Will it be Savisaar vs. Ilves?

According to an article in The Baltic Times it just might play out that way. It's all up to how well Arnold Rüütel feels in late August. If he's up to the task, then Savisaar may stand down. But if not, it's becoming clear that Mr. Clay Island could have other plans.

God, why does this look like a classic Estonian competition between the narcissist in the bowtie (Jaan Tõnisson) and the burly bloke with the shady connections (Konstatiin Päts)? Does it scare you too? Good.

The strength of a democracy is tested in each election. Because Estonia does not directly elect its presidents, that means that the strength of Estonia's democracy is placed on the backs of 101 politicians. That leaves a citizen feeling unsure. The fear that Ilves creates is that he may prefer white blazers to classic black. The fear Savisaar generates is that he may decide to proclaim himself the first Estonian "king" since Lembitu.

What's a disenfranchised voter to do? Nothing. It will all be settled behind closed doors. Great. Not!

Personally, I think Ilves has a better track record. He did a suitable job as foreign minister, and he is an oft-referenced and respected MEP. Savisaar's ride, though, has been a bit more bumpy. Would he even make it through the next five years without having to "resign forever from politics" again? How many times can one "resign forever from politics"? That is the question.

But it's still unclear where things stand. And who knows what Savisaar's final agenda will look like. But it may wind up that both get rejected and the next Prez is Laine Jänes. And her last name means bunny. I think having a President Bunny would be cool.

The Ice Museum

Today I finally got a chance to flip through The Ice Museum, a new book by Joanna Kavenna that traces her journeys across the Nordic lands in search of the myth of Thule. During her journey she visits Norway, Greenland, Shetland, Svalbard, and Estonia, where she meets with former president Lennart Meri to discuss his theory on the origin of the myth of the Scandinavian frontier of Thule.

Meri posits that Thule was actually an event - not a place - and that the event was a meteor crashing into Saaremaa about 700 years before the birth of Christ. "Thule" he believes, comes from the Estonian word for fire, "tuli."

While the quest for Thule is interesting, it is Kavenna's description of Estonia - its juniper trees, bogs, marshes, and recovering infrastructure, that reminded me of my own connections to the place. Kavenna continually points out that Estonians are a simple people who are connected to nature and rocks and lakes. How true.

I call my in-laws päkapikud - elves - because their idea of a good time is to rummage through the forests finding wild mushrooms or berries. The Russians called them Chuds - which I have read in Old Slavic translates to "weird." The Latvians joke of Estonians who are slow, rural people. Maybe. But there is something very different in the way my wife picks berries and how I did when I was a child.

It reminds me of how I met an old Indian man on Long Island who told me about the food of his ancestors - squash, beans, maize, fish. They had such profound meaning for him. And I have to say that the often greasy and heavy foods of Italy mean a lot to me. Sometimes I feel that mozzerella is one of the crutches upon which my existence rests. I also am turned off my fancy Italian restaurants. I feel that this food is meant to be consumed in the home, not dished out in expensive platters.

But it must be cool to have belonged to one stretch of Earth for 5,000 years. To know songs that have meaning. To speak a language that uses archaic constructions like "Läheme Antsu juurde" - let's go to Ants' root. It's a powerful eternal feeling, and you can understand why Estonians care so much about their lakes, rivers, coasts, and forests. Their country is not just a place where they can walk around feeling good that they are in the EU and NATO all day. It's not just a place where they work and play and sleep and drink Saku Originaal. It's actually sacred to them.

I've never really known a feeling like that myself. But it's all there in the well-crafted lines of Kavenna's new book.

New Estonian Stats

The Estonian Statistical Office has posted some new population stats for 2005 that are interesting.

For starters, the population of Estonia is now 1,347,510. There are 620,600 men and 726,910 women, - or men make up 46 percent of the population, while women are 54 percent. That ratio has held steady since 2000.


When it comes to the ethnicity pie, the percentage of ethnic Estonians has slightly increased over the past five years, from 67.9 in the 2000 census to 68.5 percent of the population according to the results posted last month. The percentage of ethnic Russians has fallen slightly - down to 25.70 from 25.84 in 2000. Other minority ethnic groups, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and Finns also declined in their share of the population.

Another interesting thing to see is which counties grew in population at the expense of other counties and cities. For example, despite an overall decrease in the population of about 1.7 percent, some places have actually increased in population over the past five years.

The population of Tartu has risen from 101,241 to 101,483, which is interesting considering that the numbers should have declined anyway due to the overall population decrease. Most other counties and cities experienced losses that are in agreement with the overall decrease of 1.7 percent. However, Ida-Viru County's population dropped 4 percent over the past five years.

Noarootsi

When Estonia's own Eurovision groups - Ruffus, Neiokõsõ, Suntribe - fail, there's always one other place an Estonian can look for aspiring blonde pop stars, Sweden.

Swedish pop stars seem a bit different from Estonian pop stars. While Estonian pop stars suffer from borrowing perhaps a bit too much from the burlesque shows of Tallinn in their attire, Swedish pop stars seem like they are bent on serving not only the Swedish market, but the Japanese market as well, with their kitschy mutated 1980s haircuts and tanning-salon gold skin.

But what Eurovision is really about is bringing old Eurotrash chic and new Eurotrash chic closer together. And this year's ambassador of Baltic Sea State pop, the Swedish Sandra Oxenryd, looks like she could pass as an Estonian pop singer - or Swedish, it's so hard to tell! - on any casino-turned-cruise-ship plying the Swedish archipelago on route to Tallinna sadam.

To Sandra, we (me) at Itching for Eestimaa wish you only the best of luck.

The Political Market Settles...

According to TNS Emor, politics in Estonia are, for the moment, normaalne.

KESK has returned from its early March zenith of 25 percent support to 22 percent support in the latest poll conducted by TNS, while significant dips in support for Reform and Isamaaliit have been erased as Reform inches up to 15 percent support and Isamaaliit regains its foothold at 11 percent support.

SDE declined from 7 percent back to 5 percent, movement that mirrored Res Publica support - which rose to 6 then declined to 3. I wonder if all of Res Publica's (and Isamaaliit's) supporters will stick with Eesti Eest - the new party formed earlier this month - or will they find new homes in the Reform Party.

The only loser really is The Estonian People's Union (Eeesti Rahvaliit). They have lost support month over month for each of the last three polls conducted by TNS Emor. Will they be the next to be gobbled up by another party? Is Reform looking to absorb a little ERL?

The Newest Weapon in the Monument Wars? 'Sitt'

Well, it looks like the monument wars are far from over. According to Russia-based Regnum - which keeps us up to date with all the news we need to know - somebody dumped some ca-ca on a Holocaust memorial (pictured) in Estonia recently.

Monument to Nazism victims in Kalevi Liyva, erected in place of mass executions of Soviet prisoners of war and Jews during WWII, is desecrated in Estonia, on April 12, a REGNUM correspondent was informed at Estonian Anti-Fascist Committee. Unknown persons left big amount of faeces on foundation of monument with David star. Committee’s activists recorded the desecration and put the monument into appropriate order.

Ugh. I can literally hear the author's bad English perferating my sensitive ear drums.

There's more...

It should be reminded, on April 11, International Day of Victims of Nazi Concentration Camps was commemorated. More than 20 concentration camps existed during German occupation in Estonia in 1941-1945, where more than 15,000 Soviet servicemen, more than 5,000 Jews, several thousands of Estonians, Gypsies, and representatives of other nations died. No republican newspaper in Estonian devoted its materials to the Day. The Museum of Estonian occupation did not react to the Memorial Day of Victims of Nazi Concentration Camps too.

Wow. They managed to work feces, Nazis, concentration camps, fascists, and Estonians into the same story. Pretty slick propaganda, if you ask me.

One has to wonder though. Are these feces-peddling, neo-neo-Nazis for real, and how little effort does it take to provoke an 'international' incident in Estonia? If I wanted to make Estonia look bad, and I was a member of the "Estonian Anti-Fascist Committee" - all I would need to do is shit in a bucket for a week and take it to Kalevi Liiv on April 11. Then I could justify the existence of my anachronistic group and condemn the actions at the same time!

One thing that's amazing about Estonia is, for all its monuments, so few of its people ever fought in any major war. Instead they've mostly been outside picking berries and peeling potatoes or cooking up some nice herring dish.

It's a pity that such a small country should find itself a graveyard of monuments for lost causes.

The American Dream

Recently my wife had a story published in Postimees about the demise of the "American Dream."
Like many of her American stories, it drew mostly on conversations with myself, family members, friends, and acquaintances about this international concept.

Unfortunately, her Estonian audience, particularly foreign Estonians living in America, didn't like hearing how many of my friends are over-educated, under-employed, and deeply in debt. I have heard that many of the individuals that frequent the Estonian House on 34th street, the local hub of Estonian-American culture, are actually fairly conservative, and are loyal Republicans. And we all know how Republicans feel about anyone who lobs a critique at America. It has been my experience that they are quite often upfront about their political convictions.

I understand why Estonians in the US, especially in second- and third-generation families, would be loyal to the Republican Party. Starting in the late 1940s, the Republican Party, which had lost four presidential elections to the Democrats in a row, began to run to the right of the Democrats on dealing with Communism, which was a reversal from their earlier, isolationist stance.

For foreign Estonians, the Republican Party was probably a more open vehicle for voicing their concerns, which was less likely in the Democratic Party, especially into the 1960s when issues like civil rights, the Vietnam war, and LBJ's great society tore that party into pieces. In the 1980s, their loyalty paid off with Ronald Reagan's uncompromising posturing towards the USSR. Reagan has gone down as the good guy, even though it was Democrats that refused to recognize the occupation of the Baltics in 1940, and it was Bill Clinton who told Boris Yeltsin that the Baltics would be joining NATO in the late 90s, and it was Dennis Kucinich, perhaps the most leftwing congressman, who introduced the resolution last year calling on Russia to acknowledge and apologize for the Soviet occupation. That's the way it is, and I understand that.

But for Republicans, loyal Americans, and anybody that still thinks everything is fine and dandy in the US and that the "American Dream" that is still nurtured in some quarters is still very much alive, I am confused about this vague ideal.

To me, the United States has always just been a country. And like all countries, it has its own very special problems. Today we do worry about health coverage. We do worry about the environment and immigration reform. We do worry about a great many things. Even President Bush likes to get his photo taken next to hybrid cars. These are not lefty pet issues. They are mainstream concerns. And people in my generation have been specifically affected in our peak earning years by a stubborn, individualistic economy where it is much easier to fail in life than succeed. My peers really are college graduates. Some have professional jobs, but others wait tables, answer phones, treat sewage, and still others went back to school, where they aspire to stay permanently. Opportunity has not exactly been knocking on their doors.

I am led to believe that things may have once been different. I can only assume that my grandfather and grandmother, who raised five kids on one salary, may have done so in a more advantageous economic environment. They lived that stereotypical 1950s dream, that supposedly is dead. Yet there are plenty of immigrant gas station owners and restauranteurs who find themselves amazingly wealthy and respected here in America. But for them there are also the migratory workers who sleep on concrete bunks in Southern California, or the Asian sweat shop workers who work in sub-human conditions in this very city.

Does that mean that everybody should have the same thing? No. But it does mean that if you are a foreigner thinking about coming to America to live out some sort of materialist fantasy, you should be prepared to handle the fact that you may not wind up being fabulously rich, and you may wind up living in a dump with cockroaches unable to see a dentist over your toothache because you are uninsured. This is the Americas after all, and yes, the US does share some similarities with its neighbors in Central and South America when it comes to living standards.

In my wife's story she referred to America as being in "crisis." Terrorists crashed planes into buildings a few blocks from here and I still am unsure if we are in "crisis." Things seem pretty much the same. But I can tell you that people consistently in opinion polls say that America is "headed in the wrong direction" and they cite things like health care and outsourcing as being among the top issues they worry about. People clearly are looking for something a little better than what they are getting in America.

The other night I met a man on the train. He was about 45. He appeared to have no college education, and worked for 20 years in a supermarket, working his way up to manager, until they downsized staff and he was let go. He then moved down south to take a job in a manufacturing plant making refridgerators, until he lost his job again - this time they moved the plant to Mexico. Now he lives at home with his mom and works at a drug store for $6 an hour.

For every wealthy investment banker on Wall Street there are dozens of guys like him. Just remember that any time you ponder the American Dream.

Varek goes over like a lead balloon...

According to an unscientific poll on Postimees' website, Ilves in the clear popular pick.

He's got 47 percent of all votes, followed by Jaan Manitski, who has 20 percent. Peeter Tulviste is a distant third with 8 percent, followed by Ene Ergma with 6 percent, Laine Jänes with 5 percent, and Varek - KESK's first pick - with 3 percent.

But does popular opinion matter in a country where the president is selected by whomever won the parliamentary elections three years ago? Again, we'll see.

Presidential Match-Up

As of today, the field of presidential candidates have broadened. Keskerakond has named Toomas Varek (see photo), a former mayor of Rakvere, as its lead candidate but also nominated fellow parliamentarian Enn Eesmaa, and Aadu Must, your classic academic/politician from Tartu whose daughter is head secretary of Kesk. Of the all, Aadu Must sounds the best, just because his punchy name reminds me of African dictators like Idi Amin.

Interestingly, Kesk, which has 25 seats in the Riigikogu, hasn't picked anybody that's on any other party's list. For example, Isamaalit named psychologist turned parliamentarian Peeter Tulviste, businessman Jaak Manitski and Toomas-Hendrik Ilves, the latter being the most interesting because he's not even a member of Isamaaliit.

Res Publica, who also has 25 votes in the Riigikogu, named Riigikogu speaker Ene Ergma, Tartu University rector Jaak Aaviksoo and Eesti Telekom CEO Jaan Männik as its candidates.

It will be interesting to see if Eesti Eest - the newly formed party merged from Isamaaliit and Res Publica will agree on a new set of candidates.

Similar names also popped up on the Reform party's list - Toomas-Hendrik Ilves, population affairs minister and poet Paul-Eerik Rummo, and Tartu mayor Laine Jänes.

Finally, the Social Democrats named Toomas-Hendrik Ilves, Jaak Aaviksoo, and parliamentarian Liina Tõnisson.

My wife thinks that the real candidates right now are Ilves and whomever Kesk names - Varek I guess, and that the rest are just done to promote politicians - she could be right. But right now I see a few "stealth" candidates, most prominently Jaak Aaviksoo. Because he is an academic and isn't in parliament, he may come out of the fray as a "compromise" candidate that everyone can agree on if strict party discipline forces Ilves - obviously the most nominated - off the table. Ergma doesn't strike me as the most ideological of the Res Publica faction, so she may also be a stealth nominee. I'll be interested in who Villu Reiljan decides to nominate for the Estonian People's Party, Rahvaliit.

We'll see.

IMF Says Estonia is Ready for Euro

Well, it looks like Eesti's Euro hopes aren't over just yet. A staff visit from the International Monetary Fund this week pointed out some items of concern, but overall gave Estonia the thumbs up for joining the European Monetary Union and adopting the Euro as a currency.

However, the IMF did highlight three key risks.

· The possibility of overheating. While productivity improvements could support high rates of growth for many more years, growth is now well above current estimates of potential growth (around 7 percent) and is thus not sustainable. Unchecked, this could lead to labor market pressures and, possibly, higher inflation.

· External imbalance. The large external current account deficit-the counterpart of private capital inflows-is a side effect of catch-up growth, but is not sustainable in the long run. In time, the deficit will shrink as households and firms need to stabilize or reduce their foreign liabilities. This could require sizeable resource reallocations. The key to a smooth adjustment will be to sustain Estonia's liberal economic institutions and flexible labor market, which are the basis for a nimble, fast-growing economy.

· Rapid credit growth. Low interest rates and strong investment demand have sparked exceptionally rapid credit growth, which raises prudential concerns, particularly since most borrowing is in foreign currency, albeit in euros. The authorities' concern is appropriately focused on the credit-financed real estate boom, possibly a bubble, which could end with financial stress for households if growth stumbles or interest rates rise sharply.

Still, the IMF sees the adoption of the common currency as benefiting Estonia's economy in the long run, rather than being just another obstacle.

Overall, Estonia is well placed to join the EMU and would benefit from membership. Early euro adoption is an appropriate target since this would reduce, if not eliminate, the risks faced by the economy as it continues on the path to real convergence. Nevertheless a delay would not create significant risks so long as the CBA continued to be underpinned by strong financial and structural policies.

Still, there is always the chance that Estonia could go the way of the other northern EU members, Sweden and Denmark. Of all the Nordics, I think that Estonia is politically most similar to Denmark - and the Danes have remained Euroskeptics through and through.

So don't be surprised by opinion polls like this one that show limited enthusiasm for Euro adoption.

According to a survey by TNS Emor, 40% of people aged 15–74 are in favour of the introduction of the euro in Estonia. 50% of the population is opposed to the European single currency.

The survey conducted in March showed that the introduction of the euro in Estonia is supported more by men, Estonians, people less than 51 years old and those with higher incomes.

People see benefits of the euro mainly in the fact that travelling to the euro zone countries will become simpler.

According to this survey, only one-third of the population is aware that upon the introduction of the euro, Eesti Pank will exchange kroons to euros for an indefinite term.

According to the survey, the support of citizens for Estonia’s membership in the European Union remains stable: it was 68% in March.

The Estonia Ferry Disaster: Eestimaa's JFK Assassination?

The official word on the M/S Estonia - which sank off Finland en route from Tallinn to Stockholm in 1994, taking 852 lives, was that the visor bow door had failed in rough seas, opening the ship to the waters that eventually sank it.

Despite the pronouncement from Stockholm, conspiracy theories have abounded - some speculating that the ship was being used to transport Russian military intelligence via Estonia through Sweden and onwards to the United States or UK. According to the most popular theory, as espoused in German journalist Jutta Rabe's 2003 film Baltic Storm (which sucked, by the way), an explosion onboard caused the ship to sink.

Adding more fuel to the fire, a Swedish customs officer in 2004 announced that yes, the ship had been used to smuggle Russian military secrets out of Estonia. This prompted Tallinn to set up its own investigation which confirmed the officer's account and accuses the Swedes of stonewalling their investigation in a report disclosed last week.

Now, as Sweden's The Local reported this week, some of Estonia's cabinet ministers didn't want to disclose the report because they felt it was so controversial.

Somehow, I wonder if this story will be a controversy that never dies, like the assasination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in the US. We too had a questionable official report, conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses, suspicious actions from involved governments, and high-profile films made about conspiracy theories. But that mystery has never been solved - and it's likely that this one won't be either.

Growing Up

This past weekend the naine, the laps, and myself went down to Washington, DC to take in the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Well, that was the official excuse to go down to my old hometown, but it was probably chosen because, when you live in New York, your only other options are Philadelphia, Boston, and...Hartford? No, just Philadelphia and Boston.

Going to DC at this date was exciting for me. I left DC much as I have left every other place - fed-up, with a lot of ex-friends, some bad habits, and a desire to "get the hell out of town." But going down south I started thinking about how I wound up in our nation's capital anyway? How did I wind up spending three and a half years in Washington, DC. What exactly happened there and what did I learn from that experience?

The whole DC-life is really worth a memoir. But what surprused me as I walked past the sets of that TV show called "My College Life" was that few aroused any feeling in me. The bench where the homeless celebrity (we had lots of homeless celebrities on campus) Sean used to sit, before he was recognized in a "Most Wanted" poster and subsequently arrested for a 1986 kidnapping rape was still there. The blinding white lights and plastic smell of Tower Records were still in full blossom - where I used to spend hours not doing homework and touching CDs wishing I was making them. The window to my ex-girlfriend's room was still there, where I used to leave flowers I had broken off from the garden outside the police station down the street.

I mean I spent a lot of time in that town - but for some reason it was if those days were long gone and perhaps had never really happened at all. I even saw my old journalism professor Steve Roberts - and I imagined that, yes, I had been in his class. But was I? That was so many moons ago.

I wondered if the rest of my life would proceed the same way . If every memory of today would be paved over by fuzzy familiarity. I am slowly growing - but even when I look down the tree of life - even four branches down - it still seems like I am perched atop an intimidating summit.

When I was in DC I did a lot of things I wouldn't do today. I joined radical student organizations and fully bought into the emotions of the "revolutionary" that is, I read books by people that had died sad, lonely deaths. I filled my lungs with anger - and in DC - my anger was directed towards overachievers and khaki pants. I wonder where did I go wrong in my pursuit of life? Why did it take me so long to figure out the very simple things?

If I were any wiser I would never have gotten into ideologies that encourage emotional self-immolation. And I would have dumped troubled friends faster and more mercilessly. I also would have tried even less to please people who never can be pleased. I should have also realized that college is just one stop on a bus and that I should just do what I was there to do and get out when I could. I shouldn't have wasted so much time on fruitless activities.

As my graduation time approached I was relieved and tense. I couldn't wait to "get out" of school and "graduate" to real life. I was right about that. "Real life" is much more rewarding and productive. And I get paid. Which is nice. I made a lot of good friends in school and learned many lessons - mostly outside the classroom. But I am sure it was worth it in its own way. I am just glad that I am not there any longer.

Estonian word of the week - hauaööõudused

I have selected this word because it looks so cool. "Haua" I think means "tomb." "Öö" means "night." And "õudused" means "horrors." Maybe it means "nightmare"? I have no idea. If anybody can translate this word of the week, you can be Eesti tõlk of the week too!

Roots of Evil

Oh God, I enjoy watching the History Channel. I have often nicknamed it the "Hitler Channel" because it's all World War II, all the time. The History Channel's main audience are post-war Baby Boomer males who are infatuated with the blood hungry period immediately prior to their births. Not being heroes themselves, they enjoy the heroic feats of their fathers and hope that by watching the Hitler Channel they can somehow become more heroic.

Anyway, last night's installment was called "Roots of Evil: Hitler & Stalin." I was quite pleased to see the two mustachioed villains portrayed side by side, with our beloved American love of analysis thrown in for good measure. Some interesting tidbits? Hitler was still painting water colors while he was commanding his wehrmact. He consumed an daily cocktail of amphetamines to keep him going, and then took barbituates to sleep. They even had film of Hitler's shaky hand (due to amphetamines usage). He also had his hometown shelled - including the church, lest anyone discover that his father may have been the illegitimate son of a Jew! In fact, given the choice between allocating resources to win Stalingrad or kill more Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals - Hitler chose the latter. They also said the drugs affected is judgement and that his diaries reveal that he may have had early stage Parkinson's disease.

Stalin's portrayal was more about the extent to which he erased his political enemies. Sure the mass deportations and executions were discussed, but the show enjoyed showing photos that had been doctored to "erase" the existence of political opponents. These people, it was said, died two deaths - the first being real deaths, the second being a historical death - being eliminated from public memory. There is a special focus on how the man of Steel tracked down Trotsky - who was living it up eating fried bananas in Mexico - so that he could be ice-picked to death. Though Trotsky was a communist expansionist ideologue, he has gone down in Western memory as a curly-haired intellectual - much prefered to the hitman Stalin. Apparently, old Josef was also planning another deportation when he died in 1953. Tough luck!

All of this comes to a head today, where, the Estonian parliament rejected a proposal by Res Publica and Isamaaliit to honor the Estonians who fought with the SS to keep the Soviets out of Estonia in 1944, and those who continued fighting into the 1950s.

From Interfax:

TALLINN. March 30 (Interfax) - The Estonian Cabinet on Thursday rejected an opposition proposal to designate Estonians who fought for the Nazis, together with members of the Forest Brotherhood, as "fighters for the liberation of Estonia."

The Cabinet agreed with the opinion of the Justice Ministry that the adoption of the resolution in its present form "is highly likely to provoke enmity between people who fought on different sides."

The people who fought on different sides are mostly octogenarians today. And since they spent their formative years trying to kill one another, I have a feeling enmity - hatred, ill will, hostility - already exists between the two and has for quite some time.

What I would like to see Estonia do is solve all of its problems on television. This is the American in me talking, but I think a genius television show that featured two neighbors - one an old Estonian man who fought for the 20th SS, and the other an old Russian man that retook Narva - living next to each other in post-1991 Estonia would be great.

The running gaglines on the show would be that both are drunks, neither knows what they are talking about, they both are living in abject poverty while young, well-off politicians argue about their deeds, and they consistently get into the kind of stupid fights only old grumpy neighbors could get into. Of course, the show is bilingual - the neighbors yell at each other in different languages but understand most of what the other is saying.

In this mix is the younger generation of yuppie Estonians, who are, of course, all divorced with children from different relationships. There would also be some teenage characters who are obsessed with www.rate.ee and mobile phones and clothing - you know, typical Estonian (and by Estonian I mean all people who live there regardless of where their parents are from) kids. The adult generation - my generation in the show - would be ridiculed by playing with ridiculous attempts to remain trendy - stupid hairstyles, leather pants, etc.

Anyway, that's my TV show idea of the day. And no, I wouldn't call it "Roots of Evil." I would call it "Oma ja Hea" - (Ours and Good). Any ideas for plots, characters?

Separated at birth?

Estonian Presidential candidate Toomas Hendrik Ilves and...



American rightwing talking head Tucker Carlson????? Note the similar necktie wear (kikilips)


Your thoughts?

About that other northern country...

Sorry to disappoint, but this post has nothing to do with Estonians, though many potato-loving, meat-jam and mustard enjoying Estonians do live there, particularly in the Toronto area.

No, this is about Canada - the country to our north, the kind of place Americans consistently forget they need a passport to enter. I almost made that mistake last week when I was about to leave for Vancouver. This was my second time to Canada and I was looking forward to an extra day there to enjoy the fresh, moist air of the Pacific Northwest.

Canada should be similar to the US. I mean, we Americans basically think, as South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker stated in Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, that they "aren't a real country anyway." I mean they talk like us, look like us, and basically are us, just farther up north and with a maple leaf on their flag, right?

Wrong. Obviously the first thing that hits you is that Canada is officially bilingual. That doesn't mean that everyone speaks two languages. But it does mean that Air Canada has at least one French speaking flight attendent on all its flights. And it does mean that the Air Canada flight magazine features interviews only with Canadians and that it is all in French and English.

Reading the magazine you have to feel sorry for those poor Canucks. For all the greatness they've exported - Jim Carrey, Neil Young, Dan Ackroyd - there are hundreds of artists and writers toiling away getting attention only in Canada. Canadians also have a strange, disarming English accent. They pronounce most "a"s as "ä" not "ah." The "ou" in "out" and "about" is pronounced as in "bow" rather than "owl" - which is how we do it, at least in New England. So their "about" sounds like how we would say "a boat."

All of their vowels are condensed and tight, which gives Canadians a sort of controlled air when they speak. Perhaps they are all suffering from lockjaw. The women sort of have a sing-song, Valley Girl lilt to their voices, while the men - who often have names like Neil, Mitch, or Bruce, have this unnervingly polite, soft-spokenness to them. You get the impression that even when a Canadian gets mad and yells, the anger is to be heard in the content, not in the voice.

Canada's big nasty secret is that they still love the Queen. They love Queen Elizabeth II so much they put her face on nearly all of their money. It's not like the US where we have republican scalywags like Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant on our cash. Sure they have pictures of dead white Canucks on their money, along with the requisite waterfowl and maple leaf. But the Queen is on the twenty dollar bill. The Queen of England. All the way in Vancouver. How strange.

Vancouver itself is an interesting amalgam of cultures. The dominant culture is the Anglo culture - and by "Anglo" I mean FROM ENGLAND - and Ireland and Scotland too. That's where the peculiar accent comes from, because their ancestors were mostly from there, and many didn't get to British Columbia until late in the 19th century. But the other big culture is Asian - and by Asian I mean Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, in that order. The Japanese played a major role in the development of this region - some even fought for Canada in WWI and there are monuments and such. My hotel was in an Asian neighborhood and there were many restaurants and Internet Cafes where the characters were all in Japanese or Korean or Chinese or Vietnamese. On a weekend night these places were packed with Asian teenagers and young adults, all crammed in drinking beer and eating noodles. They seemed like the kind of places you had to be invited into. I even went into a Korean grocery store which stank of dried fish. They even had cute, cuttlefish munchy snacks for children with cartoons on them. Yum!

Directly north of Vancouver, through the verdant Stanley Park and across the Lions Gate Bridge (which sadistic härdcore Vancouverians crossed on rollerblades and by bike - I walked) is the Squamish First Nation Reserve. This is what we in the US would call a reservation, and it looked like one and was situated like one - right under the bridge. The anecdote is that when Europeans destroyed native economies and cultures, they gave them the shittiest land. My guess is that when the Vancouverians were plotting to build a bridge from Vancouver to North Vancouver, they chose to put the foundation right over the Squamish's remaining homeland.

On the other side I met a Squamish woman and her two kids. At first I thought maybe they were also asian, but no, they were definitely Native Americans. I usually don't run into Native Americans in New York City as the people that lived here 400 years ago were driven west to the Lenape nation and eventually moved - you guessed it - to Canada. The Squamish have lost their language and are trying to keep their traditions together. But they have this weird feeling about them - like they are so involved in what their culture is that they don't pay much attention to all the noise around them. I envied them in a way.

At a restaurant nearby I ate a burger and watched hockey with some steel-eyed Canadians who like to drink beer and watch hockey. The bartendress and waiter were so polite I began to quietly wonder if they were conspiring to have sex with me after serving my food. It was the, "Anything else I can do for you?" and gleam in their eyes that set me uneasy. After awhile I started to like the dull rhythm of hockey, punctuated by the silly fights. I could see how up in the mist of Canada, watching a puck go back and forth could be entertaining.

Back in my hotel room later I settled down to watch Canadian television. I got to catch the remaining moments of a show where Quebecois sing French pop songs together (they have similar shows in Finland and Estonia) and watched some local news, "a ferry sank near Victoria Island." There were "heated" political discussions with people diplomatically expressing their views, so unlike our news channels. There was even a program called "Out and About." Ha ha ha. Eh, not that funny anymore. I also watched a cartoon show where the hero did everything "by the book." People often thought he would screw up - like not catch the crooks - but he did everything "by the book" and wound up on top in the end. How Canadian!

After awhile, the accent started to be less prominent (in fact, I was told that I didn't have a New York accent, and sounded like a Canadian) and I just pondered how polite the Candians were. A good example of this is when my bus ticket had expired, and the bus driver said that it was ok if I rode the bus anyway. That would never happen in New York. A bad example would be waiting in line to check my bags where the Air Canada clerk tried to hard to make chatty conversation while I had to a) pee really bad and b) catch a flight. She even told me I should get a härd case for my guitar. Thanks but...Interestingly, Canadian passport control was equally as chummy. I had to explain how I got my job, I even mentioned the Estonian Genome Project - just to get in the country!

Just when I thought I was headed back to normalcy, I met US Passport Control and came face to face with a guy that looked like US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and had a southern accent, which is even more foreign than a Canadian accent to me.
"Deed yew pack alyur belongins? (did you pack all your belongings?)" he asked.
"Is this guy really from my country?" I thought to myself. Oh well, I guess he was, at least according to my passport.

Head Uudised

This week, as Estonia's first post-occupation president is being laid to rest in Tallinn, a possible future president is being interviewed by Postimees (actually Kanal 2, but...).

The big question to current European Parliamentarian and former foreign minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves:

Kas kinnitate kandideerimist Eesti presidendiks?
Jah. Olen oma nõusoleku kandideerimiseks andnud ka SDE-le, aga nemad kinnitavad oma kandidaadid 2. aprillil.

Basically - 'are you going to run for president?' answer - yes.

As a candidate, Ilves has some things going for him. Probably the most important to Estonians is his bow-tie. Estonians I have spoken with are hungry for an engaging, stylish leader after five years of Rüütel. It's not that Arnold lacks charisma, it's just that - along with wild teenage parties at Kadriorg and rumors of Alzheimer's - some have speculated that he is asleep at the wheel. But Ilves is fairly young (52) and has had, for some time, a vision of where he wants to take Estonia (he wants to continue to make it a normal, boring Nordic country).

Another asset is his biography - born to Estonian refugees in Stockholm, Ilves actually grew up in the US, where people that know him refer to him not as "Toomas" but "Tom." Though it does not please me to say this, there's a reason that Vaira Vike Freiberga is President Bush's favorite Baltic president (I heard this from someone who knows - off the record) as he demonstrated by choosing to visit Latvia before traveling to Russia last May to take in some goose stepping. That's because Vaira also grew up in the West (Canada) and can, most importantly, speak perfect English.

Being able to speak a key language of NATO and the European Union fluently is paramount to preserving good relations with these organizations that safeguard the future of the Estonian Republic. Plus Ilves has a lot of personal connections with leaders in Europe and abroad. He sits on the EU's foreign affairs committee. He's a known quantity in Europe. And he was ambassador to the US from 1993 - 1996.

Third, a major plus for Ilves is that he has no Communist past. There are no "his father was a collaborator" rumours (like with Meri) and there will be no birthday editions printed in ironic red of Estonian newspapers for Toomas (like they did with Rüütel in 2003 for his 75th). He has a clean slate. And that's healthy for the country.

Finally, he's a Mülk - from Viljandimaa. He even owns a farm in Mülgimaa. And as my wife will tell you, Mülks are allegedly the most ambitious of Estonians.

A Bit About Expatriatism

The floating head to your left is Ernest Hemingway. He is sort of your penultimate American expat - he enlisted to serve in the US ambulance corps in World War I and never turned his back on that continent. Hemingway's Europe of the 1920s appealed to his generation much the same way the Europe of the 90s and 00s appeals to mine - it's a new frontier, particularly "East" Europe, that is former communist Europe (because Vienna is farther east than Prague is). In the 1920s, the frontier of America, which had sustained America's adventurers for 300 years, was dead. Defeated. But in the cafes of Paris - well, there was a new adventure brimming.

Not only adventure, but a sense of homelessness drew me to Europe. I went there the first time in 1994. I was 15 and came from a country where I had to sneak pornography into my life and sneak a sip or two of alcohol while no one was looking. But in Zurich, I saw, you could read a nudie magazine in a barber shop. You could hand out flyers to strip shows in the street. You could shoot-up in the park. You could drink beer in the streets. You could let your guard down, let your heathenism run free, and then sleep it off on the train home. This was the Europe I tasted and I went back as a young man.

I went back to Reykjavik first, for three days. It was peaceful. I sort of wanted to lock myself in an apartment there with a life supply of beer and yogurt and watch movies for the rest of my life. Then I went to Copenhagen - for four months - to "study." Oh, what an education! Everything was soft. The drugs, the leather shoes. I was supposed to be studying - but I was getting, as we "yanks" say, "hammered" by life. In Copenhagen I met many like me, many other Hemingways that wore black (I wore brown) and liked the fact that their parents couldn't drive to see them. That they could keep their American world at an ocean's distance. There were no strip malls or nasty SUVs, less fat people, less homeless. Sure Denmark was made of sausage, blonde girls with thick thighs, a rotty tongue, and bad (BAD) pop music, but, it beat the hell out of the US's motor cities at the time.

When I got back to the tame post 9/11 United States I felt haggard, hungover, and out of place. Here was a country bordered by the great inland sea of Middle America and the Atlantic Ocean. My world was the Northeast corridor - Washington, DC to Boston - that's it. Everyone spoke English. Sex was concealed, drugs were bad, Kylie Minogue was foreign and pompous talking heads on television were God. And nobody cared about the wonderful world of peeing in alleyways, meeting strange people, enjoying old architecture and sucking down exotic beers of the other continent. They just cared about buying new shoes, and typical crap. Stuff I too quickly relearned to use to occupy my time. But the stimulation wasn't there. Everything was in English - what was the fun in that? And Americans are so into America. America America. I had to leave. I got out. I got to go to Finland. I had to get back to "normalcy." I'll never forget how it felt when I looked out of my window in Finland back in the summer of 2002. It felt like the best place to be on Earth at that moment. The trees were green. The sun was warm. There was a Valintatolo next door, and I was happy. Hooray for me.

I got back - and I stayed back. I married my wife. We lived there. And slowly the routine life I escaped in New York became my routine life in Tallinn, Estonia. I had to be places at certain times, I was responsible for doing things, producing things on time. I was in the toilet and my cell phone rang at Hansapank - it was my boss, he had a job for me. Oh, dear. I started to dislike the people sometimes. I grew impatient with the lumbering ways of communication affected by northerners. Suddenly, I wasn't getting away from anything. Anything was very much here. I missed the New York sense of humor, the American distrust and disregard for all authority. I was in a country full of students and young parents and old bums. And I could no longer slur my words or pepper them with "fucks" and "shits" like I used to. The excitement of going home with a strange woman gave way to looking at bars thinking "how did I ever think it was cool to go home with those ho's?" And I was satisfied with peeing in alleyways maybe three or four times a year, as opposed to every friday and saturday night.

Stuck in a land filled with elves that like to eat berries and jellied meats, I threw myself into the cuisine of my youth - pasta every night, substituting Estonian salami for the real thing. Sometimes, in the quiet of the day, I had the urge to scream "FUCK!" in the Raekoja Plats.

At the same time I got what I came for. I got gorgeous architecture. I got to love it at night. I got to say proudly to visiting American tourists that "this is where I live" as they paid a bank account full to stay here for a week, while I got to stay here all the time. And I started to enjoy the culture. I really liked Saku originaal, and I enjoyed watching Laulukarusel and Eurovision, shoveling vanilla pudding in my mouth. My wife's family did their best too. While I am not fond of salads with meats mixed in, I did eat a lot of mustard and potatoes. And I lost all that weight that I tried so hard to get rid of in the United States. Things were going good. I couldn't engage with a co-worker about the A-Team, but other than that I found things to talk about. I met other expats - from Belgium, Germany, Spain - they sort of were like me, swindled there by the allure of Estonian womanhood. Supposedly all Estonian women are sexy, but when my Estonian female doctor checked if I had a hernia once, I barely felt a thing.

So I realized that I had achieved the second stage of Hemingway - the 1930s stage - the part where you actually care about things other than poetry, sex, getting drunk, and new adventures. Now I cared about politics and NATO and the EU and Russia. I was fully prepared to throw myself into the gears of the continent. I was ready to pick up my machine gun to fight Franco's fascists. I had achieved expat version 2.0. I was so into version 2.0 that when my daughter was born, and I went to the pharmacy in town to get my wife a few things during her labor, I crossed paths with some American travelers, and I saw them as foreigners. They were only staying for a few nights. This was just a stop on the stimulation express. Things were often like this. I'd cross paths with weary, dirty North American travelers, and I had no desire to join them. Me? I was headed to Jarve Selver to pick up some home improvement supples. Then I'd pick up some Saku and Latvian cheese at Säästu Market. Then I'd go home and watch a movie from the 1990s - like Austin Powers - munching on my Latvian cheese and drinking down my õlut, and I'd feel like I had died and got to Jumala to "chillima" and "hangima" with Taara.

Occasionally somebody would mention something going on in America, like "who do you think will win American Idol?" and I'd have no clue what the fuck they were talking about. I missed 9/11, I missed the anthrax scare, I missed the DC sniper, I missed the blackout of '03. And now that I am back, I am proud to say that i have never watched American Idol. So don't talk to me about it.

Yet sadly, I never got past Hemingway version 2.0. I moved back to the US shortly after that. And that took getting used to. It took awhile for my slow European english to get up to date. I missed the coarse humor I had grown up with, and slowly the ca ca jokes came back too. And I began to see the different cultures in America from a new, almost anthropological perspective. Now I can pick up new accents the same way I could distinguish languages on the trains and buses of Europe. Now I can enjoy the US not as an American, but as an ex-expatriate - a traveler. I keep journals of my trips here the same way I kept journals of my trips there.

My fondness for the "old country" grows each day. Sometimes I feel like a dusty British academic the way I scour the news for "news," read early 20th century Noor Eesti poetry, and rejoyce when Andres Veerpalu shows the Norwegians he's the boss. And because I went and lived in Europe during some of the most important moments of my life, the moment where I realized, sitting sick in my bed in Copenhagen at the very late age of 21, that I should get off my ass and start making music, the total culture shock and intellectual rewards of being tossed from the UK to France to Italy to Slovenia to Ireland, the love of my soul mate and the birth of my daughter, I cannot say that it is a foreign place to me anymore. And so when we move back next time, I cannot say that I will be a true expatriate. I don't know what I'll be.

Reliving the Creepy Past: Part II

Somebody asked to read Time stories from the Cold War era, and though there are less of them, they are still quite intriguing. Here's one from October 1948.

"Wherever you are, we will get you." These words, beamed to Sweden over the Soviet-controlled Estonian radio, haunted the memories of a 21-year-old housewife and her friends seeking entry into the U.S. last week. They were the leitmotif of a journey that had seemed endless. "I fled from Estonia to Finland because of the Germans," said the girl, on Ellis Island. "A year later, in 1944, I fled from Finland to Sweden because of the Russians." Her shipmates—steelwork-ers, a glassblower, weavers, seamstresses, mechanics, lawyers, farmers, fishermen—had similar tales to tell. An Estonian farmer told how his 76-acre farm had been seized when the Russians decided he was a kulak. A girl remembered the sight of three boys, their eyes pierced, their fingers cracked, their hair torn out for resisting Russian conscription.

Sixty-nine refugees who feared that the Russian threat might reach into Sweden for them crowded into the Prolific, a blunt-nosed fishing schooner, about half as big as the Mayflower. They had sailed over 6,000 miles of ocean to reach a U.S. haven. They had weathered storms in the Bay of Biscay and off Cape Finisterre. They had traded their clothes for grapes and coconuts in Madeira and broken their steering gear in a hurricane off Bermuda. Under leaky hatches in fetid, 90° heat, their women had nursed children sick with chicken pox. After 60 days at sea, they had put in at Wilmington, N.C., and been shipped by train to New York.

Since 1945 more than 230 Baltic refugees have come to the U.S. in cockleshells even smaller than the Prolific. The Estonia, which brought Kou Walter and his wife and children to Florida, was only 47 feet long. The Erma, which sailed from Stockholm to Little Creek, Va., charting her course on a standard schoolboys' map of the Atlantic, measured 37 feet.

Most of the passengers of the first five boatloads to arrive in the U.S. have been given visas, and many have taken out their first citizenship papers. Others have been paroled to the Salvation Army. So far, none have been returned to Russia, and, though immigration officials are reluctant to say so, none are likely to be.

Reliving the Creepy Past

We have a subscription to Time magazine, which gives us access to Time's archives that go back to 1923.

Amazingly there's a wealth of information on Estonia. Understandably it drops off the radar from the 1940s to the 1980s, but the 1930s and 40s stuff is absolutely chilling.

Here's an example of Time's coverage:

June 19, 1933, concerning the Vaps:

Not exactly Nazis, the blatant bravos of Estonia call themselves Front Soldiers, wear rakish "front caps." Last week in mellow Dorpat, "the Estonian Athens" (it has a university), scurrilous Front Soldiers had fun with pompous President Jann Tonisson of Estonia.

Directly in his path they launched a skyrocket. Zizzling true to aim it hurtled into President Tonisson, dented him painfully, did no real damage. When the President retreated to his car, Front Soldiers seized the off side mudguards, jounced Herr Tonisson severely, nearly turned his car over before police interfered. Next day, pale with fury, the President summoned his Cabinet at Reval on the Baltic. Declaring Estonian democracy "menaced," the Cabinet put Dorpat under martial law, dismissed half the town's police force as tainted with Front Soldier ideology.

April 16, 1934, on a Soviet-Baltic non-aggression pact:

Last week Maxim Litvinoff, roly-poly Commissar for Foreign Affairs, met in Moscow with the plenipotentiaries of the three [Baltics]. They took up the two-party non-aggression pacts they had signed with Russia four years ago and extended them for another ten years. Glowing with the respectability of a proved peaceful intention. Mr. Litvinoff talked for the world's ear:

"In every corner of the globe much is being said about the menace of war, but little about means of averting such a catastrophe. Let the agreements which we have signed here today remind the world that there are governments which consider it their duty to work toward strengthening the peace structure. Chauvinism, nationalism and racial prejudice are foreign to the Soviet State, which does not put its ambition in conquests."

Not laughing/recoiling in horror yet? It gets better. October 1939 -

Bluff and Bombers. Meanwhile, Dictator Stalin suddenly brought down Russia's fist upon Estonia. This prosperous little Baltic state flanks the sea approach to Leningrad, where the Red Navy is frozen up tight at least three months of each year, and its capital, Tallinn, is an ice-free port. On the pretext that the Estonian Government recently "allowed" an interned Polish submarine to chug out of Tallinn and become a commerce raider—actually it shot its way out, fired upon by harbor batteries (TIME, Oct. 2)—the Moscow press and radio have been violently attacking Estonia as "hostile" to Russia. These attacks redoubled in fury last week as Soviet stations screamed that the pint-size Russian freighter Metallist had been "torpedoed in Estonian waters" with a loss of five proletarian lives by a "mysterious submarine."

Next thing Estonians knew, warships of the Red Navy appeared off their ports. Soviet bombers, some of whom the Estonians thought came from a Russian aircraft carrier, began a threatening patrol over Tallinn and the nearby countryside. What all this meant, the Estonian Government soon learned from their Foreign Minister Karl Selter. He had flown to Moscow the week before to "boost trade," now flew back to Tallinn with word that the Russians bluntly asked Estonia to reduce herself to the status of a protectorate of the Soviet Union in return for trade favors. J. Stalin suggested that an Estonian delegation empowered to sign a treaty along these lines be at once brought to Moscow by Foreign Minister Selter. Some 48 hours later Mr. Selter emplaned with an imposing array of Estonian bigwigs.

The new Baltic Pact, running for ten years, provides: 1) Estonia grants Russia the right to maintain naval bases and airdromes protected by Red Army troops on the strategic islands dominating Tallinn, the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga; 2) Russia agrees to increase her annual trade turnover with Estonia and to give Estonia facilities in case the Baltic is closed to her goods (i. e. by Germany) for trading with the outside world via Soviet ports on the Black Sea and White Sea; 3) Russia and Estonia undertake to defend each other from "aggression arising on the part of any great European power" (i. e. Germany); 4) the Pact "should not affect" the "economic systems and state organizations" of Russia and Estonia.

This last clause, which carefully does not bind Russia to abstain from spreading Communist propaganda in Estonia, seemed to mean that the country will be spared for a time such outright Bolshevization as the Russians are putting through in their part of Poland. Military experts said that the Pact definitely transforms Estonia from a country capable of fighting for its independence into one completely at the mercy of the Soviet ships, planes and troops which are now to be based on her soil.

I know it's long, but read it all - read it in all its disgusting glory. Smokescreens, mirrors, lies...it's fucking crazy...

and more...

August 19, 1940

Last week, as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia officially became Russian Republics Nos. 15, 16, 17, liquidation of their nationalism began. Hundreds of men were arrested, including all leaders of former regimes that the Ogpu could lay hands on. Tribunals were set up to try and punish "traitors to the people." Traitors to the people included not only active opponents of sovietization but all those who have fallen short of their political and economic duties, including the political duty of voting their countries into the U. S. S. R. in recent elections. Those who failed to have their passports stamped for so voting may be shot in the back of the head.

Under arrest and liable to prompt liquidation were Estonia's onetime President Konstantin Päts, Latvia's onetime President Karlis Ulmanis and Foreign Minister Vilhelms Hunters, Lithuania's onetime Foreign Minister Juozas Urbsys. Special justice, including immediate confiscation of property and execution within 24 hours if they are bagged, was decreed for diplomats abroad who refuse to recognize the new regimes and return home.

April 16, 1990 (Rüütel in an odd, kick ass moment):

Mikhail Gorbachev does not like waiting. After trying several times to reach Estonian President Arnold Ruutel by telephone last week, he was in no mood for small talk when he finally got through late Tuesday evening. The Soviet President told Ruutel that he had "lost his temper" over the Estonian parliament's decision two weeks ago that declared "the state supremacy of the Soviet Union to be illegal" in the republic. What exactly did that mean? Gorbachev demanded. If the Estonians no longer recognized the Soviet constitution, what law was operating?

Ruutel had a ready response: Estonian law. Displeased, Gorbachev called the decision "improper" and summoned the Estonian President to Moscow immediately to explain himself. When Ruutel declined, the Soviet leader turned tough. If the declaration was not rescinded, Gorbachev warned, Moscow would impose the same "regimen" there as in rebellious Lithuania. Ruutel replied that Estonians understood the consequences of their actions.

I have hoped you've enjoyed this little backpack through an awful, yet ultimately inspiring century. Courtesy of Time, and posted for discussion purposes only.