10 Most Famous People from Estonia

Tanel Padar by Jüri Kaljundi from Wikimedia Commons

10 Most Famous People from Estonia

With only 1,3 million citizens, one could assume that it would be challenging to identify any number of famous persons from such a small population. Well, reconsider. Throughout the years, Estonia has produced a large number of individuals who have been able to make a name for themselves and their nation.

1. Margus Hunt

Margus Hunt by Navin Rajagopalan from Wikimedia Commons

Margus Hunt is a defensive end in American football who plays for the National Football League’s Cincinnati Bengals. He is Estonian.

He participated in discus throw and shot put competitions before switching to American football, and he once held the junior world discus throw record. For Southern Methodist University, he participated in college football. In the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft, the Cincinnati Bengals selected him.

2. Paul Keres

Hoogoven Schaaktoernooi by Eric Koch from Wikimedia Commons

Paul Keres was a well-known chess author from Estonia and a grandmaster at the game. Between the mid-1930s and the mid-1960s, he was one of the best players in the world. Five times, Keres came within millimeters of winning a world championship match.

He was in negotiations to face champion Alexander Alekhine for the championship after winning the 1938 AVRO tournament, but World War II prevented the match from happening. Keres finished in second place in the Candidates’ Tournament four times in a row following the war. Keres is regarded by many chess historians as the strongest player who never won the world championship because of these and other impressive performances.

3. Paavo Järvi

Frankfurter by Quincena Musical from Wikimedia Commons

American-Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi. Järvi was born to conductor Neeme Järvi and Liilia Järvi in Tallinn, Estonia. His siblings Maarika and Kristjan Järvi are both musicians. Max Rudolf and Otto-Werner Mueller were among his teachers at the Curtis Institute of Music, and Leonard Bernstein was his professor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute. Järvi served as the Malmö Symphony Orchestra’s principal conductor from 1994 until 1997.

4. Gerd Kanter

Gerd Kanter is a discus thrower from Estonia. He earned the gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics and the bronze medal in London in the same competition, which he won as the world champion in 2007. His personal best throw of 73.38 m ranks third all-time and holds the Estonian record.

In 2004, he made his debut at the Olympics, and a year later, he cemented his reputation by winning the silver medal at the World Championships. He finished second at the 2006 European Athletics Championships and added more medals at the 2009 and 2011 World Championships. In the discus throw, he won the IAAF Diamond League in 2012 and 2013.

5. Harald Nugiseks

During World War II, Harald Nugiseks, a former SS-Unterscharführer, volunteered to serve in the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS of the Waffen SS. The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to four Estonian troops, including Nugiseks. In Järvamaa, Estonia’s Särevere, is where Nugiseks was born. He joined the Estonian Legion of his own in 1943. For taking the initiative to seize the Vaasa-Siivertsi-Vepsküla bridgehead, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.

Nugiseks assumed command of the assault after the I Battalion, Waffen-Grenadier Regiment der SS 46 lost nearly all of its officers. He instantly adjusted his strategy, packing the hand grenade supply onto sleds so the attackers wouldn’t have to scramble back across the minefield for the supplies.

The “rolling” tactics were used to squeeze the bridgehead in from the north while hand grenades were carried along the trenches. Following his Knight’s Cross award, which was personally presented to him by the SA occupation chief in Estonia, Karl-Siegmund Litzmann, while Nugiseks was in the hospital, Nugiseks was mentioned in the Wehrmachtbericht and in the magazine Signal. It was recorded.

6. Tõnis Mägi

Tõnis Mägi from Ave Maria Mõistlik from Wikimedia Commons

Singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actor Tõnis Mägi is from Estonia. For the past 40 years, he has been one of the most significant and important figures in Estonian rock music. He grew up in a musical family, and he first became interested in music as a young boy. In the early grades, he began performing as the choir’s soloist while a student at Tallinn 22nd High School.

After becoming a proficient guitarist, Mägi began his musical career playing in the high school bands Rütmikud and Juuniorid. He joined Baltika as the singer after serving in the Soviet Army as required.

7.Karl Ernst von Baer

Karl Ernst von Baer by Unknown author from Wikimedia Commons

Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer, Edler von Huthorn, also known in Russia as Karl Maksimovich Baer, was a naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, the father of embryology, an explorer of Europe and Scandinavia.

He was also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a co-founder of the Russian Geographical Society, and the first president of the Russian Entomological Society. He was from the Governorate of Estonia.

8. Siim Kallas

Kallas Siim by Kallas Siim from Wikimedia Commons

Siim Kallas, an Estonian politician, is the continent’s current commissioner for transportation. Additionally, he is one of the five vice presidents on the 27-person Barroso Commission. He has been proposed for the positions of vice-president and commissioner for transportation in the second Barroso Commission.

In addition to serving as Estonia’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Kallas has also served as a member of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union and the Riigikogu. Kallas is a founder and former head of the Estonian Reform Party, a free-market liberal party. At Liberal International, Kallas served as vice president.

9. Tanel Padar

Tanel by Ave Maria Mõistlik from Wikimedia Commons

Estonian singer Tanel Padar performs. Having won the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest, he is most known on a global scale. In 1999, Padar won the biennial televised competition for young Estonian singers known as Kaks takti ette, becoming well-known as a result.

He performed at the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 as one of Ines’ backing vocalists in 2000, a year in which they were dating. By winning the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Everybody,” Padar, the boyband 2XL, and Aruba-born Dave Benton seized the spotlight. One of the most well-known bands in Estonia is Tanel Padar & The Sun, in which Padar plays.

10. Jaan Kirsipuu

Estonian road cyclist Jaan Kirsipuu is a retired racer who still competes there. At first retiring at the conclusion of 2006, Kirsipuu later returned to competition in 2007 and won the Estonian championship for the sixth time in time trials.

The Latvian UCI Continental cycling team Rietumu Banka – Rga was managed by him in 2008. He became a part of Team Giant-Veolia in 2009. Jaan has won more than 130 professional contests thus far. 2012 saw him take another retirement, and he joined the Astana team as sporting director.

He was one of Estonia’s best athletes during his prime and the first rider from his country to take home a Tour de France stage victory. He had a record-high 12 withdrawals from the Tour de France.

Did we miss someone important? Let us know in the comments section.