I felt I have to report about what is happening 150km south.
A big political conflict is emerging between Estonia and Russia. In 1947 the russians put up a "statue of the liberators" to the center of Estonian capital, Tallinn. From an Estonian point of view, the russian liberation was more like the beginning of 50 years of communist occupation. So now the Estonian parliament is going to remove the statue, excavate the site, and move both the statue and the possible remains of russian soldiers to a military graveyard. At the moment it they are right in front of the national library.
Surprise surprise, the ruskies aren't very pleased. National extremists are raging crazy. Due modern adn soviet russian history Estonia joined the USSR willingly. As a matter of fact it was the opposite. In 1939 Estonia had pretty much same options as Finland, but they had no muscle to fight, and their terrain was much harder to defend against russia. Plus they had 25 000 russian soldiers in closed military bases within the country. In 1940 president Pats was prisoned and taken to a gulak, where he later died.
So when the Germans occupied Estonia during Barbarossa, they were mostly considered as liberators and many estonian men joined the Waffen SS to fight against the USSR. Many others joined finnish troops.
Last night the statue was removed. Preceeding riots at the site took at least one life and many others were injured. The russian duma is calling estonians "facist admirers" and most russians see Estonia as an ungrateful nation. Indeed, ungrateful of slavery!
I think all this is very worrying. Russia is again trying to regain superpower status, renewing its military and doing stuff like this. Lying about history. Estonians have the right to remove visible marks of foreing occupation and to say what they please, but Russia seems to think otherwise.
The statue.
Rioting in Tallinn.
Russian teens demonstrating at the Estonian embassy in Moscow.
You gotta be kidding!! I was born there, in Ballard.
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