That's how my daughter summed up her discovery from a short walk in our little village. "They are rude!" decided she since they left her sunny greetings unanswered.

"Estonians are different than Americans, in many ways," explained I, "But them being bit distant and cold at first doesn't mean that they couldn't turn out to be very nice people actually - it just takes them some time." Well, I really hope she'll make friends here!

Yet it's quite conspicuous that Estonians hardly smile to strangers even if these greet them with the widest grin. They may even feel bothered that someone had nerve to spoil their sanctum of indifference.

One of my friends noted, that stranger smiling to you in Estonia is as seldom as lunar eclipse, but is more frequent in Finland and the more west or south you advance the more smiles you'll see.

Perhaps Estonians were all about smiles, um, 700 years ago. Yeah, but for the seemingly unending centuries they had to bear serfdom under various ruthless foreign rulers. No wonder that some exercise their holy right to be suspicious about newcomers, especially the ones with smiles!

Well, slowly but surely it is changing since our country has enjoyed self-government for 17 years and Estonians have been able to see the world and other ways and views to life. As of now, perhaps as habit some remain quite skillful finding reasons not to smile, but go through the life with a frown. For some it's bad weather, failed crops, neverending work, stress, inflation, noisy neighbor, etc. Well, all the life is complicated!  

I guess it's no wonder the  people like this make fun (teasing Estonian humour!) of American habit they call "keep-smiling". They think it's phony as hell. Of course people like that don't think that one attracts more happiness with a smile than frown. Plus, frowning causes unsightly wrinkle right in the middle of one's brow! 

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