Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- So far from God, so close to the Russian Federation. A decade of independence and loving it! The latest word from 800-year-old Tallinn; medieval but wired.
I'm pretty sure you won't see this in France ... TALLINN -- ... or a lot of other countries in Europe, for that matter: an association with George W. Bush portrayed as a POSITIVE thing:
That's Estonian prime minister Juhan Parts standing next to George W. Bush. The comic bubbles have Bush saying, "Good heavens ... taxes are sure high (in the EU)!", to which Parts replies; "The socialists have gone crazy! Terrible!"
Parts is running a series of these billboards featuring world leaders as a party-builder leading up to the European parliamentary elections. I took this shot outside of Tallinn's airport heading into town.
In another featuring Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, Parts declares he is worried about the EU constitution, to which Ahern replies, "As long as there is Irish music and dark beer in Europe, there will be no super-state."
The U.S. embassy sent a letter last week to Parts' party, Res Publica, apparently expressing concern about the use of the image.
EU election follies TALLINN -- Elections for the European parliament are coming up next month, and as EUROSOC notes, the turnout is expected to be less than stellar across the continent.
Estonian polling indicates a low turnout to elect its six positions. Former foreign minister Toomas Ilves, polling indicates, is the leading candidate with about 14 percent of the vote, although he comes from the relatively unpopular (in Estonia, anyway) Social Democratic party, which advocates a Swedish-style social safety net. On foreign affairs, though, he helped push Estonia into NATO when he was in office and is an old-school anti-communist (plus, he gave me an A when I took his class on Foreign Affairs at Concordia last year, and gave me a ride home on one frozen day), so he's okay in my book.
Estonian elections are not direct, however. They're set up so you don't vote for a candidate, but vote for a party. Each party assembles a list of its candidates in order, so if you vote for Res Publica, for example, its No. 1 candidate will be elected. If Res Publica gets enough of the overall turnout, they will get two spots.
There are a lot of dogs on the party lists, it looks like. Res Publica made a splash when they announced that supermodel Karmen Kass, pictured above, as a candidate for the parliament. It was revealed in the newspapers, though, that Kass never finished high school (even though she had been accepted into the Estonian Business School once upon a time), and was put last on Res Publica's candidate list. She, however, looks likely to take over the presidency of the Estonian chess organization. Go figure.
Another party is running a candidate in a top position whose most outstanding characteristic is his career as a decathlete. It isn't surprising if the turnout will be low.
At least there's some humor in the local campaigning. One candidate has an advertisement that made me laugh today when I saw it on the street. Igor Grazin, a rather controversial local figure and an anti-EU campaigner, is running with the slogan -- "Don't like Igor Grazin? Want to get him out of Estonia? Vote him to the European Parliament!"
Saddam's files TALLINN -- Now wouldn't it be interesting if there were few weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (beyond the Sarin and mustard shells that have turned recently), but that Saddam and al Qaeda WERE cooperating on September 11th?
Google bombs TALLINN -- Reading your referral logs is always entertaining. I make one oblique reference in an earlier post to "valedictorian speeches," and that's half my google hits for the last two weeks.
Looking at it, though, its line -- "Don't feel guilty if you don't know the names of all the Baltic states. Most Journalists I know don't know the names of any of the Baltic states. Despite what you were told in school, it just doesn't matter. (Unless, of course, you live in one of the Baltic states.)" -- certainly isn't as funny as it was eight or so years ago.
For those of you searching for your Piret Järvis news, I ran into her on the street a couple weeks ago. She says she's moving to Germany on a temporary basis.
For the Googlers for "hot Estonian women," well, we have them, but at this site, we don't HAVE them.
The 'White Book' on the occupations of Estonia is released TALLINN -- After 12 years of work, an Estonian state commission has recently released its report on the impact of the Soviet and Nazi occupations on Estonia, which lasted more than 54 years in total in the 20th century. The report, called the "White Book," is now just starting to be distributed. As detailed in the Baltic Times:
According to the report, during the first Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1941, Estonia lost about 48,000 people. The three years of German occupation resulted in the death of about 32,000 citizens of various nationalities, including 929 Jews and 243 Gypsies who were either killed in concentration camps or in battle. During the second Soviet occupation, which lasted from 1944 to 1994, Estonia lost nearly 121,000 people. In all, the country lost about 180,000 people, or nearly 18 percent of the population.
The second Soviet occupation of Estonia caused $100 billion in losses to the economy, and the Soviet army caused $4 billion in environmental damages, the report stated.
Vello Salo, the head of the commission, has come up with a unique proposition for balancing the ledger. Siberian Light has the details.
If you are interested in learning more about this period of Estonian history, the year-old Museum of Occupations in Tallinn has a series of films devoted to the three occupation periods. You can watch them in three video formats from this web page.
Latvian rock n' roller killed in car crash TALLINN -- Gundars "Muminš" Mauševics, the bassist of the Latvian band Brainstorm, died in a car crash this weekend, the Baltic News Service is saying.
Too bad. Brainstorm (Prata Vetra in Latvian, I think), has probably been the Baltics' best, and most widely recognized rock n' roll band for several years. They took third place in the Eurovision song contest in 2000, and have opened for bands like Depeche Mode, the Cranberries, and the Rolling Stones.
I never picked up one of their albums, but I had a Latvian girlfriend a couple years ago who had several. I'd describe their sound as reminiscent of Rush, at least of what I remember of Rush. A lot of their tunes are in English, so you might check 'em out.
His car crashed on the Riga-Jelgava highway sometime on Sunday. The Riga county police are quoted as saying it was likely that he had been speeding and failed to make a sharp turn that the road made in that place. His Audi ended up in a peat bog.
Mausevics' apparent speeding aside, I love a lot of things about Latvia, but driving there is definitely not one of them. I've found few countries more frustrating. The street signs are small when viewed from streets, and roads are poorly marked. Turns are usually marked just meters from the actual turn, which means that more often than not, I would miss the turn, and have to turn around and circle back.
I spent a week down there over New Year's, and after the second day, I decided that I felt so unsafe, I wouldn't drive anymore at night, limiting me to about five hours in the middle of the Baltic winter.
Latvia has one of the highest automobile fatality rates in Europe. Our business dean, Kalle Tiiter, was killed in a head-on collision in February outside of Riga coming home after doing some recruiting there.
Catch-up TALLINN -- There's a saying in Estonia. There's really no summer, just three bad months for skiing.
I've been trying to spend as much time as I can in the out-of-doors in the daylight, which is becoming less and less of a problem since we're quickly headed towards white nights territory. Here's a quick photo recap:
The government decided to organize thousands of volunteers to plant trees in May in order to celebrate Estonia's accession to the European Union. Even being the anti-EU curmudgeon I am, I grabbed a bucket of pine trees and a spade, and sported the good Ol' Glory, with some of my admiring bucket brigade.
In all, Estonians have planted more than a million trees this month, in a country that is already 50 percent forest. I was assigned an area about 30 kilometers north-by-northeast of the city of Haapsalu, near the village of Variku. The previous patch of forest had been wiped out by a lightning strike about five years ago. Four hours, and a hundred saplings later, I was given a certificate signed by Prime Minister Juhan Parts thanking me for my services as a fellow "countryman." Heh.
This is the ranger who oversaw our efforts, along with his dog, named "Monica Lewinsky." No joke. After our planting stint, he fed our group of about 15 some delicious stew and dark bread. Well, after planting trees all day, it seemed like the best meal in months.
On our way back to Tallinn, I shot this picture of an abandoned collective farm. Leave the capital, and these dot the Estonian countryside like empty beer cans, giving Estonia a certain post-apocalyptic charm.
No visit to the countryside would be complete without a stop at the beach. Unlike Latvia, which has some very nice sand, Estonian shores generally aren't fit for serious beachcombing. We amused ourselves by pitching rocks at the boulders in the water for 10 Estonian kroons a hit. I came out ahead, so it was officially a good time, in my mind.
The next week, I went over to Helsinki, Finland, for a day to use the university library. It was good to get out of the country for a little bit, although spending money in Helsinki is a case study in sticker shock. For example, I stopped by a McDonald's for a Coke during the lunch hour, and noted that a Big Mac meal will set you back about $8.
I admit over the last couple of years I've developed a Estonian-like loathing for Finns, which, if you live in Tallinn, you regularly encounter in the form of the vodka tourist. Since Finnish taxes on alcohol are so high, the Finns come to Tallinn to stock up, get drunk, rowdy, and puke all over Old Town; basically indulge in the bad public behavior that you wouldn't do in your own country. I guess I know what a Mexican living in Tijuana thinks of Americans.
Since EU accession, it's actually gotten worse, as the 5-liter limit on alcohol has been raised to 30 liters, so you see many Finns with collapsible carts stocking up for serious inebriation. The night of EU accession, every hotel room in Tallinn was booked, a great segment by Finns anticipating the drop in alcohol limits.
The Estonian-Finnish relationship is a complicated one, I think best summarized from the Estonian perspective in this article by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia's former foreign minister, in the Helsingin Sanomat.
Anyway, spending the day in Helsinki was a good reminder that vodka tourists aren't the majority of Finns, who are, generally, gracious hosts, if standoff-ish in their Finno-Ugric way. Living in Estonia with their cousins, I'm quite used to that. The day I was in town was the national day of celebration of Finnish culture, and I caught a little street theatre by these performers on one of the main streets.
The most interesting thing I've been up to in the last couple of weeks has been tagging along on a documentary film shoot. Two Americans, Jim and Maureen Tusty, are in Estonia this summer, teaching a course as adjuncts at our university. But their primary focus is on shooting a film on Estonia's "Singing Revolution" of 1988-91 that freed it from the Soviet Union. You can click here for a PDF version of one of their movie flyers.
I have experience in television news, but have never seen a film being shot firsthand. So since I have an interest in the medium, as well as Estonian history, I've been tagging along on some of their shoots, which will wrap up with the Estonian song festival on July 1-4.
Sunday we all went to the university city of Tartu for a interview with Marju Lauristin, a professor of journalism at that school. Marju's family history is an amazing one. Her father was a communist who helped establish the Estonian SSR in 1940. He was later arrested and shot for his efforts. In the 1980s, Marju was one of the founders of the Popular Front, one of the groups that helped push Estonia towards independence.
The interview was supposed to last a couple hours, but Marju was a good sport when it turned into nearly four, since she was at every major event of the independence drive in both Estonia and Russia. I'm sure that in the film edit she'll be heavily featured. I felt like I should have gotten course credit for listening in.
I shot this last picture in the back seat of the car on our trip home of two of the film's assistants, Katrin and Anu. Anu looks befuddled because it was dark when my flash went off. Four pictures, and this was the best one.
Summer fun's just begun TALLINN -- Not a lot to post right now; been gone a lot lately, enjoying the warm temperature and the 18-hour daylight. The university's summer session is already two weeks in.
I rode my brand new Schwinn bicycle up the coast about 15 kilometers on Saturday. Sunday I went with a group to plant pine trees as part of Estonia's attempt to plant two million new ones in the month of May. There have been a lot of fires in the last few dry summers, and it's a national project to mark Estonia's entry into the EU. Pictures up when I get them.
I'm heading off to Helsinki for a day on Wednesday after teaching all day tomorrow. More soon, with photos.
While I'm gone, check out one of the most disturbing -- and mesmerizing -- blogs on the Web, Awful Plastic Surgery, which documents in full how entertainers have mutilated themselves lately.
