Baltic States – CIS, Direct Speech, Education and Science, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Tourism

Here is being presented the Etymology of representatives of this small community within Estonian society: from the descendants of the Old Believers, 17th century, coming up to the population of the former Soviet Union until the early 90’s of the last century. Informants were people from 36 to 80 years of age, born or living in Estonia almost their entire adult lives, characterized by gender and education.

During the interview each person was asked to refer to the earliest personal memories of travel experience, to recall the practice of their parents and, if possible, their ancestors, in order to obtain a more complete picture of the Estonian tourism in the above mentioned periods. Each informant, due to his or hers particularity gave their unique impressions and interpreted their practice differently.

The analysis is based on a qualitative research method and motivations for social change in the system of cultural tourism practices of this community representatives of the Estonian society. In Estonia, in the Middle Ages, the practice of tourism, both as a studying tourism and as travel for the purpose of self-discovery, appeared for the first time in the environment of the Baltic Germans.

In the 19-20th century, according to the informants and other sources, on the development of tourism in the Russian and the Estonian community, strongly influenced by the practice of the German tourist population of Estonia.

Let’s look back at the times of the first Estonian Republic. After the monetary reform of 1933 it was decided by the Government that tourism may even out the challenging budget balance of the country, so in various periodicals of the 30s are published easily written materials for travelers about cities, popular vacation sites and Estonian islands. One of the April editions starts with a famous aphorism of Gustav Flober “The world is great and the traveler is its true owner”.

The impression is that Estonian people could afford all the routs, inside and outside the country, but there were conducted multiple campaigns to persuade the people to take on the national routs, that is very understandable from the internal economics point of view.

So, prior to the establishment of the Soviet regime free Estonian citizens could travel without restrictions. As per G.Simmel, “the border is not a spatial fact with sociological effect, but a sociological fact that is spatially referenced”. As they were again in the spatially limited Soviet territory and keeping the memory of a possibility of free travels in Europe and the rest of the world, Estonians kept traveling within the vast Soviet borders.

The practices of the travels in all the republics of the Soviet Union was majorly used as creating the identity of the “Soviet people”, also it was giving the Estonians an opportunity to explore all the diversity of this enormous territory, “one fifth of planets dry land”. There were no borders in Soviet Union, only restricted zones close to the Soviet border. Therefore, in the period of the First Estonian Republic people adopted the habit of traveling, discovering new destinations and nourish their interest towards the new reality. Exactly this interest remained unsatisfied at the time of “closed borders” of Soviet times, adding the limited freedom of movement. As a result one of the forms of social capital was born – social memory of the lost freedom of travel of the “free Republic times”. The cheapness and the availability of Estonian tourism of the Soviet period were positive components. In such a way, regardless of the fact that the domineering aspects of patriotism and collectivism were cultivated and there was no freedom of travel outside the Soviet borders, this period was transformed into a positive social memory. This was possible because of realization of the main goal – a possibility of travel, and considering that the possible travelling ground was immense, it has contributed to realization of various cultural practices.

Yet at the same time socio-cultural practices of Estonian tourism during late 80s of last century, that is, the Soviet times, marked by the dominant aspects of education of patriotism and collectivism, the absence of freedom of movement outside of the former State, it negatively affected the development of personal identity. After the country regained its independence, the extraordinary tourism burst was possible with the help of the easy entrance and exit, the basics for which for Estonian people was the so close possibility to make their dream of seeing the forbidden world come true.

Starting from the 90s, when the hard borders of “indestructible union” were slightly beginning to lift, Estonian tourists flooded the for decades forbidden Western world. Over the past 20 years new tourist practices were born and so their differentiation became clear. The main criteria of tourism activity is currently time and space. According to Z. Bauman, the nowadays traveler is a person “who is moved by a goal” and “the goal is a new experience.” The consequence of any experience is an internal change that leads to radical changes in personality, changes in identity. According to the analysis of the interviews, it is possible that we are now seeing a return to Tourism - Travel, i.e. the knowledge of the inner self, the search for identity.