About us
Our story
Preeriakoda was opened in 2009, but our story began much earlier. It is inspired by the level of people whose pedometer was the horizon and the most outstanding achievement of the work week was survival, uncompromising protection of their younger and weaker ones and supporting their development—an incredible journey.
The tipi village represents the last human culture and knowledge of the natural peoples who inhabited almost an entire continent only a few hundred years ago. It offers us an immediate and rich understanding of human life close to nature.
The prairie is the last significant settlement of hunter-gatherer tribes, proving that people with the world’s oldest way of life were far from primitive. There is much in prairie culture that modern man still admires and respects amid the worries that arise in his artificial world.
A tipi is the grandest and most exciting abode of nomadic natives – the Cadillac of the tent world. The heart of the tipi is the campfire, the sun, and the eyes of the companions, the stars, shine around the campfire. It symbolizes the solar system.
2005 the first tipi tent was erected in the farthest corner of the Preeriakoda chief’s childhood playground. The chief had spent ten years in the capital playing top sports, but in the end, the simple call still brought him back. So he spent more and more time here recuperating and recharging his batteries.
Together with the old giant and heavy Singer sewing machine, Preeriakoda’s first tipi tent was born in 2005, the sewing of which was an excellent achievement for a person who previously had only sewn a few buttons on a shirt.
A few years later, there were already three tipi tents. Then, in 2009, this incredible oasis, the Wild West, was opened to anyone with the same primal calling. Since then, more than a hundred tipi tents have travelled to Estonia from the hands of the chief.
Preeriakoda is one of the oldest nature tourism companies in Estonia. While many other companies have come and gone, and some have grown into significant conveyor belt nature tourism combines, Preeriakoda has continued to go its way.
Marko
The builder of the Preeriakoda Tipi village, who since childhood has been looking for something under rocks, at the bottom of rivers, in plants, in the souls of animals – drew medicinal plants and animal tracks in dozens of notebooks – tried to unravel the whole mystery of nature.
He immersed in the capital’s trails as a professional athlete for 15 years and returned to the bosom of forests, swamps and bogs. First, mainly with a camera to track wild animals, but later also as a hunter.
If necessary, Marko sets up tipis by himself, carries a heavy hiking sledge for kilometres, breaks down trees, and builds campfires. And there usually is a need.
Marko sews teepees, stores lase and peels slats, and organizes hikes and activities at the campsite. He thinks about the life of Indian people, tests himself, and compares it with local customs. Shows guests’ nature through the eyes of a native.
Keeps the Tipi village of Preeriakoda as authentic and close to nature as possible.
Kuldar
If necessary, he sets up a tipi by himself, carries a heavy hiking sled for kilometers, breaks down trees, makes a campfire. All this, however, only if absolutely necessary.
Kuldar is more of an icebreaker – if the group is alienating and there is an ice wall between people, he simply loses it, so no one can understand where it went.
At the same time, he is able, for example, to bring back lost hope and joy on the most difficult hiking sections with a few simple maneuvers. Kuldar is also a powerful game manager and DJ.
