How will I celebrate 10 years of living and learning in Estonia? asks our former international student ambassador Marina, who first came to Estonia in 2016 with Erasmus+. Since then, she has explored the country, learned the language, and finished her PhD and is now employed as a lecturer at the Estonian University of Life Sciences. A trip down memory road.
“Tõuske kõik püsti,” I tell my students. Everybody stand up. I continue: Sit down if you come to uni by bike. Sit down if you go running or to the gym or another sports training at least twice a week. Sit down if you walk for an hour every day. Sit down if you actively play an instrument or sing in a choir. I have a few more examples, but in the end, still two or three students stand. “This was a mental health check-in,” I explain. We’re seven weeks into the semester, and winter is approaching fast – time for a reminder that you must take care of your mental health, especially when you’re studying veterinary medicine, a very demanding and time-consuming specialty. Between anatomy, biochemistry, and writing homework after homework, it is so important to make time for exercise, for fresh air, for friends. Give the brain and body a break. “Remember that you are whole people, not just veterinary students. Studying does become easier if you’ve spent half your Saturday hiking in the forest and gave yourself that hour to play the piano. I know, because I’ve been through it all.”
It’s been one year since I started teaching this subject, and feedback has been great so far. I think the students connect to me because I’m relatively young. I still remember my student days, I’m not a scary professor, and I let them see me struggle with Estonian. I’ve been learning the language for ten years, but I still often search for the right word, the right case. I correct myself. I ask my students how words are spelled. And sometimes my sentences seem so chaotic that I must double-check that they understood me at all. I believe this is the very reason why the students aren’t afraid to answer my questions: they know that this class is a safe place to be wrong. 
After the class, when I file I away their attendance, I see a Facebook notification: You have memories to look back on. This week ten years ago I had just finished my first month in Estonia – sitting on the other side, astonished at how friendly the professors here were and that I was allowed to address them by their first names. I smile. It was one of those teachers in my first month at the Estonian University of Life Sciences who sparked my interest in bovine medicine and science, which eventually led me to pursue an academic career. Right here, in Tartu, Estonia.
There have been struggles. Coming from Germany, I have often felt guilt at being here, given the history of our two countries. I had a hard time adapting to the dark winters (hello, seasonal depression) and had to learn how to heat with firewood instead of central heating. Trust me, German millennials do not know how to make proper fires. I had to learn what science is, from how to read a scientific article (not something that finds space in the German veterinary curriculum) to managing a field study in the middle of nowhere in South Estonia. And, of course, I had to learn a language that has impossibly many vowels and even more grammatical cases. But to teach at university, I needed a C1 Estonian certificate. So, I studied. I practiced. I struggled on. And I explained, exasperated, for the millionth time, that even though my name is Marina, I do not understand any Russian.
It is always hard to tell where a story starts. Maybe that day in the Erasmus+ coordinator’s office in Hanover, when I was handed a list of partner universities and chose Estonia on a whim. An adventure, I thought, I don’t even know which of the three Baltic states that one is. Half a year later, in September 2016, I went. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But I fell in love with the small university, the small city of Tartu, and the small country of Estonia right away.
It is why I remind my first-year students to allow themselves to go to parties on the weekends. This was something I also only discovered in Tartu, during my Erasmus. I was always somewhere, in the forests, in other cities, in bogs and bars – and I still managed to get good grades and find time to exercise. My exchange semester may have been unconventional, as I took every subject very seriously and never really connected to any other international students. The first friend I made in Tartu was an Estonian journalist. Definitely not the classic Tartu experience for foreign exchange students. Last summer, we were at the Song Festival together. Ten years since we met. Ten years! A lot happens in that time. It was this first friend who introduced me to the man who is now my husband. But back then, of course, I thought of dancing until dawn and not of marriage and picking currants from my own garden for homemade jam. Just as in 2016, my weekends are packed. Ten years ago, I stayed up late to party, meet friends, and maybe get some studying in. Now I stay up late because correcting homework took a little longer than planned and then I had to take care of my vegetable beds before baking cinnamon rolls. And not to forget about practicing karmoška (garmon, a type of small button accordion), because we have a concert soon. This week, especially, my evenings are long, as I’m once again studying for an exam. I am past the days of revising vocabulary, but when I read novels in Estonian, I often must ask my husband for this word or that; and reading the Estonian Constitution is a whole other level. But this is what the Citizenship exam will be about.
Will I actually apply for Estonian citizenship if I pass the exam? I’m not sure yet. Behind that decision is a whole lot more than an incredible, unexplainable love for this country and its people that has made me feel like a different person and at the same time as I have finally found myself.
I can’t believe I ever mixed-up Latvia and Estonia. I can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t think about the next time I can go to sauna. When my potato salad had only four ingredients. When I think about how to celebrate my 10-year anniversary of living in Estonia, I consider inviting everyone who was part of this journey. People from all corners of the country and different phases of my life. I’d ask them all to bring something to eat. No, there will not be a list. If we end up with 30 bowls of potato salad, we’ll make it a potato salad contest. Or maybe I’m too introverted now to have a party at all. We’re in Estonia after all.
When I started my PhD, I told my family that I’m open to everything: I might come back to Germany. I can’t believe I actually thought that. There is a magic about Estonia that binds you to it. Just ask anyone who came here to study. We’re all still here. Who could really leave after studying here for a while? There is no other place in the world I’d rather be.
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