So i finally got around to reading My Estonia by Justin Petrone.  A number of friends, new and old, have been recommending the book.  Those that have known me longest have encouraged me to read it since so much of what happened to the author happen to me.

My first impression was that his construction boss back in the States was right: he is a pussy. The author seems to be a passenger in his own life, panicking as his ride goes on, yet never taking the wheel himself.

And really, so much of the pain he experienced was self-inflicted.  For example, coming from the same part of the world as him, I can’t help but wonder - who the fuck leaves/reenters the country when their immigration documents are being processed?  Where we are from, immigrants plan their lives around the INS.  But if he REALLY needed to go, he should have done something like i did when i overstayed my 90 days here by more than a year (but that’s a story for another day i guess)

With all that said, it is sort of amusing the way he gets into those situations and freaks out so often in his inner monologue.  But upon reflection, he deserves kudos as well because he is quite self-aware and wills himself forward, which is much more of an accomplishment compared to those of us that are more fearless in the face of the things he encountered.

As for the book, he does capture the difficulties of living in such a “cold” place quite well, particularly for those of us with latin blood, who of course tend to be much more emotional than our hosts.  When he mentions that he didn’t have friends, it reminds me of how much harder it is to connect with such reserved people.

His observations about Estonians were entertaining for anyone that has spent time here.  Though I’ve yet to meet any of “the compulsive always on-time Estonians”, pretty much all of the ones I know are ALWAYS late ;)

But to be completely honest, the strangest thing happened as i read the book, I started to feel sort of jealous.  Having arrived here almost 10 years before the author, the Tallinn that greeted me had not yet been transformed, cleaned up and modernized.  Come to think of it, Old Town then/now is kind of like Times Square before/after Giuliani: before, Times Square was a dark, scary place where tourists got mugged regularly, a place with addicts or prostitutes on every corner; now, it’s a tourist friendly urban disneyland.  Well when I arrived, the Old Town was also a dark scary place where tourists got mugged regularly, the only difference was that instead of the addicts, there was a drunk Finn at every corner of old town; and now, well yeah, old town is a tourist friendly medieval disneyland.

But I digress, back to this strange jealousy … I think I felt that way because my life was tougher and crazy stuff happened to me as well, but i didn’t think of writing about my stories (which i always considered to be rather entertaining in their own right):  like how my first place wasn’t in kesklinn, it was in Pelguranna where i got my ass kicked by 3 dudes one night; or later when I was living in Lasnamäe, the mob blew up a bomb less than a block away; then there was the first time i was at the Latvian/Estonian border, when i was escorted into the forest by two huge border guards with machine guns; and one of my first times in Helsinki, i did end up sleeping on the street one night; and I’m sad to say that the fact I don’t look European to Europeans has meant I’ve regularly had to face racial incidents that have continued to this day - I’ve just had to get used to ignoring them. Oh yeah, AND I was also a charter member of Club Hollywood when it first opened … and that’s got to count for something, right?

But in the end, it’s just silly jealousy - perhaps rooted in the same competitiveness that makes many want to show off at a reunion or when they meet an ex.

So overall what did I think?  Well, I would have preferred less whining and his never-ending soul searching.  And it was very hard to identify with someone actually quite different than myself.  In fact i probably identify more with Epp and even Rick the dickhead, than the author.  But despite those things, overall I have to take my hat off to Justin Petrone.

It was really great to read about another foreigner’s experiences, good and bad, in Estonia. He seems to be someone who is also trying to understand, adapt to, and appreciate the place in which he lives.  Because all too often here, foreigners are more like long term tourists who only see the theme park version of life here - not realizing there is much more to living here than drinking millimallikas and taking a naked sauna once in a while.

And bravo for showing Estonians that not all foreigners are only here to “steal the women”.  And not just that, but bravo as well for showing Estonians that the foreigners living here are deeper and much more nuanced than what they see stumbling out of nimeta on a typical weekend.

So thank you Justin Petrone, thank you from a fellow ex-pat in Estonia.  I look forward to reading Part 2.