On Saturday, February 16th the residents of Chester Village, among them 5 Estonians, celebrated the 84th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Estonia. With some help and direction from Priit Aruvald of the Estonian Central Council, Eugenia Labi, the assistant director of activities at Chester Village, had undertaken to organize an event-filled day focused on familiarizing the residents and their guests with Estonian - the country, the people, the culture.

A morning service presided over by Rev. Tiit Tralla was followed by a hardy Estonian luncheon of sausages and sauerkraut. For the afternoon program Eugenia had arranged for the hall to be decorated entirely in Estonia's tricolour including miniature blue-black-white flags for every table. Eugenia's efforts at speaking Estonian which included the greeting "tere" and the first line of the Estonian national anthem were warmly received by the Estonians in the audience. In her presentation Eugenia talked about the symbolic significance of the colours of the Estonian flag and the Estonian coat of arms and read an English translation of Estonia's beautiful national anthem. She ended her presentation by regaling the audience with some age-old Estonian words of wisdom i.e. "eesti vanasõnad" . Eugenia later confided that she had thoroughly enjoyed researching the subject of Estonia on the internet.

The afternoon part of the program also included a video about Estonia and its many interesting and appealing attributes such as the world-famous Song Festival, Tallinn's medieval Old Town and much, much more. In addition, the 60 or more residents and guests who participated in the afternoon activities had the opportunity to view first-hand a display of a wide variety Estonian articrafts provided by the Estonian Ethnografic Society in Kanada. The highlight of the afternoon, however, was the musical entertainment provided by Andres (phonetically pronounced "undress" ) Raudsepp. Andres successfully engaged the audience to sing along both in English and in Estonian.

And the refreshments provided - cranberryjuice and "kringel" of course. All in all a successful event, thanks to the efforts of Eugenia Labi and other staff at Chester Village.

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