Ivika Jürgenson has been on our radar for while now. And after her short, but banger-loaded urban part from 2016 with music that didn’t make us cringe, we had to talk to this punk rock-loving Estonian rail slayer.
In 2015 Ivika threw together some footage, entered the Neff Shooting Star contest last minute—and won. Ivika stomps tricks with authority and she’s taken it seamlessly to the streets over the last couples season. By summer she rides the domes of Holland and by winter travels wherever it takes to get the shot, from Estonia to Quebec.
We caught up with Ivika while she was filming in Finland for a mysterious project. Keep your eye on this one.
Gabby Rainville: You’re from Estonia right? Is that where you learned to snowboard?
Yeah, I come from Estonia and that’s where I also learned to snowboard. It’s a pretty weird place to start snowboarding because the highest peak over there is just 1,000 feet high and we get snow only a couple of months a year if we’re lucky!
Sliding Sideways Through A Kink at Ruka Ski Resort
Photo by Evgeny Pavlov
GR: Where do you get most of your riding in now?
Last summer I moved to Holland, that’s where I have been doing the most of my off season snowboarding. Last season was my first season when I actually wanted to focus on filming streets and I didn’t do much park riding. Before that I used to spend three months of my
winters at Bear mountain and Mammoth.
GR: Who does your usual crew consist of?
My crew has always consisted of different people. Since I’m the only person from Estonia whose goal is to film a street part and is willing to travel to make it happen, I have always had to team up with a lot of different people from different places. This year Postland Theory has helped me out a lot!
GR: How long did you have to get your part from last season filmed? Where did you shoot most of it?
I filmed all the shots except one in Quebec, Canada. I spent one and a half months over there; it was a lot of struggle because it didn’t work out with the people that I filmed with initially. Therefore I’m really grateful to The Headstones guys, Postland Theory, Alexa McCarty
and the Jetpack girls for helping me out!
GR: What was the hardest shot to get?
There were a couple shots that were pretty tricky to get. For example the 5-0 on the box to a roof drop. It took me a little time to convince myself into doing it, you know, a first try can be pretty scary sometimes. In this case, I was really nervous because I had never done anything like this, I had only done rails before that. But after the first try was done it was pretty easy to get the shot!
GR: Best story from your urban adventures?
There has been so many funny and unexpected situations! We had just finished filming a rail in Estonia when we realized that we had lost the car keys. There were about five of us and we were all walking around the spot with flashlights trying to find the keys when a police car stopped right next to us asking about what we were doing. We hadn’t started cleaning up yet, there was the take off on the stairs, snowboards and shovels lying around. So I said that we were filming
snowboarding and we had just realized that we had lost our keys for the car. The cop was really helpful, he told his partner to grab a flashlight and they got outside. They ended up looking for my car keys for about fifteen minutes until we found them! In the end he wanted to see the clip that we filmed. He gave me thumbs up and wished us good luck with filming.
GR: What brought you as a snowboarder to live in Holland where it’s flat and not tons of snow?
I moved there because of my boyfriend, he’s Dutch. Actually, Holland is a really good place to live as a snowboarder! It’s just as flat as Estonia but the difference is that there’s a lot of indoor ski domes in Holland where you can snowboard all year around. During the off-season time, it’s really nice to live there and be able to snowboard at the same time. During the winter time I’m mostly traveling to places with snow and I don’t spend much time there.
Pressing Hard at Ruka Ski Resort. Photo by Evgeny Pavlov
GR: Congrats on the win for the Neff Shooting Star a couple seasons back. Did you see that coming?
Thanks! Actually, I didn’t see that coming at all! I found out about the contest just a few days before the deadline and I asked my friend to make a quick edit of the stuff that I had filmed that season. I remember the day when I found out that I had won. I was snowboarding
at Bear Mountain and all of a sudden I started receiving text messages from a lot of people saying stuff like, “Congrats!!! You deserved it!” I got so confused because I had totally forgotten about the contest.
Then my best friend called me and started congratulating me too, and that’s when I found out about the win. I think it might have been my street footage that put me on the top spot. Earlier that season we got a little bit of snow in Estonia for about one and a half weeks and
that’s when I tried to film a couple of shots in the streets for the first time.
GR: What’s it like being one of the female rats for Dinosaurs Will Die?
It’s awesome. Dinosaurs Will Die is such a sick brand and I’m really honored to be riding for them. Honestly, I have never ridden a better board than I’m riding right now!
GR: Favorite bands/songs to listen to you while you ride?
I really like to listen to rock/punk rock while I’m riding. Groups like Rancid, Authority Zero, Franz Ferdinand, The Heavy, Butthole Surfers, Billy Idol, The Kinks are often in my playlists while I’m snowboarding.
GR: What does the future hold for you? How do you want to be remembered as a rider?
I’m filming for a new movie project this season, hopefully it goes well. I’d prefer to be known for filming urban parts, but I have to work hard in order to achieve it.
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