Estonia and Portugal: what brings our countries together and apart
By João Lopes Marques ( Eesti keeles ) When Urmas Vaino asked me, more than a year ago in ETV, what were the main differences and similarities between Estonia and Portugal I froze... Without acknowleding it, he had just made the most difficult question of my life. We were live in Terevisioon and I was just able to scatter something like “It’s... it´s... Huh, it´s as if we belonged to two different continents...” Sometimes it seems to me that Portugal and Estonia are more than two countries in Europe’s far edges: a strange magnet brings us together; a ruthless determinism separates us. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken me so long time to identify them... 1. Kaamos & saudade Similarities first. Not many countries in the world have a specific word for a even more concrete kind of sadness. It’s quite surprising for me that youngest Estonians tend to overlook such an endemic concept. In fact, I’ve been asking it and just people over 35, or even older, have the ability t...