Hundreds of meetings, social gatherings, rehearsals, supplementary school classes, camps, all face-to-face group events of any sort - have been canceled or postponed, since March. These were the activities that gave the Estonian communities abroad some tangible substance and purpose.
The physical presence and personal interactions with others of a similar heritage helps us confirm our identity as being connected to the same ethnic background. But can virtual group activity, even temporarily, be replacement for the real thing?
A virtual community, it’s said, is a group of people who exchange information and ideas by interacting through cyber networks. Now it’s as if organizers of online group connections within Estonian communities abroad, somehow anointed with the same IT talent and wherewithal as their internationally touted compatriots in Estonia, were easily able to adapt on-line platforms to keep groups functioning during the pandemic.