Estonia braces itself for violent unrest

[oberliner]

Source: MSNBC

Estonia is bracing itself for possible violent unrest and a potential break in relations with Russia after the government removed a controversial Soviet-era war memorial amid riots that left scores injured and one man dead.

Toomas Ilves, president, on Friday appealed for calm in a television broadcast made as the authorities were clearing up the streets of Tallinn and trying to brush aside threats of political and economic sanctions from Moscow.

The incident marks a new low in relations between Russia and Estonia, which Moscow accuses of mistreating its large ethnic Russian minority and promoting anti-Russian sentiments in the European Union.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18354184/

[musiclawyer]

1. This story is not important here

But imagine if the Brits left a gigantic monument to the king in NYC in the 18th century. Do you think the US government would have wanted to tear it down. You bet.
Problem is that in Estonia, a large percentage of the population is ethnic Russian. It's a real mess. I have no stake in this, besides visiting Tallinn many times and liking it a lot. But the Russians ouight to just let bygones be, and not make it an international incident.

[DURHAM D]

2. Its important to me -

My nephew is with the state department in Estonia. Hope his mother has not seen this news.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Russia should mind its own business

and let Estonians run their own sovereign nation. The statue is being moved to a war cemetery because it became a gathering place both for Russian nationalists and Estonian nationalists. I think it's pretty insulting for Russians, the former occupiers of Estonia, to gather at this statue in Red Army uniforms and sing the Russian national anthem.

If they love Russia so much, why the heck don't they move back there? Why? Because they know their lifestyles are far better in democratic Estonia than they would be in impoverished Russia.

And why do these Russians refuse to learn even a small amount of the Estonian language, even though some have lived there 50 years or more? After all, when they occupied Estonia after WWII, they forced Estonians to learn Russian and attend school in Russian.

I know a lot of lefties fall for the Russian propaganda that Estonians are a bunch of Nazis. Well, I am both an Estonian-American and a lefty (and I'm a quarter Russian). The truth is that Estonia tried to declare itself neutral before the war, but was occupied first by the Nazis, then by the Stalinists. They would rather have had neither. My own father fled from the Nazis; a few years later, my mother fled from the Stalinists.

In my opinion these riots in the beautiful medieval city of Tallinn were secretly backed by Putin as a pretext for launching confrontation with Estonia. Putin is known for wanting to re-annex the former Soviet Republics. Estonians want to be free and to be left alone by greedy neighboring powers.

[DURHAM D]

4. Thanks for your comments.

As I mentioned in the post above yours - my nephew is based in Estonia. He has been there just a short time and I plan to visit him later this year.

I have learned that his young children, who are pretty fluent in Russian and German, are discouraged from speaking any language but Estonian or English outside of their home. Also, the 6th grader is learning French in school - I gather that it is mandatory. I asked some general questions of other family members when I heard about the ethnic tension around language but have not received the answer. Personal Email service is not yet up and running. Your comments were helpful.

[LiberalEsto]

5. I have two cousins and an aunt there

and a number of more distant relations. I visited them once, in 2003. At the time they seemed pretty relaxed about the Russians living in Estonia, and their kids said the young people were learning to get along fairly well. They were optimistic that the next generation would not have a Russian vs. Estonian problem within Estonia.

The thing that bothered my cousins was that the older Russians refused to learn Estonian. Granted, it is a difficult language to learn if you are not a native speaker like I am. But to live in a country for five decades and not bother to learn even a few words is arrogance and/or laziness.

One of my cousins even said that mathematics instruction in Estonia wasn't what it used to be, because Russian is for some reason a better language for conveying math concepts.

Now let's go back to 1979, when my aunt managed to visit me & my relatives from what was then part of the Soviet Union. She was constantly looking over her shoulder for fear someone was spying on her to catch her saying something "forbidden", and being arrested. She refused to discuss politics because of this. She was astonished at the variety of goods in our stores, and the ease and freedom with which we could purchase them. Real vanilla extract, and clothes that actually fit. She flew back wearing three layers of clothes, for fear her suitcases would be opened and the contents stolen by Russian customs inspectors.

I can't convey the terror she lived under. At that time the Estonian flag was banned, as was the singing of the national anthem and other patriotic songs. Churchgoing was forbidden. Folk dancing and folk customs were discouraged. It was almost impossible to travel outside the country, or even in the country. Two large islands became forbidden zones where mainlanders could not visit, nor could the islanders visit the mainland. Their letters were censored. Their phone calls were monitored. All the high-level jobs went to Russians, while Estonians were left with menial work. When the Chernobyl nuclear accident happened, Russian soldiers went door to door conscripting Estonian men (and men from other involuntary republics of the USSR) to do the dangerous cleanup work there. The attitude was, spare the Russians, let the Estonians and Latvians and Georgians die instead. My own male cousin got word from a neighbor and fled to the woods when the Russians came to take him to Chernobyl. That's why he is alive today.

They also did without many material things because of the flawed Soviet economy. I remember sending my female cousin shoes for her kids, and earlier, nursing bottles and infant formula, because they had none.

Tens of thousands of Estonians were arrested and shipped to labor camps in Siberia during the Stalin era. Many died there. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Russians poured into Estonia, taking over homes and farms. The plan was to dilute the Estonian majority and eventually make it disappear, somewhat the way America has shamefully done with the native people here. Estonians identify strongly with Native Americans and other indigenous people who are struggling around the world to protect their ethnic identities.

Russians like to claim Estonia wasn't even a country until 1918. But archeology and linguistic studies show that the Estonians and related peoples like the Finns and Karelians occupied that part of Europe, and a wider area, long before the Slavs came. And it was a country until a pope launched a crusade to conquer and convert them and neighboring countries, sometime in the 1300s I believe. Since then it's been conquered by the Danes, the Swedes, the Germans, the Russians and I don't recall if there were others. Why? It's a strategic seaport onto the Baltic Sea.

[Rydz777]

6. I have great sympathy

for all three Baltic Republics. The 20th century was not kind to them.

As for mathematics, I have a Polish acquaintance who is a physics professor trained at both Moscow University and at Princeton. He told me that at Moscow University the emphasis was on theoretical problems. At Princeton the emphasis was on practical problems, especially those that could be simulated on computers.

[DURHAM D]

7. Thanks again.

Apparently grocery shopping is still a challenge. When my nephew was packing to move there they were advised to buy a year's supply of any food items they might need (canned goods, cat food, etc) and ship with their belongings. One thing they did not think through were spices. I know that at least one box a week is shipped to them from the states with things like chili powder, easter egg coloring, pudding mixes, vanilla wafers, dried herbs, birthday candles, etc. Also they order many items (mostly food) from Finland (I think on the internet) on a weekly basis.

The kids are all growing rapidly and even though they have only been there for a few months clothing and shoes are rapidly becoming an issue. As you know, shipping is expensive and slow.

One of the things that surprised me was the very small number of Americans present. The school that the children attend is almost entirely Europeans. They have adapted well - including to the food that always seems to include fish or fish sauce.

I was fortunate to travel in Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1979 (kind of a reverse trip of your aunt). I was with my partner and another friend and we traveled by automobile. Boy did we draw a lot of attention. Every time we crossed a border they shut the border from both directions and all of the guards came over and talked to us, asked us questions about life in the U.S., flirted big time and tried to impress us with their knowledge of what was going on in the rest of the world. At both an East German and the Polish border when they looked at our passports and realized that two of us were from Oklahoma we were treated to "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains..." They knew every word - in english. It was very surreal and very sweet. We did not encounter any other Americans on our trip. Fortunately, the friend we were traveling with spoke Polish, German and Russian so we got along ok (only slept in the car one night and did without several meals)and we followed the rules about exchanging money and staying (for the most part) in the state run hotels. We assumed our rooms were bugged so we always said a sweet goodnight to the "listeners".

It was only after we drove back into the west after 4 weeks that we become aware of how much stress we were feeling. I asked that the car be pulled to the side of the road and I got out and kissed the ground with relief that we had made it out without a major screwup. My friends looked at me like I was crazy and then they tumbled out and did the same -then we all just set on the ground and bawled with emotional release.

Again, I can't thank you enough for sharing general and personal history.

[LiberalEsto]

28. You're more than welcome

If your nephew can ask around, there is some big food warehouse store in Tallinn that sells all kinds of food at very reasonable prices. Some of it comes in bulk quantities, but not everything. I went there with my cousin Anne and we found salsa and taco shells so I could teach her how to make tacos. Her 3 kids adored them.

My other cousin's wife became addicted to salsa on a visit to the US, so I brought her a 48-oz. container of it from Costco. Then we found the exact same brand at the food warehouse. At least now she can get it in Estonia.

Another suggestion. Tell your nephew to check out the Eesti Maja restaurant in Tallinn. The food is very good Estonian home cooking. I'm friends with the owner's sister, who lives in NYC. The owner, Viido Polikarpus, grew up in New Jersey and moved back to Estonia several years ago to open the restaurant.

Here's a mini-review:
Eesti Maja (Estonian House): Lauteri 1, tel. [phone]; in the city center, by the Foreign Ministry. Open:11-23. The emphasis is completely on Estonian cuisine and it’s hard to imagine it being done any better. There’s no sense the cooks are just going through the motions, cooking, so to speak, by the numbers. It’s among the most authentic Estonian food in town. The bean soup to the verivorst to the sült hit the mark. www.eestimaja.ee

[DURHAM D]

29. I have bookmarked your note and will pass on your

hints about shopping and your friend's restaurant as soon as possible. I know that the lack of Mexican food has already been an issue for the kids. Your info should solve the problem.

Small world isn't it...?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Very similar to Latvia (and, I assume, Lithuania)

Under the Soviet occupation, Russians were sent in and Latvians were forced to move to remote areas of the Soviet Union. If you look at an ethnic distribution map of the former USSR, you'll see little islands of Baltic people scattered all over. As a result, nearly half the people in Latvia are ethnic Russians, and only a small percentage of them were there before 1944.

Yes, Latvians were forced to learn Russian, but very few Russians learned Latvian. Russia raised a fuss when newly independent Latvia announced that it wouldn't grant citizenship to any ethnic Russian who couldn't speak Latvian, but in fact, the Russians had acted like overlords during their entire time there. Latvians were allowed to have "tame" expressions of their own culture, but nothing suggestive of "bourgeois nationalism."

Like the Estonians, the Latvians and Lithuanians, whose two languages form their own branch of the Indo-European family, have lived along the shores of the Baltic for centuries.

[DURHAM D]

9. Did you notice that earlier this week Condi referred to Russia

not once, but twice, as "The Soviets"? Its not just her hair that is stuck in a time warp.

On some blog the comment was made that after her talks with the Soviets she was stopping off in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and then head for her Motherland (Rhodesia) with a stop in Burma on the way home.

[Dutch]

13. The Russians were right to raise a 'fuss'

It was a blatantly racist law. The background of Soviet oppression did not, and could not ever justify the passage of blatantly racist laws against ordinary Lativans of Russian descent.

[treestar]

26. In all fairness to those Russians, they thought the USSR would last

and the language used was Russian, if they were pretty old to learn a second language and there more than a generation, it's not really fair to use hindsight to judge them saying the should have learned the language.

The Baltic Republics weren't speaking their own languages, if they want to bring them back, that's fine, but it'll take a couple of generations, and in the meantime, a lot of people will still be speaking Russian.

Latvia was creating stateless people by requiring the language for Russians to become citizens, and older ones couldn't learn it, as older people generally do have difficulty learning a new language. Those Russians may no longer have ties to Russia and want to move back there.

Also it's been over a decade since the break up of the USSR, so why now is this Russian memorial so terrible? Why don't they wait another few decades until nobody cares?

[goodboy]

18. Tere!

Glad to see a DU'er from my favourite European country!

Tsau!

goodboy

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. The difference is that the Americans who liberated France

allowed the French to run their own country after World War II and even dismantled their bases without a fuss after DeGaulle asked them to in 1968.

If the Americans had

1) Continued to govern France directly for decades after World War II

2) Deported a large percentage of the French people to remote areas of the U.S. and replaced them with Americans until the country was only 60% French

3) Forced all French people to learn English while themselves refusing to learn French

4) Forbidden French people to display their flag, sing the Marseillaise, or celebrate Bastille Day, or create any form of artistic expression that suggested French nationalism,

THEN we'd have an analogous situation.

The Baltic peoples may have been glad to get rid of the Nazis, but what cemented their resentment of the Russians was their refusal to LEAVE, even after Germany was no longer a threat.

[LiberalEsto]

23. First of all, it isn't a desecration

That's just the way the Russian propaganda machine is spinning it. It's being moved to a Russian military cemetery where it will be re-erected. How does that qualify as a desecration.

Part of the reason it's being moved is because it had become a gathering spot not only for Russian nationalists, some of whom dressed in Red Army uniforms and sang the Russian national anthem (which is painfully hard for older Estonians to take after being ground under Russia's boot for 5 decades) but also for Estonian nationalists. There was concern that it would become a spot for confrontations between the two groups, and it was thought everyone would behave more civilly around the statue if it were in a solemn place like a cemetery. (Incidentally Russia in recent weeks has removed similar memorial statues in its own territory for various reasons, and local people have protested this.)


Second of all, in reference to how I would like it if the French "desecrated a monument to U.S. soldiers" -- the US hasn't ever enslaved France, killed or shipped a large number of its people to labor camps in Siberia, taken over the entire country by brutal force, forced the French to speak English and their children to attend school only in English, forbidden them to attend churches, prohibited them from overseas travel or news from democratic countries, banned the French national anthem and flag, taken over French homes and farms, and shipped over hundreds of thousands of Americans to take all the good land and all the good jobs. All the while, these occupying Americans would be refusing to learn so much as a word of French, and treating the native French like dirt.

And then, when "generously" letting the French taste freedom after 50 years of occupation, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of Americans who continue to live there refusing to learn French or recognize that they are no longer the overlords. Oh, and let's not forget, if these remaining Americans don't like the way they are treated by the newly free French (who might understandably be bitter after 50 years of mistreatment) they whine to the U.S., which threatens military force against France for not coddling the Americans there. And every one of those remaining Americans in France could easily become a citizen if they just exerted themselves to attain a very small working knowledge of the French language,


As for my "republicanism," here's my voting record: 1972 George McGovern; 1976 campaigned for Fred Harris in primary, voted for Carter; 1980, campaigned and voted for Barry Commoner as a member of the Citizens Party because I felt Democrats were too pro-corporation; 1984, campaigned and voted for Sonia Johnson of the Citizens Party; 1988, campaigned for Jesse Jackson but ended up voting for Dukakis; 1992, originally halfheartedly supported Jerry Brown, then campaigned and voted for Clinton; 1996 halfheartedly supported Clinton (concerned because he was too corporate and middle of the road); 2000, campaigned and voted for Gore; 2004, supported and campaigned for Kucinich in primary but wound up campaigning and voting for Kerry.

If that's the voting record of a "republican," I fail to see how.

I wonder why I'm bothering to even respond to your comments, because I'm sure you won't make any effort to understand a viewpoint other than your own.

You are bound and determined to think that "eSStonians" are all Nazis, right? Well, let me tell you that my father, a socialist, had to flee from Estonia when the Nazis occupied the country in 1941, because there was a price on his head. He HATED the Nazis, and also he hated the Stalinists who were evil murdering swine, who massacred Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Polish, Ukrainians and people of other ethnic groups, and who murdered Russians by the tens or hundreds of thousands.

[Dutch]

12. Why the fuck should ordinary Russian Estonians have to leave their home country?

Why should ordinary Russian Estonians - whatever you may think of the Russian government - have to leave their country because they are not 'conforming' sufficiently, by maintaining their own language and culture? Is that how you feel about minority communities in the US? The crimes of past Russian rulers against the Estonian people are not the fault of its ordinary citizens of Russian descent, and they have every right to stay in Estonia and advocate contineud links with Russia if they so choose.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LiberalEsto]

27. I'm a she nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Nothing wrong with their maintaining their own language and culture, but

unlike immigrants to the U.S. (who may not know English because they're too busy trying to survive and are on a waiting list for ESL classes), the Russian settlers in the Baltic states really have REFUSED to learn the local languages over a period of 60 years while requiring the indigenous people to learn theirs. It was a very colonial situation. The Baltic peoples were not allowed to run their own affairs in the lands where their ancestors had lived at least since the 1200s.

As for the monument to the soldiers, imagine putting up monuments to General Sherman in Atlanta and Savannah in 1870 or so. The Baltic states didn't see the Red Army as liberators. They saw them as another conqueror, and one that did more damage over a longer period.

Do you think that the Iraqi people of the future would be happy to have monuments to the U.S. military in their country?

[goodboy]

17. Correct...and I should know...I live in Estonia. But thankfully I'm in the US

at least until this is over.

[LiberalEsto]

24. I'm NOT saying they have to leave Estonia

I'm saying that if they live in Estonia, they should have the common courtesy to learn a small amount of the Estonian language and treating Estonians with respect, not as former slaves. May of these people have lived in Estonia for decades without bothering to learn a single word of the language. Heck, when my penniless parents came here from a refugee camp in 1949, they respected their new homeland enough to learn and speak English, obey our laws, and respect American laws and government.

When Russia occupied Estonia after WW2, Estonians were all forced to learn Russian and attend school in Russian.

How is it fair that the occupiers can move in and force their language on the victims, but it is not okay for Estonians to ask these people now to learn a few sentences of Estonian?

How would you feel if China conquered the US and forced everyone to speak Chinese and took over all the good land and good jobs and forced us all to do menial work and prohibited us from going to religious services of any kind, traveling overseas, singing the Star Spangled Banner, displaying the US flag, assembling in groups, having a free press, and basically demolishing our Constitution.

How about if they took a few million Americans and shipped them to labor camps in china, never to see their homes or families again? How about if they murdered a million more, raped untold numbers of women, and forbade any American except a few collaborators from participating in the government? Then how about if they ripped off all America's natural resources for themselves, meanwhile turning parts of the country into huge toxic waste dumps?

Then let's say they took over Manhattan, and forbade anyone from the rest of America from going there, and forbade people living in Manhattan from leaving to visit the rest of the country or even seeing relatives in other states, for 50 years?

Finally, after 50 years, the Chinese somehow pull out, but leave behind a good chunk of military and about 80 million Chinese -- few of whom have ever bothered to learn a word of English or Spanish, and who have nothing but disdain for the American people. Then the military finally pulls out, but now America must tread carefully, always in fear that the Chinese would come back on the slightest pretext and start the occupation all over again.

The Americans then do their best to create a democracy and rebuild a wrecked economy and badly damaged country. They would love to go back to the way things were before, and ask these millions of occupiers to leave, but they don't dare. All they ask is that the chinese occupiers now make the effort to learn a small amount of English and play by the rules of democracy. And these Chinese keep whining to mother China about how brutally they are being mistreated by being asked to learn a little English and/or Spanish.


Well, gee, how would you, then, as an American feel?

[mouse1]

30. re your comments re ordinary russians

I agree with what you say. So what is your point? It seems to have nothing to do with our discussion here.

The Nazi scourge was not the fault of ordinary Germans either. That doesn't mean Germans living in Israel should erect a statue of an SS soldier to commemorate their dead. That Tallinn Russian statue wrongly defines Soviet Russian soldiers as liberators. In Estonia they brought a virtual holocaust in their wake after the war. They systematiclly murdered masses of people and carted others off to slave labour camps. Many people living today lost members of their families and witnessed the atrocities? Are they not allowed to mourn in peace. Minority communities in the U.S. are allowed to express their cultures as they are in Estonia, but they are not allowed to do something as heinous as deny the Holocaust.

Please, read up on your history, before it is completely replaced by the feel-good history of our socially engineered school agendas. Countries representing the Allies of World War two are naturally sypathetic to anyone who was linked to their cause. But were you to ask Churchill about V-E celebrations he would admit that the ending as being only a partial victory, with millions of people and their homes and homelands systematically destroyed or left to rot in the wake of the deal the Allies made at the end of the war. Estonians have been decent to those linked with colonization of their land through the centuries (Germans too reduced Estonians to serfs for centuries.) Russians in Estonia fare much better than the Afrikaaners and other traditional whites in South Africa. And the language and citizenship laws are very liberal by standards in the West.

If Russia taught history to its own people they would not mistake their former empire for their country. They would not have voted Putin, who is taking away their rights, to power.

Erecting that statue in Tallinn is highly insensitive, even cruel. Russia is monstrous-sized compared to Estonia and just next door. They really don't need to fear a disappearance of their culture, but do need too be sensitive to their adopted homeland. AND KEEP IN MIND, there are many Russians in Estonia, the majority in fact, who are not happy at all with the current display of hooliganism.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Fresh clashes over Estonia statue (300 detained)

More than 300 people were detained and at least 10 hurt after a second night of riots in Estonia's capital Tallinn.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets after new clashes erupted over the removal of a Soviet war memorial.

Police were confronted by mainly ethnic Russian demonstrators, some of whom threw petrol bombs and were involved in looting.
...
By Saturday morning the situation in central Tallinn was described as calm, but the authorities are braced for more trouble.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6602171.stm

[fedsron2us]

16. Small state, big neighbours, population of mixed ethnicity

All the normal European ingredients for trouble. One of the reasons why this continent has been such a fun place to live over the past century.

[goodboy]

19. Some video of rioting in Tallinn...(youtube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1sRcBtRDFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcAZBm7p5FQ

[Eugene]

20. Putin anger as Estonia row boils

Source: Agence France-Presse

Putin anger as Estonia row boils

by Nick Coleman
1 hour, 59 minutes ago

MOSCOW (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin led Russia's anger on
Saturday after a Russian national was killed in the Estonian
capital during unrest sparked by the removal of a Soviet-era war
memorial.

A surge in anti-Estonian sentiment was in evidence on the streets
of Moscow and other Russian cities with protestors out in force,
newspapers voicing outrage and shoppers boycotting goods from
their Baltic neighbour.

Putin had voiced "serious concern" over the events in Tallinn
during a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, a Kremlin spokeswoman said.

The row over the removal of a Soviet war memorial from Tallinn's
centre erupted in riots that began there last Thursday, leading
to 900 arrests and the death of a Russian citizen identified by
officials only as Dmitri.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070428/ts_afp/russiaestoniaunrest_070428151433

[LiberalEsto]

25. Good old Putin the ex KGB agent

who poisons his critics and brutally suppresses his political opponents and uses heavy force against Russian citizens trying to hang on to what little freedom they have.

Putin, who wants to re-annex the Baltics and other former Soviet republics and go back to the day when the Russians lorded it over all these "inferior" ethnic groups again.

Fuck Putin. He probably instigated these riots as a pretext for taking over Estonia again.

[Odin2005]

22. Fuck Russia

That "memorial" sounds more like a symbol of Russian oppression more then anything The Russians need to quit acting like a bunch of crybabies.