We've occasionally worked with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help communicate key policies to international audiences, and provide some supporting content.
I love taking deep dives into Estonian and Baltic history to provide context so you can check out some tweet threads I've created for them, such as these ones explaining the international significance of the Tartu Peace Treaty and Estonian Independence Day.
An interesting fact. The Foreign Ministry is the only part of the Estonian state that has existed continuously since Estonia declared independence as a Republic in 1918. That’s because, even when the whole country was occupied, diplomats abroad continued showing up for work and working hard toward the return of freedom.
In fact, the predecessor to Estonia’s Foreign Ministry is older than the Republic itself. Estonians were embarking on diplomatic trips to build friendships around the world, most successfully in the UK, even before declaring independence.
More than a century later, Estonia’s diplomatic team punches far above their weight when it comes to supporting international law and the rights of all peoples to self-determination.
Baltic Synchro
One really interesting milestone for Estonia and the Baltic countries this year was the synchronisation of their power grid with the European system.
It was the culmination of decades of work, leading to a carefully planned switch over in which the Baltic countries would operate for one weekend as an energy island before plugging into the rest of Europe.
This island state allows the Baltic countries to run tests to ensure they can smoothly return to this state again in future, further increasing national resilience.
It wasn’t without risks so everyone was prepared for a range of scenarios, not just the many thousands of people directly involved or on standby in technical or security roles, but also wider society that had to be prepared for the small possibility of several days without power.
After all that very serious preparation, we decided to switch tone slightly at the very moment that the Baltic countries were smoothly operating as an energy island.
While still acknowledging the risks, we decided to explain what was unfolding with finally some cautious celebration - and also use the attention to showcase some wonderfully weird Estonian design.
Our tweet thread was illustrated with lots of great pictures of Estonian designer pylons.
They had been built in recent years as part of the synchronisation project and designed to reflect the local landscape and folklore.
All of the pictures were taken by Tõnu Tunnel who kindly went out of his way to get them all to us.
That generated lots of new fans for Estonian pylons and underscored the message that everything is more beautiful with independence and security.
A lot of people were expecting the whole thing to be a tense occasion so the pylons added to their relief, and we made light of that while engaging with it.
This was picked up in the press with AFP mentioning it in the copy used in news reports around the world.
It has been a tremendous honour to be able to work with the Foreign Ministry of Estonia.
Personally, this post below will always be my favourite communication we suggested.
