Circus arrived in Estonia about 35 years ago. It came with a banana, a VCR, a Finnish plastic bag and an Opel brought from Germany. The free world did not enter through a grand parade gate. It seeped in through Finnish television, crossed the border in the trunk of an expat's car and appeared one morning at the market on a stool.

The Soviet economy was precisely planned. That is why no one knew what would be sold in the shop tomorrow. When bananas arrived somewhere, the news spread faster than the internet does today. A queue formed before people even knew what they were queuing for. But they stood anyway. Because if something was being given out, you took it. Later at home you looked at what it was and figured out what to do with it.

In Soviet times, the banana was more legend than fruit. Some had seen one in Moscow, some on Finnish TV, and some knew someone whose brother‑in‑law's coworker had eaten one.

Then we became free.

Freedom did not make us rich overnight. First, it made us consumers. The first hamburger stands appeared, along with the first "hamburgers." They were made like this: a loaf of bread was cut in half, then crosswise into quarters. A three‑to‑four‑centimeter slice of boiled sausage was lifted out of hot water with a fork, placed between two quarters of bread with grated fresh cabbage, and covered with a mix of sour cream and ketchup. A handful of rubles changed hands. The hamburger itself did not really exist yet, but the consumer had already been born.

Suddenly shops had bananas, chewing gum, Coca‑Cola, foreign cigarettes and chocolates whose names we learned to pronounce only after the third purchase. There was so much merchandise that it could no longer be hidden under the counter.

Before, people had money but nothing to buy. Now there was everything to buy, but people had no money. Progress was at least visible.

Foreign plastic bags appeared on the streets — Marlboro, Stockmann, Anttila. These bags were never thrown away. People carried them to work, weddings and, when possible, funerals. If the writing was in a foreign language, the bag was practically diplomatic luggage.

Jeans, sneakers, tracksuits and leather jackets arrived. Some tracksuits had brand names the wearer could not pronounce, but that did not stop them from being the brand's representative for the entire housing district.

Then the expat Estonians arrived. They came with good intentions, proper cars and a pedagogical gaze. They explained how democracy works, how business should be done and why people should wash regularly.

Of course, we washed before too — just not yet using Western methods or under international supervision.

Expats sent us soap, toothpaste, used clothes and, among other necessities, expired Snickers bars. Naturally, we ate them. They were foreign Snickers. If the packaging had English text, the expiration date was more of a suggestion.

Royal spirit arrived in Estonia. In some bars, it was the only thing available. Even the water pipes were frozen. You took a shot of Royal, went outside and ate snow afterward. Today this would be called a Nordic‑concept experience bar.

But Estonians did not want to remain mere recipients of aid. Estonians wanted to be entrepreneurs. The first cooperatives emerged. At one point, entire families reviewed their assets. Grandma had a waffle iron. Aunt Maali had a waffle iron. The neighbor's ex‑wife had a waffle iron.

If five waffle irons were borrowed together, the company was ready. They baked so intensely that the entire neighborhood went dark from overload. But this was no longer a power outage — this was economic growth. Then they took a stool under their arm, stepped into the snowfall and began selling waffles. There was no sales space, no permit, no payment terminal, no health inspection approval. There was a stool, snowfall and belief in the free market. Some got rich. Some got pneumonia. Both gained valuable entrepreneurial experience.

Stalls appeared in cities. They sold everything: cigarettes, vodka, chocolate, batteries, sweatpants and sometimes something even the seller did not know the purpose of. People drove to Poland to bring goods. One person was simultaneously company president, purchasing manager, sales manager, driver and warehouse worker. The warehouse was usually the back seat of the car.

Everyone had business cards. The card said "general director," even if the company had only one employee — the director himself. But "general director" sounded better, especially when the company's assets consisted of a stool, two waffle irons and a plastic bag that said "Thank you."

Foreign cars arrived on the roads. An Opel from Germany was not a used car — it was a Western car. It might have been 20 years old, survived three crashes and two fires, but it came from the free world. Some cars had such long histories that even the car itself no longer remembered all its owners.

Mercedes and BMW became symbols of wealth of questionable origin. In the beginning, wealth without questionable origin hardly existed. If it did, it was especially questionable. The free world sent us clothes, chocolate and used cars. We sent the free world metal.

At one point, half of Estonia was in the metal business. The other half tried to figure out where their fence had gone. Metal was the miracle commodity of the new era. It could be found in factories, warehouses, power lines, along railways and sometimes even still attached to something. The main source was the inexhaustible eastern neighbor.

The Russian army stationed in Estonia sold almost everything for vodka. My childhood friend Toivo bought three air‑to‑air missiles from soldiers at the Tartu airfield and kept them in his garage. Toivo thought he had merchandise. Estonian law enforcement thought he had three air‑to‑air missiles. Both were right, but the state was already stronger than Toivo.

When the missiles were confiscated, Toivo was very sad. Thus ended one promising Estonian garage enterprise before our defense industry had even begun properly.

Video recorders arrived in homes and video rental shops appeared on streets. One and the same man — the world's most famous unknown voice — dubbed every character on the tape: men, women, children and, when necessary, dogs.

Satellite TV, MTV and disco bands arrived. A disco band usually consisted of two men and one synthesizer. One man sang. The other pressed the button at the right moment. Both wore such shiny jackets that the band did not need a lighting rig.

And amid all this colorful world, we had to start building a state. The Estonian kroon arrived. Most people spent their last Soviet money on alcohol and their first Estonian money on alcohol, because Midsummer was approaching. The money was finally truly ours — until it again became theirs, whose it had always been. Soon our own were also the banks, loans and bankruptcies. Banks appeared like mushrooms. Some unfortunately had the lifespan of mushrooms.

Privatization began. Factories, buildings and shops got owners. Sometimes it turned out that those best prepared for the new era were the ones who had stood closest to the old era. Later, many former communists explained how they had been undermining Soviet power from within all along. Some had undermined such a deep cellar that the entire factory's assets fit inside. And when the old system collapsed, they happened to be standing closest to the cash register.

But that time was not funny for everyone. Some got their first passport. Others got their first layoff notice. Some discovered the whole world was open to them. Others discovered that the profession they had practiced all their lives was no longer needed.

Jobs disappeared, savings disappeared, and the old sense of security disappeared. Some found opportunity in freedom. Some lost their footing. Some learned to swim quickly. Some sank before anyone noticed. But the economy was on the right course. The opening of the stock exchange proved it. It took a whole year to reach the first stock market crash.

We wanted freedom of choice and we got it. We could choose a political party, profession, place of residence, car, bank, yogurt — and also which bank loan to use to buy that car. We got the right to succeed. And with it, the right to fail.

Before, there was always someone to blame for our troubles: Moscow, the party, the planning committee or the person who hid the scarce sausage under the counter. In a free country, we eventually had to admit that some decisions were our own. Of course, we have not completely given up blaming others. Some national traditions survived occupation, monetary reform and the market economy.

But deep down we know that freedom is not just the right to choose. Here, together with Ukrainian youth, we know especially clearly that freedom is not a commodity that arrives once across the border and stays forever on the shelf. Freedom did not promise that we would always choose correctly. It gave us something much harder — the right to choose ourselves and the obligation to take responsibility for those choices.

We got our country back. But the country did not become finished. Freedom did not become finished. And we ourselves did not become finished. Because the age of awakening is not one day in history. It is the time when a person understands that no one else will live their life or guard their country. Freedom arrived. But the age of awakening must not end.

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