Estonians heeding a worldwide energy-saving appeal turned out their lights and other electrical devices for five minutes on 1 February, 2007

The initiative saved a quantity of electricity corresponding to consumption by a town with a population of 20,000.

“Chief of shift at the electricity system control centre saw from the display screen that consumption dropped by 20 megawatts,” a specialist with the control centre explained. “At 8:55 p.m it was 1,295 megawatts and within a few dozen seconds it dropped to 1, 275 megawatts.” In his words, consumption decreased by the amount of power used by Viljandi, a town with a population of 20,000 in southern Estonia. “Five Minutes of Respite for the Planet” was an initiative of the French Environmental group L’Alliance pour la Planete. The ‘Blackout’ that lasted from 8:55 to 9 p.m. local time on 1 February was designed to draw attention to the great powers’ reluctance to rein in the ever-growing energy demand.

Estonian Foreign Ministry News, Estonian Review, Volume 17, No. 5, Jan 31-Feb 6

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Nearly 30,000 Estonian nationals Living Abroad-Registry Data

As many as 29,765 citizens of Estonia had registered themselves as residents of some other country as of Feb. 1 this year.

Residents of Finland accounted for the largest number, or 16,535. Residents of Russia numbered 3,213, residents of Sweden numbered 2,403 and residents of Canada, 1,598.

There were also large communities of Estonian citizens in Germany (1,426), the United States (1,396), Australia (618) and the United Kingdom (606). The number of Estonian citizens living in Latvia was 447.

At the beginning of February 2006, 17,752 Estonian nationals were living abroad, including 5,087 in Finland, 2,937 in Russia and 2,354 in Sweden.

The sudden increase in the number of Estonians living abroad is partially attributable to the fact that the Estonian Interior Ministry at the end of last year transferred into the Finnish registry the names of 8,500 Estonian nationals who had registered themselves as permanent residents of Finland

Estonian Foreign Ministry, Estonian Review, Volume 17, No 5, Feb. 6, 2007

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Port of Tallinn to Receive more than 280 Cruise Ships

Organizers of cruise trips have booked more than 280 cruise ship visits to harbors of Tallinn Sadam ( Port of Tallinn). For the forthcoming cruise season.

Tallinna Sadam public relations manager Sven Ratasepp said that there should be 278 visits to the Tallinn City harbor bringing about 300,000 passengers to Tallinn. Ships of four different cruise lines should call at the port of Tallinn’s Saaremaa harbor on six occasions. According to plans the first coastal cruise ship will visit Tallinn on April 17 and the first traditional cruise ship on May 1.

Last year the Port of Tallinn received 299 cruise ships with more than 300,000 passengers.

Reproduced from Estonian Review, Volume 17, No. 10, March 10-17, 2007