A few days ago I observed the occasion that helped me to discover more about mentality of Estonians. So, it happened at night when I peacefully slept. Here I should mention that I sleep in ear-plugs which is my old habit from the time when I used to live in the dormitory. Nowadays this habit allows me to sleep with open window and ignore barking of dogs, cawing of crows, noise from cars, etc. So, it is not that easy to disturb my sleeping:)
Nevertheless, that night I woke up since somebody hammered to the radiator quite diligently! It even made me a bit scared because my scattered mind could not understand what is going on. Later I realized that somebody had a party and probably drunk people decided to have fun in this way. My clock showed 2 am. Fortunately in a minute it stopped and I fell asleep again.
In 30 minutes I was awaken second time. This time because of the enormously loud music: the people put speakers on their window and let us listen to the song that reminded me “Gangnam Style” by Psy, however, it was something different. The music played sooo loud that I had an impression that everything happened in my room.
But what made me really surprised is that… nobody complained! If it happened in Ukraine where I am originally from, at least dozen of people would shout through their windows something like “Go away!”, “Turn off your music, bastards!”. And definitely somebody would call to the police in the best case and would go to fight with those guys in the worst. Ukrainian people are quite “sensitive” in this sense:) In Estonia nothing has happened. I was listening to the music of my neighbours for about 10 minutes and then fell asleep.
Next morning I asked my Estonian flatmate if she heard the hammering to the radiator and music last night. “Yes, I heard” – she said emotionlessly. It made me even more astonished! I wondered where were disturbance, indignation, rebellion in her voice! Small group of drunk people woke up hundred(s) of people and nobody is reacting! Then my flatmate explained me that it is typical way of behaving for the Estonians. Estonian people can endure a lot until “water finally boils”. They are quite tolerant towards others even if the truth is not on the side of those others. Next day I described the situation to another friend of mine from Estonia and asked why nobody reacted and she answered the same.
It made me think. We all have models of behaving in our mind that have been seeded and grown during the whole our life and especially in childhood. The model when five people attack a crowd and the crowd keeps calm is a new for me. But I think it makes sense. Indeed, ten minutes of discomfort and the conflict is ended. While calling to the police, shouting, fighting would have brought much more negative emotions and taken more time. Moreover, it happened just once and can be forgiven easily. However, I believe that following “golden mean” is essential. Of course we should be tolerant and polite, but at the same time we must be sure that one day we will not miss the border between tolerance and justice.