Sylvain Oulala arrived in Estonia 10 years ago, when he took part in a European volunteer project in Tallinn, a circus school at the Salme cultural center to be precise. He was active there for a year, and when it was over, it was clear to him that he wanted to live in Estonia.
For the last three years, he has been organising his own circus festival and has plans to perform in all Estonian towns that have more than 3,000 inhabitants.
He says that the French are like plums and the Estonians are like coconuts. "The French look very nice from the outside, but inside, they have a pit. Talking to them at first is easy, but who knows what they say or think behind your back. As a rule, they think badly of you. The Estonians seem rough on the surface, and covered with a hard shell, but beyond this, everything is bright. And healthy, too," Sylvian explains.
"Once you've made friends with an Estonian, you can trust them implicitly. They don't say anything bad behind your back, and if they want to say something, they say it straight to your face," says Sylvain, who is very comfortable with Estonians' natural disposition. The French sit back and enjoy themselves too much. Estonians don't do that.
"I really like the sauna culture here," adds Sylvain. "I also have a sauna in the basement, I get my friends together and we just hang out."
Sylvain also likes the way Estonians value and understand nature. They all know when the ramson in the garden is ready for picking or which mushrooms in the forest are edible. "It's fantastic to be at one with nature like that," he says. And he is also impressed by how we in Estonia have managed to strike a balance between nature and technological developments.
The fluidity of the four seasons is an experience Sylvain relishes and is probably one of the reasons he decided to make his home here.
Author: Diana Lorents/HAVAS
Photo: Virgo Haan/HAVAS
