Living in Estonia: the big neighbour

Unless you were familiar with Estonia before finding my blog, I guess you had a quick look to a map in order to locate this tiny country. This way you probably realised how North it is but also its position at the edges of Europe, next to the huge Russia. 

Russia, as well as everything related to it - and in particular, Soviet occupation -, is a tricky topic with locals but it is everywhere around: from Soviet style architecture and buildings to Russian markets, from the dependency on Russian gas imports to the rundown Soviet industries spread along Põhja-Tallinn (the district between the Balti Jaam train station and the Kopli peninsula). 

I have no qualification on any of the topics related to the matter. Moreover, I have at least as many Russian friends as Estonian ones. Therefore, I will avoid any complex analysis or judgement and just tell about my personal experience with the atmosphere. 

Actuality: fear for imperialism

Russia is in the headlines of the press in the whole world at the moment, due to the recent events in Crimea and the ongoing issue in Eastern Ukraine. In Estonia, on the other hand, Russia is always in the headlines in one way or another. Estonian people have suffered from Soviet occupation and this collective memory seems to fear, over 20 years later, that Russia would want to take back its old possession. The above mentioned conflicts emphasise this fear and justifies for many people that Estonia highlights its connections to Europe, NATO and, above all, the United States. 

The Estonian president is with no doubt pro-American. He used to live in the United States and keeps personal and official links with America. Being part of Europe and the military alliance of NATO was apparently not enough to give Estonians a safe feel. US President Obama himself had to come for 24 hours in Tallinn and deliver a speech to the Estonian people on September 3, 2014:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2014/09/03/president-obama-addresses-people-estonia

This guy knows how to talk to people. I will refrain to comment on the background of the speech (I mean, the foreign affairs policy of the United States), but Obama definitely made friends with Estonians, praising their attitude since gaining their freedom in 1991, taking Estonia as an example to follow for  the other baltic countries and not only. Also he certainly made feel a lot safer all the people who had a fear for Russian invasion, especially the military officers in the first row. 

History: ethnic Russians in Estonia

Before Obama's visit, I actually thought that such a "show" would be a useless provocation in the face of Putin. It feels that Estonia has been long forgotten by Russia. Why should we raise a US flag in front of Putin and remind him of the existence of his tiny neighbour? And, moreover, what is so valuable in Estonia that would justify for Russia taking the risk of attacking an EU member state? The natural resources (except for wood) are rather scarce ;  there is nothing here that Russia doesn't have... 

I repeat, I am not a specialist, but I don't think I am wrong about the lack of attractiveness of the Estonian territory to Russia. But I have neglected one thing: the Russian speaking minority. Yes, Estonia has a large number of Russian speaking inhabitants, around one quarter of the population. Indeed, one of the strategies of Soviet Russia to decrease the power of its republics as well as the risk of upraises was to move people: many locals were brought away to the other edges of the Soviet Union while many comrades (not always Russians, but speaking Russian) were brought in. And even when there were concentrations of similar people in a specific area, the Soviet power drew physical borders in a way to avoid the creation of a nationalist feeling among the majority of people - the mix of people (on top of all other repressive measures) was often sufficient to dilute any crowd power. 

Although history has not always confirmed it, "Russia cares for Russians". So, it is not 100% excluded that Poutine would not want to get back Estonia for - among other potential reasons that I ignore - the sake of the Russian speaking minority in Estonia. Indeed, despite Russian being used in administration (it is not an official language, but my Belgian experience would let me call it an "administrative language") there is a debate about the success of Russians integration. I found a very good article on the topic: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/russians-estonia-twenty-years-after. 

If you are interested in the post-Soviet Estonia, I can recommend these two sources:

• The TV documentary "Farwell comrades", in 5 episodes of 50 minutes, made by ARTE (http://www.farewellcomrades.com/en/), gives an overview of how the ex-Soviet republics experienced the end of the USSR.  

• The fiction book "Purge" by Sofi Oksanen (http://www.sofioksanen.com/books/purge/) has been translated in many languages. It is written from the perspective of women who have lost their freedom (in all possible meanings) under the Soviet regime. I would not recommend it to light-hearted people as it is sometimes very hard.