Foreign Ministry Quiz Winners to Visit Estonia from USA, Russia

04.06.2010

Foreign Minister Urmas Paet randomly selected the winners of the Foreign Ministry’s Estonia-themed web-based spring quiz on Friday, 4 June. The grand prizes of the Foreign Ministry’s web-based quiz were trips to Estonia, which went to Hester White of the USA and Oksana Tshesnokova of Russia.

The goal of the Foreign Ministry Estonia quiz is to introduce Estonia to citizens of other countries by offering participants new and interesting facts in an effort to motivate them to do further research into Estonia and possibly even visit the country. “The opportunity to become acquainted with various places in Estonia makes the Foreign Ministry quiz interesting. Thanks to the fact that Estonian businesses have co-operated with us and have always donated prizes, the quiz has always been a success and become more and more popular,” said Foreign Minister Paet.

In this year’s spring quiz, there were 8 002 participants from 96 countries. Foreign Minister Paet stated that this is a record for the number of participants since 2002, when the Foreign Ministry quizzes began. “The tremendous number of participants also reflects multi-faceted interest in Estonia. In addition to our close neighbours, responses also came from every corner of the earth, for example New Zealand, Burkina Faso, South Korea, and Brazil,” Paet noted. “I believe that even those who didn’t win this time will make plans to visit Estonia and will participate in the quiz again in subsequent years,” he added.

The most responses came from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Finland and Poland.

The quiz was posted in two languages. There were 5 290 participants in the English-language quiz and 2 712 in the Russian-language quiz. The total number of people that answered all the questions correctly was 5 725.

Participants in the English-language quiz were eligible to win 5 trips in summertime Estonia. The grand prize was a six-day travel package for two including two round-trip plane tickets to Estonia from Estonian Air, nights in the Three Sisters and Bern Hotels in Tallinn, a three-hour excursion in Tallinn from Estravel, dinner in the restaurant Gloria, a Tallinn VIP Card from the city of Tallinn for visiting the sights, and a trip to Pärnu with a stop in the Strand Spa & Conference Hotel.

Prizes for the Russian-language quiz were three travel packages in Estonia. The grand prize winner will receive two round-trip plane tickets to Estonia from Estonian Air, nights in the Savoy Boutique Hotel, Pirita Top Spa and Sokos Hotel Viru in Tallinn, dinner in the restaurant Ö, a Tallinn excursion from Estravel and a Tallinn VIP Card from the city of Tallinn. In addition, the winner will visit Vihula Manor and Tartu, where he or she will stay in the Antonius Hotel.

The Foreign Ministry has organised Estonia-themed quizzes geared towards foreigners since 2002. This year the quiz was organized for the 15th time.

The quiz consisted of twelve multiple-choice questions about different facets of life in Estonia. The quiz was open to participants from 1 March to 31 May, and could be seen at the address http://quiz.mfa.ee/.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to thank all the quiz participants and all the sponsors.