Pärnu, Estonia | ISTOCK Letter from Estonia Finland’s Florida Retired Finns are flocking to their southern neighbor.

TALLINN — Even though Estonia’s sturdy economy has slowed down slightly this year, Ingmar Saksing, a real estate agent in the city of Pärnu, is still doing brisk business. Thank Finnish sunbirds. Last year alone, 15 percent of 250 properties Saksing’s office sold went to Finns.

Retired Finns are flocking to their southern neighbor.

“People move here because of the low cost of living, and it’s very easy to get here, two hours on the ferry from Helsinki and then a one-and-a-half-hour drive to Pärnu,” reported Matti Linnavirta, a Helsinki businessman who now owns a home there.

Call it the poor man’s Florida. The most popular spot is Pärnu, a 42,000-resident coastal town just a five-hour ferry-and-car journey from Helsinki.

“It’s cheap, and from here it’s easy to travel around Europe in our camper without expensive boat tickets,” explained a retired Finnish military man now living in Pärnu, who didn’t want his name used. “And there’s good food and a warmer climate.”

It’s all relative, of course: While not exactly Mediterranean in climate, Estonia is balmier than Finland. The Finnish city of Rovaniemi, for example, has an average July temperature of 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), which is 2 degrees cooler than Pärnu.

An average one-bedroom home by the sea in Pärnu will set you back about €100,000, about half the price of a comparable flat in Helsinki or on Spain’s Costa del Sol.

Apart from the ready supply of Sinebrychoff beer, the Pärnu retiree life distinctly resembles retired life in Key West.

About 1,000 Finnish retirees now live in Estonia, which has a total population of just 1.3 million, according to Finnish government statistics. Last year, 244 retirees moved south of the border and 650 properties in Pärnu are now owned by Finns. That’s fewer than half the number of Finns who moved to Spain last year. But 20 years ago not many Finns or indeed any foreigners in their right mind would have relocated to the former Soviet republic in search of a comfortable retirement.

“These days, people dare to move here,” said Linnavirta. “In the past, they thought of Estonia as a socialist country, but now they see it as a modern one, and it’s less corrupt than many other former socialist countries. And it’s like Finland. Many people even speak Finnish.”

Kirsti Narinen, Finland’s ambassador to Estonia, recounted a recent encounter with a Finnish retiree now living in Estonia, who reported her rationale for moving as follows: She can take the bus to a jazz concert, attend the concert, have a beer, and take a taxi home, setting her back a mere €10.

“In Finland the taxi alone would cost €10,” Narinen says. “It’s easy to see why pensioners choose to move here. Plus, they get health care services in Finnish.”

The Estonian language is closely related to Finnish, making it relatively easy to offer medical services to retirees in their native tongue. Sensing a new market, many Pärnu businesses have begun teaching their staff Finnish.

During Soviet times, Estonian residents traveled to Pärnu for sunny summer vacations. For better sun, of course, they would travel within the Eastern Bloc to the beaches of the Black Sea, but Pärnu was more accessible to ordinary citizens who lacked the political connections to allow travel far afield.

Booze cruise

Then came independence, and to Estonians’ horror-infused delight, Scandinavians discovered their sunny seaside resort.

“Pärnu was famous for cheap alcohol, so young people came here to drink,” recalls Saksing. “Today, the alcohol is not so cheap anymore, so we don’t get as many young visitors. People in their 30s and 40s come here to visit, and retired people come here to buy. And what’s changing is that now they’re buying apartments, not just summer cottages.”

In truth, Estonia is still known for cheap booze, and according to a recent report, Finns’ private imports of Estonian beer have left Finland’s domestic beer market struggling. Tallinn-Helsinki ferries offer such low prices for alcohol that Finnish ferry travelers last year brought home a remarkable 64 million liters of booze, including 32 million liters of beer and 11 million liters of long drinks. That’s 12 liters of ferry alcohol per Finn in one year.

Apart from the ready supply of Sinebrychoff beer, the Pärnu retiree life distinctly resembles retired life in Key West. The Pärnu Finnish Society organizes mini-golf, bowling, and community lunches. Last year’s Finnish festival drew a crowd of 25,000.

Narinen predicts the Baltic Sea retiree migration will continue to grow.

“What do pensioners want?” she asks. “They want a comfortable life, they want company, they want cultural events. In Spanish resorts you can get the first two, but not so much of the latter, whereas Pärnu has a theater and an orchestra, and you get Finnish news. I think the cultural part, combined with the low cost of living, is what makes Estonia so attractive.”

Just like American retirees in Florida, Finnish retirees in Estonia can quickly get home for their grandchildren’s high school graduation.

One complication that most Americans in Florida don’t have to worry about is the compatibility of the two countries’ social security systems. EU members though they both are, Finland and Estonia each have a national social security system, and once you move from one country to the other, you’re de-registered in the former. Should a Finn in Estonia become seriously ill, she or he would exclusively depend on Estonian medical care, which despite the country’s ascent in rich-world standards lags behind medical care in Finland.

For now, Estonia lacks provisions for ageing sunbirds: There are no retirement homes for retired Finns, no assisted living. That’s business potential ready to be tapped.

Elisabeth Braw is a correspondent for Newsweek.

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