<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="" itemprop="name">Could Estonia be the next target of Russian annexation?</h1>
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<p>Some fear Estonia's Russian-speaking minority could try to follow Crimea's path. But many see the grass as greener in Estonia.</p></h2>
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By
<span class="">Gordon F. Sander</span>, <span class="">Contributor</span> /
April 3, 2014
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<p class="" id="pgallerycarousel_caption" title="Photo Caption">People
cross the Estonia-Russia border in Narva, Estonia, in June 2007. Some
have worried that Estonia's Ida-Viru County, where Narva sits and home
to much of the country's ethnic Russian population, could be the next
site of a Russian annexation like that of Crimea from Ukraine.</p>
<p class="" id="pgallerycarousel_credit" title="Photo Credit">Ints Kalnins/Reuters/File</p>
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Narva, Estonia</p>
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<p>At a cursory glance, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Estonia" title="Title: Estonia" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Estonia</a>'s Ida-Viru County bears some concerning similarities to <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Crimea" title="Title: Crimea" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Crimea</a>. It is predominantly Russian speaking, is located in <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Russia" title="Title: Russia" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Russia</a>'s
shadow, and has a long history tied to its neighbor. But Aleksandr
Dusman insists that Ida-Viru County will not willingly break away from
Estonia to seek <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/The+Kremlin" title="Title: The Kremlin" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">the Kremlin</a>'s embrace the way Crimea did.</p>
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<p>“Not going to happen,” says Mr. Dusman, a businessman and engineer
who has been active in Ida-Viru County's regional government affairs for
20 years.</p><p>After Russia's lightning invasion and annexation of Crimea from <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Ukraine" title="Title: Ukraine" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Ukraine</a> – and the acclaim with which the Russian-speaking dominated populace there evidently greeted it – there has been alarm across <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Europe" title="Title: Europe" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Europe</a>
that the Kremlin would soon turn its eyes toward annexing other
predominantly Russian-speaking regions abroad. And few regions seemed to
present a better target than this remote corner of the former Soviet
republic of Estonia, where the country's 340,000 Russian speakers – out
of a population of 1.3 million – are concentrated.</p>
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<p>But many locals in Narva, the county's largest city, which sits
astride the Estonian-Russian border, say that they do not need to be
"rescued" by Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. They say that
their life in Estonia has been good and getting better, and they are
happy in their country.</p><p>“Narva is not Simferopol,” Dusman says, comparing the city with the capital of Crimea. “And Estonia is not Ukraine.”</p><p>All
one has to do is to take a stroll through Narva, Estonia's third
largest city, down to the banks of its namesake river to see how easy it
would be for Russia to seize the city if it wished. The gritty,
five-hundred-year-old industrial city of 58,000 is just a brief trip
over a short 400-meter bridge away from Russian territory. Indeed, most
of the Narva’s Russian speakers – who comprise 97 percent of the
population, roughly half of whom have taken Estonian citizenship –
migrated to the city during the half century of Russian rule that ended
in 1991 with the declaration of the second republic of Estonia.</p>
<div class="">
<p><b>RECOMMENDED:</b> <a style="font-weight:bold" href="http://monitorglobaloutlook.com/reports/" target="_new">Key world markets to see big changes. Get in-depth reports FREE.</a></p> </div><p>Estonia's Russian speakers <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/1212/Left-behind-Russian-speaking-minorities-struggle-in-new-Baltics" target="_blank">tend to be poorer</a>
than their Estonian countrymen. Many do not speak Estonian, nor are
they citizens of Estonia, making them "stateless." This threat of
marginalization has fueled resentment among some Russian speakers – and
spurred recent criticism from Russia.</p><p>Last month, a Russian diplomat <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0321/Moscow-rattles-Estonia-with-talk-of-concern-for-its-Russian-population" target="_blank">raised the issue</a>
of how Estonia was treating its Russian-speaking population, just as it
had with Ukraine before the recent invasion. “Language,” the diplomat
told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, “should not be
used to segregate and isolate groups,” going on to note that Russia was
“concerned by steps taken in this regard in Estonia.”</p><a name="eztoc18293267_1" id="eztoc18293267_1"></a><h2>A better life</h2><p>But
Dusman, who is a member of the Ida-Viru County Integration Board, a
government-sponsored organization which works to foster better
integration of Russian speakers with other linguistic and ethnic groups,
says the situation in Estonia vis-à-vis its Russian speakers is not
comparable with that of Ukraine.</p><p>For one, “there are no limits” to
the use of Russian in everyday life and in schools and Russian culture
is well-protected. For another, he points out that unlike in Ukraine,
the Russian-speaking population in Estonia is heterogeneous and
comprised of large numbers of Ukrainians, Belorussians, Jews, Finns,
Tatars, and others, who have other priorities besides the advancement of
the Russian language.</p><p>Dusman himself was born in Soviet
Uzbekistan, grew up in Crimea, and studied in Moscow before being sent
to work Estonia in 1969. He is proud of his ethnic Russian roots. But
though he does not speak Estonian – like most ethnic Russians, he has
found Estonian quite different from Russian, and difficult to learn – he
emphasizes that he is first and foremost an Estonian citizen, and proud
of it.</p><p>Ilja Smirnov, the editor of the local Russian-language
newspaper Pohjarannik, basically agrees. He points out that although he
was born in the Soviet Union and remained a Russian citizen for most of
his adult life, three years ago he decided to become an Estonian
citizen, because, he said, “I think like an Estonian.”</p><p>“I really
love Estonia,” he said. Like his co-linguist Dusman, Mr. Smirnov
remembers well the “hard” post-independence days of the early 1990s. “I
remember the bread lines of those days. I remember my father trying to
earn more money as a taxi driver after he finished his shift at the
Narva power plant.”</p><p>“Perhaps life is not exactly easy today here,” he said, “but conditions are definitely looking up.”</p><p>Narva
isn’t in the same league as Tallinn, the booming Estonian capital, 125
miles to the west, Dusman acknowledges. But things are definitely
improving.</p><p>“We have hospitals and shops now. We have a growing
middle class. Unemployment is down.” As of January of this year, the
unemployment rate in Ida-Viru County was 9.1 percent, a pronounced drop
from the 13.4 percent county level of a year previous, and nearly level
with the improving Estonian national unemployment rate of 8.6 percent.</p><p>To
be sure, Dusman concedes, the Tallinn government could do more to
improve the lives of the local populace, especially its poorer residents
and “stateless citizens.” There is some potential for a “fifth column
there” if the Kremlin wants to stir up resentment, he said.</p><p>However, he doubts that will happen. “People would have too much to lose.”</p><a name="eztoc18293267_2" id="eztoc18293267_2"></a><h2>The view of Crimea</h2>
<p>As
for Russia's actions in Crimea, Smirnov is vocally opposed. “I think
it’s despicable,” he said. “Putin stole something that belonged to
Ukraine.”</p><p>He contends that there is little sympathy in Estonia for what the Kremlin did.</p><p>“I
think it’s terrible what [Putin] did,” declares Daria Pinchuk, a
barmaid and Narva resident of mixed Russian and Ukrainian parentage.</p><p>Not
all agree. A poll in another Russian-language paper, the Moscow-funded
MK Estonia, indicated that 22.8 percent of Russian speakers favored the
presence of Russian troops in Crimea, 24.7 percent were opposed, with
the remaining 52.8 percent ambivalent or unwilling to say.</p><p>But for many in Narva, leaving Estonia for Russia seems simply foolish.</p><p>“I
think it’s crazy,” says Juvi, a chef who declined to give his last
name. “Basically people want a nice life, and a house, and they know
they have a better chance of having those things here than over there.”</p><p>For
his part, Dusman was unequivocal about what the residents of Narva
would do if the Kremlin ever sent troops across the bridge over the
Narva: "The Estonian army would fight, so would the local militia."</p><p>"And so," he declared, "would I."</p>forwarded from Christian Science Monitor<br clear="all"><div><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br>
<br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>
Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br>
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