Suspicious things in the forest, on the border of NATO Russia…

Is it checking vehicles? You've been crushed, maybe? Uh, no, no, no. Too, too. Very bad. It's a lot of show. So, Latvia? Yeah. Check for what? Passport? Ukrainian documents. Ah, Ukrainian, ah. All right, well, I think I found them. We found these huge... facing towards the Russian border. Good morning, guys. And welcome back to the channel from Estonia. Right now, we're in the west in a city called Parnu. It looks like this. It's really cute. But I took a few days break of posting and now we're going on another adventure. So, we'll hop in the car in just a bit. I have to get my bag. It's in the room. I'll show you the room in just a sec. This hostel is maybe 9 euros, 10 euros a night. And Parnu is actually a really beautiful city. You'll see when we get outside. It does look like a pretty ex-Soviet little town, which is kind of interesting about it. So, of course, you got this kind of like Stalinistic kind of architecture with the color scheme. Really nice boulevard going down this way. And now we're in the city square. It's kind of like loud, maybe. Today's just a normal early Wednesday morning. It's maybe 8 a.m. or something. And so, we have the street sweeper over here. But this is why I think it feels so Soviet, you know. Of course, we have this nice church over there. Even though Estonia is actually a very non-religious country now, especially after the Soviets left. Now only like 18 to 20 percent of people identify as religious. So, a nice church regardless. And then this is the theater. Perhaps that's why I think it's so Soviet. There's this theater and then like this huge, like, colon, colonnade. Colonnade. It's like a very Soviet kind of style where it's like a big straight road. And that's going on both sides. And then a bridge going across. Estonian flags. A big Estonian flag there. And then the flag of the local Pärnu district. But it's very chill here. I do really like it. Because like I said, it feels like it feels like it retained a lot of that Soviet history. Anyway, let's hop in the car and we're gonna start driving west. Or not west, east. We're going across the entire country of Estonia. It's so loud. Anyway, it's getting a little bit too loud at the street sweeper. So we're gonna keep going on the adventure. Our goal for today is that we're going completely across the country. We're going to the far eastern side of Estonia over on the Russian border. There's some interesting things out in the woods I want to show you guys. So let's hop in the car. Let's go. It's a beautiful church. You know, I also need to talk about how expensive gas is in Estonia right now. Because of the whole Russian thing. So this is the price right now. It's 1.85, I guess. Oh my god, is it full? I'm so happy. That's a good amount. Because it's 1.84 per liter. So it basically times that to four to make one gallon. So, I mean, you're getting like $8 a gallon. Like $7.58 a gallon. So it's painful because all of the fuel used to come from Russia. So this is a nice 58 euro bill. Okay, so we've reached a little town of Volga. This is like halfway across the country. I want to show you something real quick, though. I was just going to the bathroom inside the supermarket. And I can never tell which one is which. Because all of the bathrooms, there's one that's for handicapped women and men. So there's this one, Inga, Naiste and Mista. But the problem is, I have no idea what any of those mean. Those are all in Estonian. So it's kind of like every time you just have to take a guess. Maybe you get the right bathroom. Maybe two nights ago, I went to a pub. And after I had like two or three beers, I'm getting ready to leave. And I go to the bathroom on the way out. And again, it has two of these different words. Actually, different ones than that. I think those ones were in Finnish. And I couldn't tell which one is which. And so then I open the first door. I look inside and I see like an old vintage sign of like a new lady. And so I think, okay, this must be the woman's bathroom. And so then I go out and then I go over to the next one and start going to the bathroom. And then I realized halfway through that this bathroom only has stalls. And also the seat was done when I came in. And so that must mean that I went to the woman's bathroom here in Estonia. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Okay. The reason why we're here. The little city of Valga is that we are right on the border of Estonia and Latvia. Latvia. I love saying that word. Makes me so happy to say Latvia. Latvia. Anyway, so what's interesting about this border is that I love borders. Fascinating borders. So there are this city Valga. Valga with a G is Estonia. Valka with an A is Latvia. The Estonian side is about twice as big, but they're right next to each other. They share almost all the same facilities and everything. And the only delineation, only separation between the border is just these signs. And so these go, you can see a few of them as the border snakes this way. So Estonia, Esti and Latvia. It's really, really cute. Anyway, so the border will keep going this way and snakes around that way. But what's kind of interesting to me is that for a lot of these roads, the roads that just kind of like go straight across, there are, I'm seeing border security. They actually removed the border security back in, I mean, the official border crossings, they removed them back in 2007 when Estonia and Latvia became part of the Schengen agreement. And so then they removed the border crossing formalities. And so technically you should be able to go across. I can drive my car over. I can walk over. No problem. But I want to go talk to these military guys. Or not military, but police. Borders, border guards. And they're just stopping vehicles as they go and just ask them what's up. I wonder if it's just because of the Russian thing. But maybe I can ask them some questions. Hey, I have a question. What is this border checkpoint for? For Estonia? Yeah, this is for, is it checking vehicles? Do you speak Russian, maybe? No, no, no. Too, too. Very bad. So Latvia? Yeah. Every crossing, police? Oh, okay. I thought no border? No. Interesting. And check for what? Passport? Ukrainian documents. Ah, so before Ukraine, no problem. Yes. Okay, okay. Okay, so we've reached one of the old border checkpoints. This one's kind of like a novelty kind of checkpoint. Because as you can see, it just crosses a creek here. But what's really fascinating to me is that, at least the Estonian flags, of course, but then they have Ukrainian flags, as well as, of course, the Latvian flags. Because this is Latvia. And like I said before, so Valga with a G is Estonian side. Valka is the Latvian side. The original name of the city used to be Valk, spelled like walk, an old German name. But what's kind of interesting about this city, here's another one of our border crossings, Latvia, and these are the old checkpoint buildings. But we're now in Latvia, by the way. I'll put the little location there. But what's interesting about the city is that, of course, it's been crossed back and forth many, many times throughout its history by the Soviets, by the Russians, by the Polish, by the Swedes, everybody. And there's some interesting pieces of history here. For instance, maybe about one kilometer going that way. I'm not going to go there right now. But there's another, I've already been to many Soviet fighter jet runways. So there's another one over there. But after that part of history, that chapter finished, then the farmers came in and plowed over it and turned it into farmland. But you can still see the runway kind of area. Anyway, so yeah, that's pretty easy for here in Valka. Valka, Latvia. Welcome to Latvia. But we'll hop back in the car. I want to keep following this border a bit and I'm not going to make any more video of it. But just I'm really curious about borders. I love really interesting, fascinating parts of the world. Like the reason why there's a border here. Why is it here? Why can't it be 20 kilometers over? Why does it go this way? You know, these are just interesting things to me. So I'll put the camera away and then I'll catch you in just a bit when we get over towards the Russian side of Estonia. OK, see you in a bit. Well, I don't really know how we always end up on these adventures. But right now we are near the Russian border. Estonia and the Russian border. And we're out in the middle of the forests. I'm looking for something that's quite interesting. We got to find it first, though. It's somewhere way out here in the woods. The problem thing, the problematic thing is that I'm running into animal tracks of, you know, I used to be a Boy Scout. And one of the things we do in Boy Scouts is we know how to find tracks like of deer, of bears. And I'm seeing lots of moose tracks. I'll point some out when I see someone in just a sec. But there's wild moose here. I think there's wolves here. And of course, the Russians are not too far away. So, all right, let's keep looking. All right, well, I think I found them. We found these huge wooden microphones, these big speakers facing towards the Russian border. There's three of them, I believe, right? One, two, and three. Kind of spooky. Now, of course, when you see these, you could be thinking, you could be thinking, well, Brayden, you know, that's not like a professional speaker. And no, it's actually technically this place is an art installation. And the idea is that you can come stand all the way over here in the center. Whoa, it's like straight up ice. I'm sliding around. The idea is that you can come stand out here in the center and you'll hear the 360 sounds of the forest to be like in pure Estonian nature. Estonia has beautiful, beautiful forests, as you can see. Absolutely gorgeous. But the comical side of me, it's got echo. The comical side of me laughs that there's these huge speakers near the Russian border out in the forest of all places. Anyway, I'm going to spend some time here in the woods, go walking around. You know, when I find these moose tracks, it reminds me of how much fun I had as a boy scout doing this kind of thing. So I like walking through the woods. You can find little spots where the twigs are snapped because that's where the deer are running or something like this. So I'll do some of that here. That's a nice, nice day. Very, very good weather here. I think it's like 10 Celsius right now. So, OK, that's going to wrap it up for now. I'll see you guys later from the far eastern side of Estonia. I guess as Baldwin Bankrupt once said, I think Eastonia, East Estonia. Anyway, OK, see you guys. Bye.