Welcome to Wild Estonia Weekly

In this weeks edition:

• Older Estonian traditions connected with Winter Solstice and Yuletide

• An authentic Estonian Christmas experience

• Get a 50% discount on Winter Day Trips in Soomaa National Park

• Without fresh blood and forest berries, it’s not really Christmas.

Winter Solstice and Yuletide

Today is Winter Solstice which means that Estonia receives just 6 hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset. This is seen in Estonia as the beginning of winter and is traditionally a cause for rest and celebration as it marks the beginning of a return to the long warm days of summer.

Winter Solstice is also known as the beginning of Yuletide, a period of celebration that is much older than Christian traditions. Traditionally this meant that all debts were to be repaid, several types of work were banned and celebrations were characterised by excessive eating.

On the day of Winter Solstice, houses were cleaned, Yuletide food was prepared and Yuletide beer was brewed. Christmas is now the most important day of celebration in the Yuletide period and in this week’s edition of Wild Estonia Weekly, we will reveal some of the wild ways that you can celebrate Christmas in Estonia.

Get ‘Yuletide Wild’ this week in Estonia

• The Gingerbread Mania Exhibition has opened again in Tallinn at the Design and Architecture Gallery (Pärnu mnt 6). This years theme is ‘Wizard’s Shop’ and the gingerbread artworks of over 100 Estonian artists and designers are on display.

• In Christmas City Tartu, a flying ship has landed on the main square. Fairytales, concerts and exciting activities are happening on board for both for grown-ups and children.

• Visit the Altja Kõrts (Altja Tavern), in Lahemaa National Park for an authentic Estonian Christmas meal.

• Use this great Estonian gingerbread recipe to make your own gingerbread (piparkoogid) at home. Ready-to-bake gingerbread dough (piparkoogitainas) are also available in the cold section of most Estonian supermarkets.

• Buy some preserved cucumbers (hapukurk), pumpkin (kõrvits) or sauerkraut (hapukapsas) from a local market and enjoy it with your Christmas dinner.

• Sing, dance or recite a poem before receiving your Christmas presents!

Did you know?

The first recorded use of a Christmas Tree was in 1441 in the city of Reval (now known as Tallinn). Baltic merchants placed a spruce tree in the Town Hall Square during Yuletide celebrations and danced around it with local maidens. Visit Christmas Trees (Picea abies) in their natural home by snow shoeing through Soomaa National Park. Soomaa.com are the local guiding experts and on the 26 December are offering a fully guided Winter Day Trip for the special price of EUR 20. Visit Soomaa.com for bookings and more information.

Wild Focus

In Estonia, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without fresh blood and forest berries. To be more precise, it wouldn’t be Christmas without blood sausage and cranberry or lingonberry jam. Verivorst (literally ‘blood sausage’), the tasty and popular Christmas staple, is made from fresh pig’s blood mixed with barley, pork fat, onion, herbs and spices squeezed into sausage casings. This is then traditionally boiled so that it will keep until Christmas Eve and then fried in a pan or baked in an oven before serving.

The perfect accompaniment for blood sausage is of course cranberry or lingonberry jam. These jams are best made at home in late July from berries freshly picked from the forest. Wild Estonia Weekly will certainly be telling you more about picking wild berries in our upcoming summer editions!

The verivorst tradition arose a long time ago from both the need to slaughter farm animals in late Autumn before the long cold winter, and the desire of families to not waste any of the food and nourishment these animals could provide. However, verivorst is now available in all supermarkets, butcher shops and local markets, though it is not so common now for Estonians to make their own. Perhaps this trend is changing however as Evelin Ilves, the wife of the Estonian President, made a recent appearance on TV to make her own verivorst The New York times also reported last week about the Estonian community of New York coming together to learn from their elders about the art of making verivorst..

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