Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Not so Crazy Ivan
One thing I don’t care for in Estonia is the Russians. The only good thing about the Russians is the amount of ranting material they provides me with.
I didn’t used to dislike them, for that matter I didn’t even give them a second thought.
My knowledge of them consisted of WWII and Cold War Stories, oh yes and those wannabe Lesbian school girls from a few years back who sang
` All the things she said, all the things she said,wishing I was dead, running through my head,this..... is.... not..... enough.......`
Of course you remember that one.
But now I’m in a former colony of a former colonial super-power, who still likes to think that it’s an empire. Mmmmm that sounds oddly familiar.
OK I appreciate that the Russians who make up 30% of Estonia’s population were simply dumped here by Stalin and those cuddly folks, in Reagan’s so called Evil Empire.
BUT COME ON, the tanks and Soviet bureaucracy pulled out in 1991, so why did these crazy Ivans stay behind when all they do is litter the place, expect others to learn their language and refuse to do the same for the land they now reside and complain about all things Estonian?
Well let me tell you why.
It’s because some of their not so bright relatives went back to mother Russia, realized how not so great their socialist utopia was and sent word back here. Oh yes my Red neighbour, the grass is most certainly greener on the other side of the fence and didn’t that hurt to find out?
Yes it did..
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
So far so good
Friday, January 23, 2009
Snow Snow everywhere
BLOODY RUSSIA?
Today there is a real belief in Russian govermental conspiracy in a double murder that took place on Tuesday 20th. Human Rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and a journalist Anastasia Barburova were both shot dead by a masked man in Moscow. Both were also colleagues of murdered reporter Anna Politkovskaja, whose own murder in 7th October 2006 was widely perceived as a contract killing after her criticism of President Putin and the Chechen war.
Opinions anyone?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
............ and Hitler was the Good guy?
If history is written by the victors, then it can be surmised by the tourist.
Yet amongst the celebration of the eventual Allied victory were the forgotten people of
From what I have discovered WWII is viewed here, as a fight for liberation pure and simple. Estonians fought not just alomgside the Germans, but also the Finnish Army and when the war was lost they fought guerilla action against the occupying Red Army .
Fears of Soviet reprisals unfortunately manifested and decades would pass before the latest and hopefully the last of these foreign invaders would depart. And thus ends the lesson.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Finding my way before the snow sets in
Equipped with my eighteen words in Estonian, I returned to this, the most eastern part of western Europe with my Girlfriend and our dreams of adventure and if all should go as planned, happiness and wealth.
With two briefs trip under my belt in the in the last two years I had seen enough to persuade me travel and chase those dreams.
Unlike my earlier visits, both of which were in the summer,
Unlike the crowded streets of most capital cities you can actually feel as though you have space to move through this clean medieval city, rather than being pushed, bumped and generally ignored as life is back in the