dog days of august

My attention in recent hours has been on the warming up of the frozen conflict in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia.

My only thoughts are that, if somebody wants to resolve that issue violently, then now is the time. In only a few days the summer Olympics will begin in Beijing and presumably capture more global attention than some renegade province in the Caucuses ever will.

The leaders of the "West" -- as the EU and North America are commonly known -- are also likely to be distracted. The European priority is still finding a solution to the Lisbon treaty drama; plus most good Europeans are likely to be away sailing the Aegean or hiking the Alps at this time of year. In the US, the presidential race will get hotter, with vice presidential picks dominating the news cycles, followed by the actual political convention coverage that will take us through the first of September.

In this environment, it would make sense for those who wish to settle their scores to unleash their bags of dirty tricks. It brings to mind one eventful June in the year 1940, when, as Hitler's troops marched into Paris -- a city far better known to the world than Tallinn, Estonia -- the government of Estonia suddenly found itself blockaded by Soviet military on land, sea, and air, and directed at gunpoint to abandon its sovereignty.

Some carriers of news took notice at the time, but who could be bothered to pay attention to some former-tsarist province when German troops were goose stepping down the avenues of the French capital.

Update: Vladimir Socor has an interesting post up about this.

joodik

Today we took a trip out to visit Epp's great uncle Leo, who is approaching his 79th birthday, and despite stagnant living standards and chronic illness, is still taking care of his business and is probably in better mental shape than some of his offspring.

Leo was actually born Leonid and christened in an Orthodox church in Värska. His father was an ex-White Army soldier from Vjatka in the foothills of the Ural mountains; his mom was a local girl from south Estonia. To add to the cultural palette, Leo married an Ingrian Finnish woman who has since passed on.

Leo's generation in Estonia has gotten consistently screwed at nearly every stage of life, it seems. As children they suffered through the economic and political crises of the 1930s, only to spend their teens living in fear of a war that ravaged every community in this country. The post-war "peace" meant that nearly any man with a brain and a pulse quickly found himself arrested and sent to Siberia, and Leo's father was gone for nearly a decade.

After the war, the young men of Leo's generation had to quietly stomach years of Stalinist intrusion into almost every part of their lives, baptizing their kids in secrecy, watching their children going to school with a little hammer and sickle on their lapels to ensure that they knew who was boss.

It is for these reasons, perhaps, that older Estonians seem to be defiantly apolitical: even if they scrape by on a pension and live in impoverished conditions, they say little as their representatives glide around Tallinn in shiny, black cars. They just want to be left alone; they have no interest in ideology. They also have no money and no power, so no one listens to them.

After a lifetime of serving Eesti NSV, the rebirth of the Estonian Republic caught guys like Leo when they were just nearing retirement. Their savings were suddenly worth nothing, and their assets -- typically a worn down apartment or farmhouse in the countryside -- were worth little as well. I am told that when another side of the family received compensation for the property lost following the Soviet takeover, they spent the proceeds on car parts. Today, alas, the same property would be worth much more.

Things could be worse, and they are. Leo has two sons. One has a steady job and is a family man. He does what he can to help out and it good that he does because the other son is a joodik -- a drunk. When I asked Leo what his sons do, he informed me that one works in forestry and the other is a drunk -- he stated it plainly, as if being a drunk was a full-time job. maybe it is. It amazes me, though, that given the steady stream of bad news about Estonia, including its oft-exaggerated ethnic and economic problems, people seem to leave out the social ill that plagues nearly every family I know -- booze.

Apparently, the joodik has passed on his love of the bottle to at least one of his children, who was allegedly conceived with another joodik. Other children, one of whom we met, are fine, but typically these "normal" relatives spend their time compensating for the lifestyle of the more afflicted members of their family.

Another uncle -- the first cousin of the previously described joodik, is a joodik as well and he's never getting better. He could handle daily intoxication for a few decades, but now he's pushing 50 and making routine visits to the hospital. You can imagine the stress it puts on his octogenarian parents, with whom he still lives.

This paucity of responsible, middle-aged adults in these families means that there is no one around to fix up the sagging ceilings or the nightmare electrical work that has been done on these homes to give them some semblance of modernity. There is no money and so life just keeps drifting on in a sea of tattered decay. A few improvements are made, here and there, but one can paper over the cracks only so many times.

Leo, though, doesn't seem to complain much, and I don't blame him. How do you really complain about things that you have come to accept as your reality? That's just how it is and it really isn't that different from family to family. Some Estonian cities -- like Tallinn, Pärnu, or Tartu -- are awash in reconstruction and if you are young and you have a good head on your shoulders, you can graduate to a decent living standard.

But while society infatuates itself with monuments and arguments about the past, fellows like Leo and the alcohol-infused villages of south Estonia are typically relegated to the obituaries section of the newspaper. It's going to take a long time for any economic morsels to find their way to his door, and I doubt that a last ditch effort to give him state-supplied laptop and turn him into a day trader will have a positive outcome.

I wish a campaign to lessen these troubles would find their way onto some social agenda, but I am not holding my breath.

tüüpiline päev

My readjustment to Estonian life after over a month on North American soil happened around 7.30 pm yesterday when I went to pick up our delayed baggage from the CargoBus depot behind the MacDonald's in Tartu.

I walked right in, and in my wide-mouthed Long Islandese began to ask something in English before I remembered that, oh shit, I was back in Estonia, where people speak Estonian. So, I switched gears, and slowly became comfortable again with using Estonian as a public language.

It's always fun to hear Estonians say my last name, pronouncing every letter to the fullest. I think they even like saying it; it's a respite from saying Tamm and Orav {and Dvinjaninov}. The clerk said it aloud three times. "Yeah, that's me," I thought, chuffed at the thought that Sylvester Stallone would be known in Estland as "Stallon-EH."

Today was more of a typical day in Eestimaa. I did some interviews in the morning {with a guy from Karksi-Nuia, Epp's hometown}, then drove through town to meet up with my better half at the home of my sister-in-law. Sometimes explaining things to my in-laws is a bitch, because I can never keep it simple, and what I try to say gets lost in translation as I mangle verb endings and use awkwardly constructed sentences. That's just how it is, I guess.

My niece came outside and proclaimed that today there would be a päikesevarjutus. I understood the word päike (sun) and vari (shadow) and figured out she was talking about, as Seymour Krelborn would say, a total eclipse of the sun. She confirmed this by telling me it was a "solar eclipse" in English. She's only 10.

We all piled into the automobile and headed for the turg -- the outdoor market between the bus station and the river where we like to stock up on plums and potatoes and mushrooms, but never, ever, meat products. The turg is supposedly a artifact from simpler times, before the sleek nordic shopping centers and their off-kilter color schemes moved in and took over. I like the turg, though, because I like to watch people, and not only shapely female people.

Forget Olde Hansa, the turg people are positively medieval. The deeply lined faces, the unfashionable, round-headed haircuts, the bad teeth -- it's all there. The turg is also quite multicultural. It is one of the epicenters of Russian-speaking Tartu residents in this city. The truth is that most sellers are bilingual, so the concept of being Russian-speaking or Estonian-speaking seems a bit half-baked at the market. There are also Germans and Italians and Americans -- it's surprising how international a little market in a place like Tartu can be.

We wound up hauling several large bags of produce back to our car, whose parking fee was conveniently paid for with my mobile phone. I really like that you can pay by phone here. I hate searching around for spare change just so I can go buy some potatoes. Bless you, E-stonia.

Later, we went to our friends' place in Karlova, where they are selling everything they own to pay for a relocation to Miami. While mu kallis naine sized up their furniture, I took to conversing with the two girls present, both about 6 or 7 years old, Hanna and Janne. They both sat beside each other with an open book singing songs about animals and other wholesome things. I envied them. I wish I still had some naivety and could sit around and serenade the squirrels without a hint of self consciousness.

"Do you know that Janne is actually a boy's name in Finland?" I said to the girls. They squealed with laughter. "Can you imagine," one said to the other. "A boy named ... Janne!" They squealed some more. Later, after playing on the swings in the yard, they came inside and begged Hanna's mother for ice cream. She took two out of the freezer, and noticed that this was not brand X ice cream, this was Vanilla Ninja ice cream, the real friggin' deal.

Vanilla Ninja are a popular "girl band", and Estlandish law strictly mandates that all pre-pubescent females must own their CDs, decorate their walls with posters of the trio (sometimes a quartet), and praise them whenever mentioned. And eat their Vanilla Ninja-themed food products.

"That's Vanilla Ninja ice cream," I said to Janne. "I know," she responded. "It's the best ice cream. And they are my favorite band." The Estonian word for favorite is lemmik, and when someone uses it, you know that they really, really like it a lot.

where nature is dangerous

A few weeks ago we took a ride out to an area generally referred to nationwide as "the Hamptons" -- a string of English-founded towns* on the southeastern extreme of Long Island, many of which end in the suffix -"hampton" {ie. Bridgehampton, Easthampton, Southampton, etc.}

The "Hamptons" are a culturally distinct entity for several reasons. One is that they are the New York-adjacent playground of the rich and khaki. This is a place where Jerry Seinfeld and Puff Daddy are neighbors. The Hamptons are also the last area on Long Island where the indigenous population plays a political role. Indeed, the "big" question is whether or not a casino will be built on Indian land.

At the glorious Easthampton beach, as seen above, we went to enjoy the ocean, except Epp got a little bit more of the north Atlantic than she bargained for. The waves looked nasty, and I could tell that there were few people in the water because they feared getting beaten in the surf. But Epp waded in, sort of waving off our beach paranoia, until {boom} she disappeared under a breaking wave.

The next thing I saw, as the waves retreated from the shore, was Epp's leg sticking up through the foamy surf. She pulled herself up and started to make her way back, with a sort of surprised, nervous grin on her face, when {boom} another wave knocked her down. I was holding our daughter, so my father, who was with us, made his way down and helped her out of the mess.

It turns out we weren't so paranoid. There have been a number of drownings in recent weeks on the ocean side of the island, following a similar pattern, where the strong currents, encouraged by storm systems to the south, sweep inexperienced swimmers away to a place where teams of divers and rescuers cannot find them. We could sense the danger because we have grown up here, but Epp couldn't, because she hadn't.

It reminds me of an inverse story where Epp ridiculed my lack of natural knowledge. We were in Rhode Island, and we happened upon a crop of mushrooms in the grass. Epp saw them and instantly knew she could make food out of them. But I had been taught from an early age not to tango with wild mushrooms. My friend does pick them, but he learned his 'shrooming skills from books on fungi and a wandering Pole he met one day who enlightened him to 'shroom harvesting techniques.

To your average suburbanite, or whatever you wish to call people who live in suburban-like areas an hour plus from a metropolis, the knowledge of which mushrooms are edible and which ones are not so nice was lost long ago. I have no idea, and no one ever imparted that knowledge to me. But Epp knew, and to her my paranoia about mushrooms seemed silly. In her opinion, something so natural could hardly be seen as dangerous.

But maybe that is just the difference between North America and Europe. Epp was quite amused one day when I told her not to go near the shiny, three-leaved plant preposterously known as 'poison ivy.' To her, no plant could seriously exist. For Estonians, you see, nature is friend. To, at least, northeasterners, nature is a place where one must tread carefully. After several others reinforced my 'stay away from poison ivy' message, Epp came to believe that there really were these nasty plants that could leave you with an itching, oozing rash.

Estonia, though, has its own bounty of natural surprises. One, the ubiquitous stinging nettles, I have already touched on here. But, in my mind, tenderfoot visitors to Estonia should beware of its armies of killer ants. I am serious. A few years ago in Suure-Jaani, I took a wrong step near a playground and my foot was submerged in a sea of moving, red, hostile insects. The litte girl nearby stammered "sipelgad!" {ants!}, which my beginner's ear heard as "sibulad!" {onions!}.

More recently, while mowing the lawn {always a treacherous activity}, I picked up a plastic tube that belonged to one of my daughter's toys. I shook the tube to remove the dirt inside, when it seemed a handful of white rice slid out onto the backyard table. But it wasn't rice; it was a red ant's nest, and those were their little babies. Needless to say, they were really pissed off, and by the end of the day, I had two or three bites on my hand -- and when Estonian ants sting, it hurts.

Sometimes, I guess, the best way to learn about nature is to experience first hand.

* There are Dutch-founded towns on Long Island as well, such as Hempstead {Hemestede}, and Flushing {Vlissingen}.

só danço samba

The Estonian word for column is often declined as samba, which makes me expect Tom Jobim to spring forth, guitar in hand, anytime the word samba is dropped in Estonian discourse, which, if you haven't noticed, is quite often.

In all honesty, the ongoing and somewhat predictable controversy over the victory column in Tallinn has passed me by. I mean I don't live in Tallinn, and some construction and a large obelisk definitely will not eclipse the roving gangs of inebriated Britishers in search of a late night hamburger in terms of Tallinnese unpleasantness.

I agree that the gentlemen of 1918 deserve an imposing monument that reminds us all that without their sweat and blood this blessed peninsula might have gone the way of Ingria or Karelia. And yet ... the first time I went to Tallinn my naine-to-be and I ate pizza on that hill overlooking Vabaduse Väljak. She told me a story about the 1980 Olympics and I said nothing, as I have no memory of the 1980 Olympics.

If we climb the same hill next summer, our view will be interrupted by what feminist scholars might refer to as a large, white, phallic object with a cross on top of it. Fine. States build monuments; people are resistant to change; I'll always have the memories.

It's a funny thing, too, because I really feel 1918 like only a history-loving weirdo can. What I love about Estonian history is that it is so globalized; there are always so many players, there's always subtlety and intrigue. At various times, the Estonians of 1918 fought alongside Finns, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Brits, and Russians.

Surely, they deserve some attention-grabbing monument in their country's capital. And yet, when people actually build one, I zone out. Maybe it's because I don't live in Tallinn. Or maybe it is because a story will always be more powerful than a monument can ever be.

a real economy

In case you haven't heard, the American economy is a bit jittery at the moment. The real estate market is not well, the large investment companies are trying to stay afloat during the national credit crisis, and gas costs alot more than it used to cost.

And yet, the SUV drivers soldier on, filling up on oversized foodstuffs at gigantic supermarket chains, making pitstops at the local Starbucks to buy a coffee that costs about as much as a whole bag of coffee elsewhere, and generally spending themselves silly on consumer items they do not need, nor can afford.

But there is trouble in the air. People are beginning to realize that they have been living way above their means for quite some time. When I was in high school, it was the high school students who had the shittiest vehicles. Several years afterwards though, one would not be shocked to see a caravan of teenage girls all go driving past in a BMW on the way to the beach, expensive cellphone in manicured hand.

The reality is that people couldn't afford those goods back then, and they are starting to understand that they cannot actually afford them now. When I was younger and trying to figure out the principle of credit, I understood it as borrowing money from my future self to pay for things I need today. What I think is occuring in 2008, is that we have now become our future selves, and we are angry with our past selves for incurring all this debt.

In some ways we have been ahead of the curb. I sold a lot of belongings to get rid of our credit card debt back in 2006. Since then, I have tried to operate on the principle of the "real economy" -- making financial judgements based on the amount of money actually in your bank account -- versus the "fake economy" -- making financial judgements based on future wealth generated by a hypothetical miracle market.

I think that Estonia is in the same boat here too. Like Americans, Estonians came to think that they deserved to drive the most expensive cars and could afford the most ambitious renovation projects or vacations. I mean, they had been stuck in the post-Soviet economic toilet for so long, that they were owed only the finest quality consumer goods. Estonia was now the West, and Estonians would live like their Norwegian or Swedish compatriots.

Except it took a long time for those countries themselves to become wealthy, and their high standard of living owes a high debt not to just Nokia or Ericsson, but also to, gasp, wealth redistribution. Moreover, they also are learning that they can no longer afford to live so extravagantly. Needless to say, the Swedes and Danes aren't all speeding to their summer cottages in BMW 3 Series; many are probably taking the family Volvo instead. Thrift is a Scandinavian virtue, and it is one that is probably being rediscovered in Estonia on a daily basis.

In some ways, I liken the economic forboding to a well-deserved diet. We've eaten ourselves fat and now it's time to ration our supplies. But the American shoppers in the supermarket are going to need to start rationing soon. The morbidly obese have a lot of weight to lose indeed. I wonder what products they'll cut out first.

summer reading

I have a weird rule by which I abide, and that is that if I decide to read a book, then I must finish it before I allow myself to read any other books. Even if that other book looks outrageously awesome, I may not read it until I finish the book I am working on at the moment.

When it came to reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History, work was the appropriate word. The book is all about labor, laborers, and labor camps, and it is in some way a chore to read.

That is not to say that it was an unpleasant read; I enjoyed nearly every chapter, nearly every personal narrative. The chore was that it was 586 pages, and it was just not humanly possible to read this book in one sitting or two sittings or three sittings. The book demanded that you work to finish it and work I did.

I am not going to tell you about what is in it; that's for you to find out. I will just say that Applebaum's work is exhausting. I have no idea how a person can even write a book so comprehensive on such a topic. Where does one start? Where does one end? How does one know what to keep in and what to exclude? I have no idea.

Let me add this: Anne Applebaum scares me. Sure, the horrors of the Gulag as related by this book were sickening, giving you that nauseous feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get when you read the end of the Diary of Anne Frank. But this intrepid reporter genuinely frightens me because I know somewhere in my heart that there is just no way that I could ever produce something like Gulag.

It's perhaps like being a guitar player and listening to Jeff Beck conjure airplanes in his amplifier. You just know that you may be able to play your tune and play it well, but you also know that you will never be able to play it like Jeff Beck. Where there is wonder, there is also sometimes disappointment.

Despite my newfound fear of Applebaum, in some odd way I felt I came to know something of her personality. She dwells a bit on the reading and writing opportunities for political prisoners, and I guess that she must have in some ways identified with those young social revolutionaries imprisoned on Solovetsky in the 1920s who spent their days alone with their thoughts and the local mosquitos. Paper and pen have additional meaning to her, and why wouldn't they? As she has proven with this work, she's a writer.

A friend of mine once said that when you marry a foreigner, you marry the whole country, and in Applebaum's case, she is married to Poland. Legend has it that her next work will be more exclusively about Poland and its neighborhood. Stay tuned.

watch out for the poison

When I was on the West Coast two weeks ago I met up with an old friend who was part of our foreign correspondence program in Finland six long years ago.

In recounting how small and intimate Estonia is as a country, I referenced a moment from March where I suddenly found myself in an elevator with Boris Nemtsov and Marko Mihkelson.

"Who's Boris Nemtsov?" he asked.

"He used to be deputy prime minister of Russia, but now he's a critic of the Kremlin," I replied.

"Oh," he laughed. "I hope he didn't get any poison on you."

I thought my friend's comment was interesting because so many of us in "the West" have come to see Russia as an assertive country growing in influence while at the same time viewing our own democracies as weak. The Brits dislike Gordon Brown; the general feeling in the US is that, come Obama or McCain, at least by January we'll be done with W. In Estonia, the people are frustrated with Andrus Ansip. Äripäev put it so well recently:

It’s time for Ansip to take off his pink glasses and show that he still is the authoritarian leader he was during the bronze night. It’s not about how you understand history or whether you’ll offend or insult someone. It’s taking responsibility before voters and citizens who have gave you a job to do.

In this simmering cauldron of political disaffection, the newly elected president of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, looks like a shiny new toy. He's young; he likes Deep Purple; his name means "bear" -- what else could you want? Russian imitation democracy gave him a "mandate" of 70 percent: so he's loved by his people. And yet, even by pairing the words "Russian" and "tea," one does not think of some tasty byproduct of the country's economic boom; one thinks of death by radioactive element.

Everyone is being nice to Medvedev now because they are generally nice to whomever is the new leader in Moscow. But the truth is that the fellow is facing some serious PR challenges. His legitimacy is questioned because of the nature of his election; his independence is questioned because of his relationship with Putin; and the stability of the political environment in his country is questioned, because whenever someone thinks "Russian politician" they think "polonium-laced tea."

It's going to take a lot more than cheesy jokes about rock concerts to spruce up that image. We should remind ourselves of that fact anytime we feel intimidated by the aura of a resurgent Russia.

zombies of the living dead

Back in San Francisco the other day, I decided to ditch my hotel room for the hotel lobby to get some work done. I stayed in a French-owned hotel where music by Django Reinhardt and Edith Piaf played in the background, and my articles seemed to rip free from my fingertips like one of Django's many amazing guitar solos.

I noticed in the adjacent room that people were asking about Internet connectivity. I bought a $5 24-hour pass to use a city wireless service, but there was apparently some free wireless in the lobby that wasn't working. At least three people inquired with great urgency at the front desk about the lack of an Internet connection. One older woman in particular seemed extremely agitated.

This was occurring at about 8 am in the morning, and every Internet cafe that was recommended to her by the concierge would not open until 10. And so she paced, and checked again, and then, out of the corner of her eye, saw me seated in front of my very functional laptop, clicking away. She strode over to me, her hands clutched out front in nervous anticipation.

"Are you connected to the Internet?" she asked giddily.

"Yeah, I bought the city wireless pass. It's about $5," I said.

She left for some time and then returned to the door to the lobby. Hovering around the door, I could sense the agitation in her awkward, writhing body language. You see, I had access to the yummy, mind-tickling Internet and she didn't. She would have to settle for reading the latest issue of Le Point.

She finally approached me with some hesitancy. "Do you mind if I ... use your laptop?" she asked, hoping, praying that I would say yes. I was on deadline. My superiors were awaiting my work. There was simply no way that I was going to let this Internet addict anywhere near my computer. Sure, she'd pledge to just check her e-mail "for five minutes," but that five minutes could stretch to several hours. She was a junky and I had work to do. I declined her request.

She threw her arms up in cartoonish abandon, as if to say "drats" or "blast it all to hell." And I derived a sick pleasure from helping her go cold turkey, at least until the hotel wireless went back up or the nearest Internet cafe opened its doors. It is indeed sick because there used to be no Internet and thus there used to be no Internet addiction. Back then, people had to settle for more mundane addictions like alcohol or gambling. Today, though, nearly everyone is a junky of this harmless virtual world sur Internet.

It's not that I am not guilty myself. I do enjoy the days, though, when life and travel keep me off line and back online in the "real world." What is sort of odd to me is that to the generation directly beneath mine, for whom e-mail addresses and puberty coincided, there is no separation between online and offline. As someone only a few years my junior once confided in me, "I cannot live without the Internet; it's like another part of my brain." That sounds a bit frightening. The Internet is a tool; not a part of my brain. I am a human being; not a cyborg.

My wife's younger brother actually went through a severe case of Internet addiction about half a year back. It's normal these days that younger people spend a significant chunk of their time online. But he was online all the time. I even drove somewhere with him once and he was using his laptop in the car, periodically accessing local free wireless. It got to the point that we were actually worried about the dude. His life was turning into some kind of Trainspotting minus heroin plus YouTube.

Fortunately, he has kicked the habit to some extent, and the last time he came over, he spent most of his time with us unconnected. I should spend less time online too, which I guess means less blog posts. But, as my seventh grade English teacher used to say, it's about quality, not quantity. Know what I mean?

'meerikas

It's the Fourth of July, and the Fourth of July demands an obligatory American post.

I'll say this. At the airport in Helsinki, the luggage carts were free. They were as free as the chairs; as free as the toilets. At the airport in Vancouver, the carts were free; as free as the view from the windows; as free as the napkins at the airport cafes. But at the airports in New York and San Francisco, the carts for your luggage cost $3.

That's right, you get off a plane -- hot, sweaty, jet-lagged. You wait to go through customs. You stand among your fellow travelers, eager that your bag made it through the labyrinthine underbelly of your departure point onto your plane. And then, after you lug it off the baggage carousel, you swagger on over to the line of carts, dig out your credit card, and deduct three measly dollars from your savings so that you can use it. This is America, after all; and America's business is making money off of you.

I paid it, of course. But I felt a little dirty. Canadians and Finns were getting things for free that I, as an American, had to pay for. Sure, it was only $3. But in Canada it was free. In Finland it was free. Why is it free there, but not here? I just don't understand.

At the hotel where I stayed in San Francisco, I became increasingly paranoid. The food in the room was hooked up to sensors that went off when you removed an item. I didn't find out about this until I located a small book that warned me of the perils of eating a Snickers bar in a San Francisco hotel. It would cost me $4 plus sales tax and a 20 percent restocking fee to eat said bar. Therefore, candy I bought across the street for $1 could wind up costing nearly 10 times that in my hotel!

I became worried that other things were not free. Maybe there was a special charge for flushing the toilet, or even turning on the TV. Maybe I would go to check out and find out I had watched TV for 15 minutes at $4 per minute. I am sure it was written in fine print somewhere in my room. TV+San Francisco real estate prices = money, right?

So I didn't watch any TV and I am smart (and cheap). I went to the little Arab-owned and operated convenience store across the street, bought a new Snickers bar for $1 and replenished my own hotel mini-bar. Inside the shop, the clerk watched a French film from the 1950s dubbed into English.

"How cool is this country," I thought to myself. "Arab guys watching French film noir while guys like me buy Snickers bars." There was also an Asian guy there with a goatee and an Obama '08 t-shirt. The fog covered the buildings outside. On the counter, under a panel of glass there was money from all different countries. Mexican money. Malaysian money. And, representing Europe, a five kroon note. I proudly whipped out my 25 kroon bill featuring Estonian national writer Anton Hansen Tammsaare and showed it to the Arab clerk.

"Are you from Estonia?" he asked. "No," I responded. "My wife is." "Do you know who that is?" he inquired. "Sure," I said. "It's Paul Keres, the chess player." He looked me in the eyes. "Keres was very famous. Veeeerrrrrry famous." I paid for my chocolate and was on my way. But I felt immensely proud of the country of my birth. Here was a place where Arab store clerks watched French films and collected Estonian money in a city founded by Spanish missionaries. Fees for luggage carts aside, it's hard to get any cooler than that.

foolish games

The Russian Federation is playing games with the Republic of Estonia. It's not that it's a one-sided game. The Estonians have been taking the bait since 2005.

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves returned from Moscow with a special message for parliament: maybe you should swallow your pride and remove the preamble to the border treaty with the Russian Federation, signed in 2005.

This would be seen presumably as a token of Estonia's goodwill towards Russia, especially since last year's events which made Estonia a household name for riots and cyberwar, rather than medieval tourism and IT development.

This was Ilves' position back in 2006 when he was running for president. He noted, correctly I think, that the preamble -- which references the Treaty of Tartu, signed in 1920 -- was not necessary and that its lack of presence atop said treaty would not threaten the legal continuity of the Estonian state. Estonia's objective was to have the treaty in force, and it was dealing with a very illogical 800-kilo Muscovite gorilla. When he went on television this week, back from his sobering trip to the east, he reiterated his point, which, in turn, set more right-wing lawmakers aflame with discontent.

To remove the preamble for the sake of making Estonia look like it was willing to reconcile its differences with Russia would mean sacrificing Estonia's stalwart principles and, some more populist lawmakers warn, invalidating the birth certificate of the Republic of Estonia.

Unfortunately for them, basically everyone outside of Estonia would agree with Ilves. Changing the preamble would actually have no legal effect, because the documents it references were already passed by the Riigikogu. It is, in all honesty, entirely meaningless whether there is a preamble or not. That is why Ilves is perhaps so willing to encourage this sacrifice.

Anyway, it is unlikely Isamaa-Res Publica Liit or the Reform Party will support such discussions. Now the lawmakers of these parties are unhappy with Ilves, which makes the Russians happy, as they don't like him or his bow-ties much either. It weakens the Estonian coalition, as it draws a wedge between SDE and parts of Reform that don't care that much whether there is a preamble or not, and other parts of Reform and IRL who do care. And since Russia isn't a democracy, they get to maintain their position while the Estonian domestic political debate rages over the preamble to a friggin' border treaty. Is Karl Rove advising the Kremlin on how to deal with its neighbors? Inquiring minds would like to know.

This is nonsense. As a person who lives in Estonia, I can tell you that Russia is using the border treaty to meddle in Estonia's affairs because it has so few other levers to control its neighbor. The gray sanctions hit the transit sector, but most of Estonia's trade is with Sweden and Finland. And, trust me, if Sweden and Estonia signed some legislation, nothing like this would ever have happened because Sweden matters more. My money is in Swedbank; get the picture?

Estonia isn't that important for Russia, either. That is the real reason why the Estonian and Russian presidents haven't met for 14 years. By getting the border issue over and out of the way, Estonia and Russia will have one less contentious issue to discuss with their Russian colleagues. And the less avenues there are for Russia to discuss/meddle with Estonia, the better. Of course, some lawmakers benefit from friction with Russia. And, as much as I respect their principles, we must admit that they are politicians, and the politicians' objective in life is to stay in office.

That revelation, though, begs the question: in what ways does the president benefit from this? He's not up for re-election until 2011. What's on his mind?

nordic paternalism

I was leafing through Geert Mak's In Europe: Travels Through the 20th Century, and I read the chapter on Riga, which is loosely about the Baltic countries, with great interest.

Mak traveled around Europe in 1999, and even back then the discourse in the Baltics was as hung-up on the past as it is today. My interest was piqued when Mak, and interviewees cited in the book, consistently referenced Estonia's Scandinavian orientation.

According to Steven Johnson, the former editor of the Baltic Times who was quoted, Tallinn would forever be a "Danish village," Riga an East-West German trading port, and Vilnius, an eastern European metropolis ala Warsaw and Minsk. "Danish village, eh?" I thought to myself.

Outside of Estonia, Denmark is perhaps the European country I know best, as I lived there in 2001 for four months. Once asked at a party in Tallinn to summarize the differences between Danes and Estonians, I fixated on the Danes' Scandinavian elitism, versus the Estonians' lack of self confidence.

The Danes are still a bit irritated that they don't run the world. If they did, they'll assure you, everything would be much better. But the Estonians never speak of running the world. They know it's not up to them, and so they cast their lot with others. The Danes think of themselves as equals, nay, leaders in the Nordic world. The Estonians think of themselves as a kind of supplement to Scandinavia.

That being said, both countries are equally proud; arrogant even. When TH Ilves and Mart Laar went on their "Estonia is a Nordic country" roadshow back in '99, the Balts balked at the Estonians' self-importance. "They think they are better than us," they opined. That's right, they do, and if you explore the Estonian worldview, you'll find they think they are better than everyone else, too.

The Finns? Inbred drunks luckier only in size and history. The Swedes? Pompous windbags, but preferable to the Russians. The Russians? They think cockroaches are lucky. The Germans? Land-hungry morons. The Latvians? I don't know any Latvians, do you know any Latvians? In this atmosphere, to be all other nations is to be in someway cursed. To be Estonian may bring with it undesirable baggage, but it is worth it when you are the smartest and best little country on Earth.

And, so, how interesting that I realized that Mr. Mak and Mr. Johnson were kind of right. The Danes and the Estonians had something in common. Just as the Danes think that everyone should adopt their egalitarian social welfare state, the Estonians believe that it is only a matter of time before everyone realizes the genius of their flat taxation policies and e-governance. It's pure nordic paternalism; Danmark and Eesti know best.

And if there are problems, well, there aren't actually any, because you are in Denmark/Estland, where everything is perfect, or at least as good as it can get given the circumstances. Danes will tell you that their society is open and tolerant. But in private they confess that they have no idea how to integrate people who wear head scarves and torch buildings when cartoons of their prophet are published in Danish newspapers. And, so, they ignore it. "Oh yeah, the cartoon scandal," they sigh dreamily. "I seem to remember reading something about that."

The Estonians have the nerve to tell you that there is no discrimination in their country, although of course there is; there is discrimination in every country. Paris is occasionally in flames and you can get stabbed in the Netherlands for making a film, but everything in Estonia is as it should be; and if it isn't, it's somebody else's fault. "Ah, yes, the cyber attacks," they say aloofly. "I remember seeing an article on that in Wired magazine."

Still, Tallinn is not Copenhagen. There are not enough bicycles, not enough jazz festivals, not enough guys selling sausages on sticks. But there are plenty of northern individualists riding around in expensive cars. And if you ask them in which direction they are headed, they will assure you that it is the right way.

tume energia

There is something about the word "Duma" that doesn't sound right in the Estonian language. Perhaps it is that, at least to my ears, it resembles the word tuuma --nuclear. And what does a tuumajaam (nuclear power plant) generate? Tume energia -- literally "dark energy."

Yesterday's display of dark energy came from the lips of Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma committee on international affairs.

Kosachev himself is an example of the weirdness of Russian political life. He is technically a politician, but he never faces off in a competitive election. So he's not actually accountable to anyone. It's not like it is in the US, where if you got tired of Sen. Alphonse D'Amato you could trade him for Sen. Chuck Schumer, or if you got tired of watching fake cowboy Sen. George Allen tossing footballs out to the crowds, you could part ways with him and vote for Sen. Jim Webb. No, Russia is stuck with Kosachev. He is only responsible to the chairman and CEO of Kremlin, Inc. -- Vladimir Putin.

His speech, through which he tried to deplore the hypocrisy of the European community in its attitudes towards last year's riots in Tallinn, came out all wrong:

“In Estonia when the defenders of the monument celebrating the conquerors of fascism were beaten by police, there were no open letters, or resolutions to the European Parliament, no condolences sent - only complaints that youths outraged by murder had interrupted the Estonian ambassador’s transportation.”

Is it just me, or is there something a bit chilling about the Russian usage of "youths"? It reminds me of another fellow that's always on about the "youths" and their service to the cause.

The dilemma here really comes back to the Potemkin candidacy of "politicians" like Kosachev. And that is that the Nashi "youths" who harassed the Estonian ambassador's transportation are a pro-Kremlin group founded by and funded by the state. They were working, like everyone else, at the behest of Mr. Putin and his "United Russia" party. How can their outrage ever be taken seriously? Who buys them their neat jackets and organizes their camp love-ins?

Then, of course, we must unpick Kosachev's statement. Were his loyal "youths" beaten because they were "defending the monument" or because they were throwing rocks at police? I was in Tallinn the week after the show went on, and I witnessed first hand the huge damage to private and public property. In my opinion, there was probably not enough police presence in Tallinn during the first night of disorder. Perhaps Mr. Dmitri Ganin would still be alive had the politsei managed to seal off downtown. But that would have taken extra police muscle, and, as we can see, the police are expected to subdue drunken rioters hurling stones with soothing words and kid gloves.

How the police doing their job is equivalent to Russian state officials beating up Mari activists, I am not quite sure. But, in Kosachev's mind, the Finno-Ugric World Congress was the place to remind the Estonian delegation that they were in Russia, an unfriendly country. Kosachev's United Russia ventriloquism was on display the day previously where he said that Ilves' speech to Finno-Ugric minorities was "incorrect" because he had mentioned the dreaded "i" word -- independence. Note to Ilves, next time make sure Russia corrects your speeches before hand.

In any other country, Kosachev would just be another annoying lawmaker. But the fact that he is accountable to one man only, and therefore must do the bidding of that one man, means that refusing to listen to the insinuations of Kosachev is the equivalent of refusing to listen to the insinuations of that one man.

Some people think that Estonia's Russian policies have failed because Estonia used the "i" word, or forgot to thank Russia for liberating its parliamentarians of the 1920s and 30s from their lives. But, please, let's be serious shall we. This is a show. It is a show where Estonians can earn the respect of their constituents by walking out of an assembly, and where unelected sycophants like Kosachev can earn brownie points from their all-powerful boss/bosses.

This is not something that matters like missile defense strategies or access to oil and gas reserves. This is a row about nothing. Really, think about it, what are the Estonians and Russians mad at each other about? Statues? History? Attitudes? Language requirements for civil service positions? Preambles to border treaties? And this impacts our daily lives how? Exactly. Just as Seinfeld was a show about nothing that managed to stay on the air for nine seasons, the Estonian-Russian crisis continues to pump out juicy headlines about ... nothing.

Everyone benefits and the only people it really hurts is the Estonian transit industry (to the benefit of Russian competitors) and the Estonian Russian minority, whose would-be perspectives are overshadowed by Russian meddling and Estonian obtuseness. Do they even have an opinion? Who cares! Let's argue about "fascism" and how prominently monuments are displayed in the capital cities of foreign countries. Ah, Christ. There's a good Monty Python sketch in here somewhere. I just know it.

ilves medvedev

The expectations were nil. The postmortems have been not so good. And yet, there was something comforting about seeing the giant from Ärma and the bear cub from Kupchino seated next to one another, framed by their respective flags. Perhaps diplomatic niceties that cost each side nothing are in order.

can you manage?

On Jaanipäev, we went to visit Tiina and Mart, some friends who were back in Estonia, but actually live elsewhere in the European Union.

As our conversation wound its way around various topics, Tiina asked me about my experiences living in Estonia as a foreigner. Up until this point, the conversation had progressed in Estonian, but then things got complicated.

"Kas sa saad hakkama*?" she asked.

"Mida?" I responded.

"Kas sa saad hakkama?" she asked again.

"Mis hakkama?" I said.

"I am sorry," I continued in English. "Can I start what?"

"Can you manage?" she asked again in English.

The verb hakkama means "to start" in Estonian. When used with saada in a question form, it usually translates as "can you do x?" For instance, kas sa saad mängida? translates as "can you play?" while kas sa saad aidata? translates as "can you help?" But not kas sa saad hakkama? That somehow translates as, "can you manage?"

This reminds me of the time we were at Pille's and I rose to get some more food. Pille brought the plate to me and ordered me to tõsta ise. "Raise it up by myself?" I asked, somewhat foolishly. In English we would have said "help yourself," but in Estonian, apparently, one uses the fork to literally "raise" or "lift" or tõsta the food on to their plate.

But back to managing. That was an interesting question indeed. I gather from reading some of the comments on this blog that some people simply cannot manage dealing with the rednecks of Paide, and have opted to deal with the earthquakes and mudslides of California instead. But, I feel that given enough time, I could learn "to manage" anywhere.

Occassionally, I get a weird feeling when I am driving through the environs of Tartu, looking over magnificent, sprawling fields and endless blue skies, with the radio on playing some accordion-backed Estonian classic. I feel that this place is very special and endearing. And yet, at the same time, I know in my bones that I am not of this place, nor will ever be of this place. I am a foreigner.

Fortunately for me, Estonia is an anonymous, northern European country, where nobody really cares where you come from, or at least they won't tell you they care to your face. All social interaction is conducted at arms length, and so it is easier to manage here than, say, in Germany or France or even the UK, where one might feel they are stuck in cultural quicksand, sinking into an abyss of foreignness.

In the UK, one might feel that they are being suffocated by Britishness. I recall sitting next to a drunk Briton on a bus in Kidlington as he explained to me how Portuguese football coach José Mourinho's managerial skills left much to be desired -- as if I knew what he was talking about, or could bring my own anglo slang to the party. Thankfully, nothing like that would happen to you in Estonia, as people don't speak to each other on public transport.

So, yes, I can manage. It was nice of Tiina to ask that -- to imagine that I might too have feelings and sentiments about my own life. Honestly, I am so immersed in my daily routines, that these larger existencial questions often pass me by. But can some people not manage? And why? Those are interesting questions.

* This post has been updated to correct a spelling error. I originally wrote hakkada instead of hakkama. The Estonian language takes two verb endings -ta/da and -ma. I have generally learned the distinction of when to use them by ear. I have also learned to spell some words by ear. It should be hakata, rather than hakkada. Why does hakkama have two 'k's while hakata only has one 'k'? I don't know.

i disagree

The recent decision by the parliament of Lithuania to ban both Soviet and Nazi symbols, as well as national anthems, is, in my mind, a mistake.

It is not a mistake of "blasphemous" proportions, as the policy shapers in the Kremlin will tell you. That they are so uncomfortable with unauthorized history telling is their own national pathology. I have chosen to put them on ignore.

But it is a mistake because I believe that the prohibition of these symbols only makes them more sexy; by turning them into contraband, you reinvigorate the desire for access. By banning something, you only make it more powerful.

And do not look West for inspiration, because we have not handled the legacy of the Second World War well either. For reasons unknown, we use it as some sort of moral compass. All political decisions can be fed through the Neville-Chamberlain-in-Munich-o-meter for the detection of various strains of appeasement. The words "Versailles" and "Sudetenland" may not mean anything to the average person, but they know the Austrian with the funny mustache when they see him.

If you take a few steps back, you can see that we are all really quite mad. We treat both of these regimes, Nazi and Soviet, as if they were not our own, as if we were not related to them, the same way that we may not wish to be related to a certain odious relative. But the fact is that we are related to that relative, and you can no more sever your genetic fabric than you can sever your connection to history. You can cut your relative out of photos, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. You can ban symbols or music, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist.

And why do you ban music and symbols? Thanks to my exposure to these symbols and music, I have actually come to see the cultural legacy of both regimes as terrifically antiquated and reliant on outdated forms of media. I mean, the Soviet and Nazi cultural legacy comes down to bold poster art and creaking film strips of parades. There are some people who live vicariously through such art forms, but to most people, the only thing that could make them interesting is that you are not supposed to be looking at them; in the same way that a person views the wall that separates them from the X-rated section of a video store, a person can view the legal trip wire that might be set off should he drive around town in Vilnius blasting the Soviet national anthem.

But he probably wouldn't drive around town doing that, anyway. Why? Because he knows some big Lithuanian dudes nearby named Daumantis and Algirdas might decide to take the law into their own hands. And so social mores prevent our hypothetical Soviet propagandist from performing his musicology experiment. No laws are necessary.

Why do lawmakers consistently waste their time delving into this stuff? It's not just in the Baltic rim countries; all over the world parliaments churn out ceremonious gobbledygook that barely impacts the lives of average people. And it creates distance between the representatives and their constituents, because, believe me, the first thing on the people's agenda in Estonia, for instance, might be increasing worker productivity and lowering inflation. Banning symbols and music is something you might do after happy hour at Stenbock House.

Or maybe I am wrong and this is all ok with you. What do you think?

võidupüha

Today is Võidupüha, or Victory Day in Estonia. It's part of a long weekend called Jaani which combines Võidupüha together with St. John's Day (Jaanipäev), to create an orgy of meat grilling and beer consumption.

Why Võidupüha? This is the interesting thing about living in a country that was founded in 1918. In the US, our country was founded in 1776, and so many of us are well acquainted with the political and social fabric of that time. Even today, you'll hear American politicians occasionally roll their tongues as if their speeches had been lifted from the works of Thomas Paine.

But in Estonia, the backdrop is the end of World War I and the Estonian Independence War that followed. Võidupüha commemorates the victory of the Estonian Liberation Army over the troops of the German Landeswehr at Võnnu (Cēsis, Latvia) on this date in 1919.

For a country that has been victorious in so few battles, they really savor this one. And by "savor," I mean play accordion music and load up on food supplies and alcohol. The line at the local supermarket was long; Estonians filled their carts with mind-boggling procurements of beer, jars of pickles, buckets of saslokk, all while generic accordion music set to an umpa rhythm called out from the speakers.

It seemed odd, really. Estonians? Festive? Not working? Going to a party? Why, that must mean that it's summertime. For my part, I bought a tub full of greasy juustu-sibulla leivad (cheese and onion bread), and two packs of A. Le Coq to ... celebrate the victory at Võnnu. I also made sure to put the sinine-must-valge up outside, just to remind any Germans that might happen to pass by who is boss in this land of umpa music and great beer.

pihl

I have heard a number of political rumors, but one circulated by Eesti Päevaleht is by far my favorite: that Jüri Pihl, the Minister of the Interior, is navigating his way into the top seat in the Estonian government.

The rumor is based on several assumptions. The first is that, if the et tu Padar? moment is to come and Reform is to be forced into opposition, then the Social Democrats, and their measly 10 seats in the Riigikogu, will play deal maker for a collaboration between the interests of IRL and the Center Party. This would mean that SDE would be able to demand the top concession, the prime minister's seat, in the new government.

The second assumption is that Pihl, not SDE leader and Finance Minister Ivari Padar, is more favored for the job. I mean, let's face it, prime ministers have to get up early, wear suits all the time, travel abroad, and give boring speeches about cyber attacks and e-stonia. Why would a guy from rural Võru county, like Padar, volunteer for a position like that?

The third assumption is that Pihl has built himself a veritable tower of power within the security services. By combining institutions and appointing loyalists he now has an important power base in the country, somewhat equivalent to Reform Party's friends in the banking industry and the media, or Center Party's pals in the transit sector. He now has a position from which he can effectively bargain. Perhaps he even has a secret file marked "dirty laundry."

luck of the irish

What is it about Europeans that makes them blind to the fact that they live on one continent, or at least one sub-continent with common cultural furniture?

To an American, if you fly east across the Atlantic, you inevitably reach one of two landmasses, Europe, with its medieval architecture and fondness for electronic music, or Africa, with its post-colonial blood feuds and civil wars.

But in the eyes of some Europeans, Europe is anywhere else but here. Here's a quote from an Irishman who voted no on the Lisbon Treaty last week:

"You know, I love traveling through Europe, but I don't really want to live there all the time. I'd like to stay as close to America as Europe."

Except it's 3,000 miles from Ireland to the US, my dear euroskeptic Irishman, and less than 300 miles from Ireland to France. That means that you really are closer to Europe than the US. You can't be as close to America as to Europe because it is actually farther away.

Here's another gem from one of our Western European friends, this time a Spaniard:

"Spaniards feel Spanish, the French feel French, and the Dutch feel Dutch. We will never all be in the same boat."

Except Spaniards don't feel Spanish anymore, do they? They feel Galician and Catalan. They feel Basque, just like the Basques in France. And do the Belgians really feel Belgian? Or do some feel more Flemish than Belgian? Remind the EU not to include the word "feel" in the next version of the constitutional treaty they cook up.

There are a few other reasons why I am mad at Ireland this weekend. One is that they have proven that humans are indeed a cynical species. Humans just take take take, and they don't reciprocate. Common currency? Oh, I'll have that. Structural funds? Yes, please. Publishing EU documents in Irish to make you feel good? Naturally. Treaty that civil servants slaved over and nearly all political parties endorse? No to you, EU! We are suffering from Eurofatigue, I mean ... look at all the immigrants. That's another rich one from the Emerald Isle. Immigration fatigue. This from the country that sent its people around the world by the boatload to colonize other countries, one pub at a time.

But, I digress. Estonia is guilty of this way of thinking, too. I once told a woman that I was headed to Poland (the trip was canceled in the end, but never mind). "Oh," she said. "You're going to Europe." "But I am in Europe," I insisted. "Not really," she replied.

On another occasion, a gentleman came back from skiing in the French Alps. "I just got back from Europe," he said. "Dude," I pulled him aside. "We are in Europe. Estonia is part of Europe." "Sort of," he agreed, "but we are more on the edge of it." Right. Roman alphabet. Lutheran churches. Blond people named Katrin and Karl. EU Member State. Not exactly Europe.

In instances like these, I'd like to know exactly where this mysterious Europe is. Some represent it as the mountain villas of France. Others see it as the murky canals of Amsterdam. And still others think of it as a leaning tower somewhere in northern Italy.

Wherever Europe is, people sure like its valuable money and its passport-free travel. But, for whatever reason, they don't take kindly to its treaties. Maybe the treaties would finally pass if Brussels let the Europeans vote on them, rather than those pesky Irish, French, and Dutch instead.

the good english

A little while ago I wrote a critique, chiding the Estonian government and media for the inaccessibility of quality English-language material in the global information market.

To be really honest, I sort of hate it when English-speakers whine about not being served in English wherever they go. Anyone who thinks they should be able to perform every function in a foreign country in the language of Her Majesty is kidding themselves. And even if you do manage, you are always putting the burden on others, you ungrateful sods.

On the other hand, English is useful. The Lennart Meri Conference in March was held exclusively in English, even though this is Estonia. I have been transcribing the remainder of conference as of late, and I was particularly impressed with the linguistic skills of Sven Mikser, who chairs the Riigikogu's Foreign Affairs committee.

You should bear in mind that it is one of my objectives in life to obtain some fluency in the Estonian language. I practice everyday in various circumstances, and I try to broaden my source material by listening to boring Estonian radio programs in the car or watching talk shows on TV. The problem is that I don't think I'll ever be able to catch up with Mikser, who has probably been learning English since a relative gave him a contraband Thriller LP for his tenth birthday.*

Just check it out:

To draw in Iran, a little bit. I would say that there seems to be a marriage of convenience instead of love between Iran and Syria. The clique in Syria seems to be buying domestic legitimacy by trumpeting this almost extinct cause of Arab nationalism, which has given way to radical Islamism. But, by trying to lead the cause of Arab nationalism, it is actually deferring to non-Arab Tehran. So how do you see this axis evolving over the next couple of years?

Now, how the hell would I ever manage to say anything so eloquent in Estonian? "Marriage of convenience instead of love"? "Buying domestic legitimacy"? "Trumpeting this almost extinct cause of Arab nationalism"? Mind you, not "espousing" or "professing" or "endorsing," but "trumpeting"! Can you use the Estonian equivalent of the word for trumpet (trompet) as a verb? Kas keegi saab trompetada eesti keeles? On tõesti võimalik või?

I am not the only one who should be jealous of Mikser. Compared to Mikser, other Estonian politicians sound like the Swedish chef. They can only dream of one day being able to speak "the good English" as well as Mikser does. And I can only dream of being able to say something like that in eesti keel.

*As far as I know, Mikser did not receive Michael Jackson's Thriller for his birthday. I was just making that up, to show that, typically, foreigners have been learning my language longer than I have been learning theirs. Maybe he got a Lionel Ritchie album instead.

15 years

It's been nearly 15 years to the day since the Riigikogu passed the Law on Aliens, a legal document that defined the legal status of stateless residents in Estonia whose status came into question after the Citizenship Act was passed in February 1992, defining Estonian citizens as citizens of the Republic of Estonia prior to 1940 and their descendants.

There have been so many myths spun from the passing of these two acts that it is hard to discuss them all in a single blog post.

Myth #1 is that the laws were passed specifically to disenfranchise the Russian-speaking part of the population. Some Estonians support this myth. They use the alarming demographics of the 1989 census as the rationale behind the acts. But, in reality, roughly 10 percent of pre-1940 citizens were ethnic Russians. So this myth is actually false. In fact, I recently read that up to 10,000 people on the Russian side of the southeastern border -- which was Estonian up to 1944 -- have Estonian passports because of the jus sanguinis principle.

Myth#2 is that these acts disenfranchised 30 percent of the population. This myth is also somewhat untrue. For starters, because permanent residents have the right to vote in municipal elections, they are not completely disenfranchised. The second dilemma is that, as former Soviet citizens, they are entitled to Russian Federation citizenship, as the RF is the successor state to the USSR. They are therefore potential RF citizens who have not elected to file the paperwork to reconcile their status. Estonia requires them in most cases to pass an exam. But there are a variety of citizenship options available.

Myth#3 is that statelessness is somehow permanent based on ones historical status in Estonia. Therefore, to this day, you will read by some angry voices on the Internet that 30 percent of Estonia's residents still lack citizenship. In reality, the naturalization process has worked well enough that 8 percent of residents, or slightly north of 100,000 people, still have this status.



Sitting here in 2008, I feel quite different about these acts than I may have felt even five years ago. In the past, if you supported even the premise of Estonian independence, then you subscribed to the whole package, the language laws, the citizenship laws, and the interpretation by *some* Estonians of certain parts of history.

Today, though, it's hard for me to look at the young, smiling faces of the newly enfranchised from citizenship ceremonies in places like Jõhvi or Narva and think that a) they ever were really repressed in some way by the state or that b) they were ever in anyway truly not part of it. How could they have ever not been Estonians?

And so, the citizenship issue has become, in these 15 years, a formality. Estonia has already traveled so far down this road of naturalization on the basis of jus sanguinis that the endless hours of arguing over the acts of 15 years ago seem a waste of time. There is no going back. The decisions were made.

Increasingly, though, I find myself reevaluating this part of the Estonian package through a political lens. How did these acts get passed? Who passed them? It seems to me that the right-wing parties had a political agenda, and they hammered that agenda through. For them, we give thanks. Estonia successfully navigated its way to EU and NATO membership with limited domestic opposition. Estonia implemented a school reform policy to end asymmetric bilingualism. Estonia set up tax policies that, at least for the time being, significantly reoriented the economy. Pat yourself on the backs, guys.

Still, this political factor, that these were decisions made by parties perhaps out of their own self-interest, rather than just the national interest, poses an interesting conundrum for the future. The decisions of the past have been made. Estonia integrated fully into the West. Mart Laar's bold vision of the irreversible westernization of his country has been mostly achieved, and if the steady hand remains, that process will be concluded sometime in the next few years, when the rising generation of Estonians, born in a free, western Estonia, begin to be heard in the public discourse. All of these old debates will be as real for them as Vietnam is for the Lindsay Lohan generation in the United States. And what will the agenda be then?

I wonder how this process will be interpreted by this new Estonia, all of whom are enfranchised, but not all of whom were enfranchised from birth. Will the myths of national angst prevail? Will these older distinctions of citizenship manifest themselves in politics or in the work place? Will these acts still be seen as part of the Estonian package, or will Estonia have grown bigger than that, so that they are viewed dispassionately as history?

Will future generations of Estonians sit in history class, as I sat in mine, debating the merits of these acts, the same way we talked about the Missouri Compromise in eighth grade? We talked, argued, agreed or disagreed, but then the bell rang and we went to lunch, where we spoke of more important things, like the collapse in popular support for New Kids on the Block.

When I think about citizenship policies today, I feel like Estonia's finger is moistened and it's about to turn the page on this era. It hasn't done so yet, but there is a page-turning feeling of inevitability in the air.

mission statements

The Economist's Edward Lucas has an interesting piece up about Latvia, dubbed "The Latvian Puzzle." Puzzling is the appropriate word.

I have no idea what to write about Latvia. Its politics are dominated by parties with names that don't seem to mean anything. I mean, who isn't in favor of a new era? Who doesn't wish for a country governed from the harmony center? And a union of greens and farmers? That sounds adorable. Do they also sell organic lemonade and rhubarb pies?

I think the opaqueness of reading Latvia comes down to this: Estonia, for all its warts, has a mission statement to become a wealthy, northern European country that exports its sheer brilliance. This mission statement is embraced by all political parties. The Reform Party uses it, the Social Democrats use it, even the Center Party will tell you that Estonia needs to adopt progressive taxation policies, because Estonia should follow the Nordic model more closely.

In my opinion, some questions that could help to solve the Latvian puzzle are:

• what is Latvia's mission statement?

• And, also, how do recent Latvian positions either contribute to or detract from that mission statement?

• For good measure, we might also include, how does Latvia's mission statement, or lack thereof, impact Estonia's mission statement?

Daugavpils blogger Pēteris Cedriņš has been turning over this question in a number of posts in recent months. There doesn't seem to be an answer. But if you are looking to solve the Latvian puzzle, it might help to begin by asking questions about how Latvia envisions its future first.

what's with the red?

The Finnish Social Democratic Party has elected Jutta Urpilainen as party chair.

Urpilainen beat Erkki Tuomioja's quest to lead the party and, being only four years older than yours truly, is relatively young.

Urpilainen, like all good sotsid, prefers to cloak herself in red, the color of, uh, social justice and affection. See examples of her social democratic fashion statement here, here, and here.

Urpilainen, though, is not alone. Estonian sotsid have also fallen prey to the idea that if they wear red, votes will follow. Check out Heljo Pikhof, Marianne Mikko, and even Ivari Padar. Ah well, as they say, better red than ... whatever color this is.

most like

There's a funny little poll to your right. In the context of defining who Estonians are, I have heard them compared to all of the categories.

Finns and Finland comes most readily to some minds. Despite the historical differences, the cultural ones are quite deep, suffice to say that when people ask me what some of the first words I learned in Estonian were, I must confess that they were actually in Finnish, like minä olen mies. You would think that the Internet sauna was an Estonian invention, but, sigh, it's not.

The German connection is also real. As Kalev Kesküla pointed out in a recent Eesti Ekspress article, in Finland, politicians condemn alcohol as a wicked vice; in Estonia, they put on their korporatsioon hats and drink beer with the students. Could Estonians be more sakslased than soomlased?

Some, though, like to stick the Estonians together with their Baltic neighbors, the Latvians. In their view, the Latvians and Estonians are pagan peoples who only like to sing and roast sausages yet frequently get screwed over by larger neighbors. As one Estonian confided in me, "whatever happens to them, will happen to us."

Estonian identity appears on its face to be built in response to Russian identity. "Whatever they are, we are not,“ think nationalistic Estonians. But if that were the case, then why did/do Russians love Georg Ots and Anne Veski so much? And how come so many Estonians just magically manage to switch to Russian when need be? Questions, questions.

Finally, Swedes. Estonians themselves have only produced a few films, including Noor Pensionär, Nukitsamees, Viimne Reliikvia, Jan Uuspõld Läheb Tartusse, and ...Did I mention Nukitsamees? But, if you really want to understand the Estonian psyche, I suggest you simply borrow the works of Ingmar Bergman. Try The Virgin Spring or The Seventh Seal for starters. Rape, murder, death, doom, and … some humor. It’s all in there.

dorpat

Walking around the streets of Tartu, you are bound to hear many languages. Language number one is, of course, Estonian. This is the native language of more than 80 percent of this city.

Language number two is Russian. There are other languages, too. You'll hear Finnish outside pubs, Italian in La Dolce Vita, and Polish outside the university's main building. Swedish is a hard one to recognize, because it sounds a lot like Estonian, only with different words. English, of course, is omnipresent.

And then there is German. Some Germans are local, others are students, a third group are tourists. I'm told that there are even some Baltic Germans in Tartu of ancient, sword-wielding stock. When I see Germans or meet them I an intrigued, but never tell them what I think, because the German soul is a mystery.

What I am wondering, though, is how exactly does it feel to be a German in a place that was formerly known as "Dorpat"? What kind of cultural deja vu do they experience when they realize that most of the architecture in the town center reminds one of the buildings back home? How does it feel to be introduced to a group of Estonians with names like Hans, Karl, and Katrin?

One German I know who has never visited was positively shocked when she learned that the Estonians were (unobservant) Evangelical Lutheran, punctual types who use European (German) words like reklaam and reisibüroo in their language. An instant kinship was born.

But what of the one's who have visited? Is there any connection, or have all warm feelings for the Teutonic past been locked away in the attic of the German national collective unconscious? How do Germans feel about Estland?

obama

Remember a few months ago when I said I would probably support Hillary Clinton or John McCain because of their "experience." Sometime in February, I changed my mind.

The McCain option was just for fun: I think the Republican "revolution" of 1980 has long run its course. I mean, to what elderly statesman would McCain appeal to be his secretary of state? Alexander Haig?

With Clinton and Obama, perhaps it all came down to how they ran their campaigns. Hillary's suffered from infighting, debt, and a husband who just couldn't help but utter an expletive or two. The stereotype about Hillary -- that she would do or say anything to win -- was driven home to me by her fuzzy delegate math and arguments about which states should count and which ones shouldn't. Plus, I could never put my finger on why she wanted to be president, other than that she wanted to be president.

I must admit, the "entitlement thing", that, by somehow being a former first lady and senator in her second term she was "entitled" to the nomination, deeply annoyed me. The Clintons market themselves as electoral powerhouses, but Bill only got 43 percent of the vote in 1992, and owed Ross Perot many heartfelt thank yous for that one. Meantime, the DLC-led Dems, epitomized by the Clinton presidency, went on to lose congressional election after election from 1994 through 2004. Thanks for the memories, guys.

What I sense swayed others to Obama was that they could cut the Clintons out of the equation. There would be no rings to kiss, no misplaced expletives to suffer. Instead, they could all make a deal with the young, charismatic leader who managed to escape "Preachergate" relatively unscathed. Joe Biden could be secretary of state, John Edwards attorney general. Maybe Bill Richardson could be vice president. It's the kind of big-wig deal making that last went on, oddly enough, back in 1980, when the interests of Bush, Kissinger, Haig, et al., all coincided with that sunny optimist and his dish full of jelly beans, Ronald Reagan.

So, in a way, that is what we are voting for in this election. The leftovers of Nixon-Ford-Reagan-Bush-Bush, or a semi-new constellation of leadership. We'll see how the general election plays out, but I understand why so many voters responded well to the theme of change.

* By the way, Obama isn't the first person "of color" on a major party presidential ticket. Herbert Hoover's vice president, Charles Curtis, was half Native American. He also was the last vice president to sport a mustache.

a critique

On Friday I tried to access the Estonian Foreign Ministry's webpage, but it returned an error. The page simply could not be accessed. "Is this another cyber attack?" I thought to myself, scratching my head. But, fortunately, it seems to have been just a temporary outage.

Not that it would have done me any good to visit. The Estonian Foreign Ministry's website is available in Estonian and English, which is nice, but it typically takes days for the English-language updates to be posted after the Estonian ones. In the Estonian-language version, it's already May 31, but in the English-language version, it's still May 27.

This communication problem is, sadly, exemplary of a larger inability of the Estonian government, or indeed, other actors within Estonia, to communicate efficiently outside of the domestic market. Do a search in Google news on "Estonia" at anytime and you are likely to produce material from three sources: American or British press, which relies heavily on news services, like Reuters or AP; more analytical journalism or editorials, typically from the Jamestown Foundation or The Economist; and Russian-state owned propaganda, which covers only two themes: a) Estonian glorification of fascism; b) abuse of the rights of Russophone Estonians.

What is lacking is an Estonian voice in that information space. Other countries that wish to be heard, like Georgia or Poland, have official "news wires" that post information that gets recycled internationally. Estonia has instead decided not to participate in publicly funded information campaigns, and I understand why. Why should Estonia fund state propaganda to tune out Russian state-owned propaganda networks? By acting like them, doesn't that make us just as awful?

I have never believed that counter-propaganda is the answer to the inaccurate nonsense that spews forth from paid hands like Russia Today, who somehow can turn an Estonian communist who died in 1938 into a "Soviet war hero" and not blush. Instead, the only proper avenue in an information war is to saturate the market with more diverse opinions that swamp the primitive messages of the state-owned propaganda dealers.

The problem here can be solved both by creating a more prolific information environment that is geared towards the external media market as well as towards the domestic market, and by some non-governmental actors, especially the press, to do the same.

Perhaps it would sully the liberal reputation of Estonia to release the statements of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip on English-language news wires. But it would not discredit the reputations of partially government-funded think tanks, like the International Center for Defense Studies, to do the same. ICDS publishes a quality journal called Diplomaatia and regularly publishes insightful English-language material. Yet this information is not being disseminated to the extent that it could be.

And what of the Estonian press, that great love-in between the interests of Norway's Schibsted and Hans Hansapoeg Luik? Postimees debuted a Russian-language edition, but couldn't Postimees, Eesti Päevaleht, Äripaev, or Eesti Ekspress, at least circulate on a weekly basis some of their most prescient editorials in the English language? And by no means do they have to stop at English. If the Estonians could penetrate the Francophone, Germanophone, or Swedophone readerships, then the more the merrier.

Look at the Helsingin Sanomat. It has full, English-language international editions with archives going back to 1999. If you want to know about the Finnish position on the cluster bomb ban, go and read, it's all there. Shouldn't Estonia also have something like that? Shouldn't tech-savvy Estonia, with its Skype development office and its Second Life embassy, also have at least one of its newspapers available in an international format?

What do you think?