Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Estonia... a quiet little country
So far, I think I have painted a quiet, quaint, pleasant picture of this little Nordic Baltic country. Actually, it has also been a fairly accurate picture as well, at least from my perspective. However, things haven't been so quiet lately as violence and looting broke out last week in the capital over the removal of the bronze statue. People are moved and shocked because things like that just don't happen here. In reaction to last week's events, volunteers have signed up as citizen police in Tallinn and there is an alcohol selling ban in place until May 3 throughout the country. For more in-depth coverage, read about it in today's New York Times: ESTONIA MOVES SOVIET STATUE TO CEMETERY .
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3 comments:
Geez louise, Jenn. Do you guys still have Lenin statues lying around as well? They replaced all of the Stalin statues in Ukraine with Lenin statues. Every town has one. In my town of Kherson, there was just a pile of rocks to mark Stalin's previous site of honor. Stay out of the way of those rebel rousers.
For clarification, the 'bronze statue' referred to is of a Russian soldier, not of Stalin. The military cemetery will be the new home of the statute & the 12 coffins that were buried near it. The government isn't destroying it, just relocating it from a public park to a more appropriate place.
Moving a symbol of WWII struggle to a graveyard is not seen by many as an "appropriate place." I and many others sympathize with Russian minority. I wonder how Estonians would feel when they would loose 20 million people in a war and someone would want to take the symbol of that struggle and huge human cost and put it away to a military graveyard. Every action has a reaction. Especially one that looks like it was not thought well through politically. Doing it around early May when WWII is remembered throughout Europe, especially Russia is not good idea.
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