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Despite the fact that Baltic Pride was cancelled this year due to the virus risks, we still managed to celebrate pride on 22-28 June with Baltic Pride 2020: The Safe and Special Edition. The week was full of different events, many online, some around town. Now it’s time to look back at the colourful week.
First, we said hello and invited everyone to celebrate Baltic Pride with us.
Although the Pride march was cancelled this year, we were still able to bring our colours and our voices to the streets when we walked with Rhythms of Resistance. A huge thank you to RoR, to everyone who carried the posters, to assistants, and the photographers and videographers for creating visibility for our community! You can watch the entire hour-long event on our Instagram, or a shorter overiew video here. Photos can be found on our page here, and in the media here, here (with a longer story in Estonian), and here.
You could take part in Queer Jeopardy and put your LGBT+ and Pride knowledge to the test. 80 people played the game and out of everyone who got the answers right we selected a winner who received a fun rainbow goodie bag.
On Instagram live, we chatted with the member of the European Parliament Marina Kaljurand. We talked about her work at the EP LGBT+ Intergroup, about the (in)visibility of LGBT+ politicians, and about the relationship between the community and our representatives in parliaments. You can watch the lively conversation on our Instagram @lgbt.ee.
Our friends at Queer Planet had a movie night where about 30 people watched the film Pride. Before the screening, folks could enjoy some homemade snacks and afterwards they had an exciting discussion about solidarity and activism.
The Estonian Network of People Living With HIV opened their doors and invited everyone to learn more about sexually transmitted infections, grab some free condoms and lubricants, and to get to know the organization.
Ruu Silverman offered us a queer yoga class. The hour full of juicy movement with a rainbow in the background will remain up on our Instagram page @lgbt.ee so you can watch it at any time.
There were not one, but two reasons to go to Fotografiska during Pride week. First, you could hang out in the garden and listen to some tunes played by our old friend and organizer of the Tallinn Bearty festival Alvar, and the next day they held a tour of the Tom of Finland photo exhibition accompanied by a movie night.
The whole world got to take part of the 24-hour Global Pride 2020 event, which also included our greeting alongside greetings from pride’i organizers, politicians, and talented artists from around the world. You can rewatch our little video here. The feedback said it was educational.
The Canadian embassies of the Baltics organized an online concert and screening with the two-spirit, trans, Indigenous artist G. R. Gritt and the trans artist Rae Spoon. And you can watch it again!
Naturally, we also celebrated Pride at X-bar. During the day, we enjoyed the sunny terrace and sold some rainbow merch, with the proceeds going to support our organization, for which we thank everyone who contributed. And at night, Vaido Neigaus and Henrik Norman turned it out! Check out some photos and a video here.
And Sveta bar was so much fun! It was so fun that the line of people wanting to get in was so long it looked like a pride parade. A big thank you to all the performers who drove the audience wild. We would especially like to point out Maarja and Ivo Linna (otherwise known as Kristiina and Eva Marta) who had travelled to the stage from 1996 to perform their hit “Kaelakee hääl”. There are videos of it going around somewhere… Maarja, Ivo, Kristiina, Eva Marta and our whole organization would like to say thank you to the lovely people at Sveta who collected donations for us. You can relive the night with some photos here.
Initially, the Pride afterparty at Sveta was supposed to host Sado Opera, a band from Germany. Although they could not come to Estonia, they still sent us a DJ set made just for Baltic Pride. Feel free to dance to it any day, every day.
We ended the week with an LGBT+ history tour of Tallinn. It was so much fun to film and based on the feedback, it seems it was also interesting to watch. Big thanks to Carlos Lesmes for filming and Gabriel Solis for sound and for a fun afternoon! We hope that for our next tour we will see you all in person.