Cyrus Farivar

After four iterations of topics, and a very unhappy thesis advisor, and a month of busting my ass reporting — my thesis is done. I’m trying to figure out where I can get it published. For now I’m not putting up a public copy, but I will email a not-for-distribution copy to whoever wants one. [hed] New York to Boston for $15 [sub-hed] The Past, Present and Future of the ‘Chinatown Buses’

I’m sitting in Kohvik Moskva (Moscow CafŽ) in Tallinn. I just met a 20-something Swiss guy from Lausanne, named Julien Renaud, who speaks perfect American English (used to live in Pasadena), born to a French father and Brazilian mother. He speaks French, English and Portuguese. He moved here a few months ago to be with his Russian girlfriend (who he met on the Internet) who was born and raised in Tallinn. She speaks English, Russian, and Estonian. She’s teaching him…

LA Times Commentary: It’s part of a global problem: About 400 million people speak English as their first language, an additional 700 million or so use it as a second language and a billion people more are struggling to learn how to speak it. Meanwhile, other languages are disappearing at the rate of two per month. There are about 6,800 languages in the world, but the expert consensus is that 400 of them will soon be extinct. Why care? “When…

NYT: Indeed, on the square it was possible to find veiled Sunni Muslim women from Tripoli, Shiites from scattered points around the country, Druse and Maronite Christians. There was a distinctly different dress code among the demonstrators as well, with some women sporting bare midriffs and pierced belly buttons. A few of the banners cemented the theme of unity by displaying both a cross and a crescent. Some of the banners displayed a bit of wit: “Long Live the Syrians…

No Petrograd for me. Getting a visa will take at shortest a week, usually two. Next time.

Estonia Randomness #3: Veljo says “Married with Children” is the most popular television show in Estonia. I can’t decided whether or not this is better or worse than the fact that they show Jerry Springer in Senegal. Estonia Factoid #1: Along with Icelandic, Estonian is at present one of the smallest languages in the world that fulfils all the functions necessary for an independent state to ÔperformÕ linguistically. Teaching, at both primary school and university level, is in Estonian; it…

If you’ve been following my adventures from the last couple days then you know that I’ve just travelled the entire length of the country and back in two days. Saturday morning, Veljo and I left Tallinn and reached a small town near the Latvian border 300 km away (200 miles) by the end of the day. We hit up the border (or rather, I did, for the sake of a border stamp) this morning and were back in Tallinn by…

Last night involved a homemade vodka with a very high percentage (was flammable) of alcohol at a guest house in the old stomping grounds of the Forest Brothers. More on this later. En route back from from the south of Estonia. I even made it to the Latvian border and convinced the border guards on the Latvian side to stamp my passport. 180 km from Tallinn. Will be back in a couple hours. See you on the other side.

Posting now from Kanepi Pubi, a small pub in the little town of Kanepi, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Latvia and about 50 km (30 miles) west of Russia. 12 questions about Estonia. 2. Do polar bears live in Estonia? Although Estonia is situated in Northern Europe, the nearest polar bears live more than 2000 km further north. Estonia, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, is at the same latitude in Europe as central Sweden and the…

So we’ve made it to Tartu, the self-described “City of Good Thoughts.” In brief, my first impressions of Tartu: a more relaxed, less-touristy city than Tallinn. Small, for sure (only 100,000 people — as opposed to Tallinn’s 500,000 — and remember the country is only a little over a million). From the pub that I last posted from, I slept pretty much the whole way, but from what I can tell at least on that main two-lane highway there isn’t…