm – 34 Thurs. Mar. 5 3:01 pm – 29 Fri. Mar. 6 11:20 am – 33 Sat. Mar. 7 11:18 am – 62 Mon. Mar. 9 11:16 am – 37
ERR, March 2020
N.B. 1. These counts are much higher than the survey commissioned by Estonian House some time ago. 2. This survey does not include Tuesday nights when overflow traffic must park on the street. Most cars arrive from outside of Metro Toronto. 3. The proposed International Estonian Centre has been exempted by the City of To ron to from providing any parking spaces anywhere for its visitors. M.R.
include 10 percent teachers of Russian schools. Rõbakov said that poor attendance could be caused by teachers’ modest Estonian proficiency.
this spectacular new home for the global Estonian community? Please join our growing list of capital campaign donors! The International Estonian Centre’s donor categories are Kalevi poja Laud for gifts over $100,000 (in cluding naming rights for specific areas), Viru Vanemad for gifts over $10,000, and Kungla Rahvas for gifts up to $10,000. Stay tuned for the launch of the Kungla Rahvas campaign in 2020. To make a donation, please contact Urve Tamberg at donations@estonian
Head of the Catholic Church in Estonia on life in a secular world ERR One of the more common statements you hear about Estonia is that it is more or less the most secular, or least religious, country in Europe. Despite this, the country has a small but active Roman Catholic populace, numbering a few thousand, also getting somewhat of a boost by Pope Francis’ visit in 2018. Bishop Philippe Jean-Charles Jourdan, head of the Catholic Church in Estonia, gave an interview to Catholic news site Crux, while in Rome. Jourdan is only the second Catholic Bishop in Estonia after the Protestant Reformation; the first, Archbishop Eduard Pro fittlich, was arrested after the Soviet occupation of Estonia, and died in exile in a Gulag in Northern Russia. Jourdan noted that he was spearheading the process for Profittlich’s beatification as a martyr, which he says could happen in 2022 despite a lengthy process at Rome. While Estonia may be a largely secular nation, with religious people as a whole in a minority, and Catholics a minority within a minority, Jourdan said that particularly after Pope Francis’ visit to Tallinn in September 2018, the Church is no longer quite as distant as it once had been.
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Nonetheless, being a secular nation where God seems to have disappeared, in some people’s eyes, Jourdan said that the key would be to engage in society and not be cloistered away from it. However, Jourdan says he does not have all the answers: “If I had a recipe against secularization, I would have published it, and of course used it long ago,” he says, drawing a parallel with the very early Christians, who often faced persecution. The picture even then so far as Estonia goes is still not quite as black-and-white as some may think, Jourdan says. “For instance, I was recently in Santiago de Compostela (in northwestern Spain-ed.) and was told that since the beginning of the year, hundreds of Estonians have come as pilgrims [there], the great majority of them being probably non Catholics or non-Christians.” One example is the Arch bishop Viilma of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, who himself just made a nineday, 315-km pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (link in Estonia). Bishop Jourdan was consecrated and installed as ordinary of Estonia on 10 September 2005 in Tallinn. He speaks fluent Estonian.
ESTONIAN LIFE
