[lg policy] Could Estonia be the next target of Russian annexation?

Fri Apr 4 15:40:58 UTC 2014

Could Estonia be the next target of Russian annexation?

Some fear Estonia's Russian-speaking minority could try to follow Crimea's
path. But many see the grass as greener in Estonia.

By Gordon F. Sander, Contributor / April 3, 2014

   - <http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2014/0403/0403-onarva/18296597-1-eng-US/0403-onarva_full_600.jpg>

  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.

Ints Kalnins/Reuters/File

   - In Pictures Ukraine's divide: Where will Putin
stop?<http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Ukraine-s-divide-Where-will-Putin-stop>

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Narva, Estonia

At a cursory glance, Estonia <http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Estonia>'s
Ida-Viru County bears some concerning similarities to
Crimea<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Crimea>.
It is predominantly Russian speaking, is located in
Russia<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Russia>'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 the Kremlin <http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/The+Kremlin>'s
embrace the way Crimea did.

   -
   <http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Ukraine-s-divide-Where-will-Putin-stop>
    In Pictures Ukraine's divide: Where will Putin
stop?<http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Ukraine-s-divide-Where-will-Putin-stop>

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"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.

After Russia's lightning invasion and annexation of Crimea from
Ukraine<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Ukraine>- and the acclaim
with which the Russian-speaking dominated populace there
evidently greeted it - there has been alarm across
Europe<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Europe>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.

RECOMMENDED: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about
Russia?<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/0202/Sochi-Soviets-and-tsars-How-much-do-you-know-about-Russia>

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.

"Narva is not Simferopol," Dusman says, comparing the city with the capital
of Crimea. "And Estonia is not Ukraine."

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.

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Estonia's Russian speakers tend to be
poorer<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/1212/Left-behind-Russian-speaking-minorities-struggle-in-new-Baltics>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.

Last month, a Russian diplomat raised the
issue<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0321/Moscow-rattles-Estonia-with-talk-of-concern-for-its-Russian-population>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."
A better life

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.

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.

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.

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."

"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."

"Perhaps life is not exactly easy today here," he said, "but conditions are
definitely looking up."

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.

"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.

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.

However, he doubts that will happen. "People would have too much to lose."
The view of Crimea

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."

He contends that there is little sympathy in Estonia for what the Kremlin
did.

"I think it's terrible what [Putin] did," declares Daria Pinchuk, a barmaid
and Narva resident of mixed Russian and Ukrainian parentage.

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.

But for many in Narva, leaving Estonia for Russia seems simply foolish.

"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."

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."

"And so," he declared, "would I."
forwarded from Christian Science Monitor

-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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