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Apr 26, 2007, 23:27 GMT
Riots rage in Tallinn as monument protest boils over (Roundup)
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When this article calls Estonian government 'nationalist', the same term should also definitely apply to the rioters but I think nationalist would be too weak. I am writing from Tallinn right now and I would call all this Russian fascism or chauvinism. The Tallinn city centre has been totally vandalized by drunk Russian youth mobs who were shouting 'It's all ours!' and 'Russia! Russia! Russia!' These Russian-speaking mobs literally devastated the city centre, looting shops, breaking windows and setting fire on kiosks. They were not sad or mourning, they were drinking and laughing. Anyone speaking Estonian was in danger in the city centre. Journalists and photographers were beaten by the Russian-speaking vandals.
Take a look at
ht tp: //youtube.com/watch?v=scnjmsbf49k
ht tp: //video.postimees.ee/M4V01314rr.mpg
and
ht tp: //www.postimees.ee/galerii/index.php?picture=18697&galoffset=0
(please remove the spaces in links to use them).
Why they do that? why?
it was 2 from the spot
They did it because they have been brainwashed by the Russian propaganda machine.
The statue itself is not in any kind of danger and will be preserved anyway; the government is just trying to find an appropriate final resting place for the buried (presently the burial place is right near a traffic junction at the city centre). Nobody is going to destroy this statue like Estonian monuments were destroyed by Russians in the 1940s, when Estonia was occupied by Russia.
Please do not believe the Russian propaganda machine, which is trying to show these drunk marauders as victims.
Hey Tallinner what is your propaganda?
When i came there at 6 o'clock nobody was drunk.. Maybe few people who drunk a pint of beer.. that's all... There were families, teens, old men, estonian-speaking people too.. About 2000-3000 people who came there with flowers, to show their protest.. Why they do that? Is it important for you? You live with in one city.. Why you doesn't want to understand me?
This monument is symbol of people who died in WWII.. it is written on it.. millions of people who died for saving whole world from fascism... and now you want to pull down it?
Dear Dennis,
I think that after what you did there is nothing to understand. The world is now full of videos where everyone can see that the Russians were drunk, they were wild and this had nothing to do with the monument!
You have no more justification, the Russians have shown their real face.
The Russian 'liberators' did not liberate anything in the 1940s. My grandmother remembers that they were just as crazy and wild as those Russians who marauded yesterday in Tallinn and can be seen on the videos. Wherever Russian 'liberators' went, they did not leave but established new occupation.
Dear Dennis, it seems that you too are a victim of the myths distributed by the Russian propaganda machine. How can Estonians live in one city with such people who do not give a damn about our history, our feelings and our sufferings? You seem to forget that in the years 1940-1991 Russians were occupants in Estonia. Do not forget, Russians have devastated our country before! Before you speak of understanding, please try to understand others' feelings yourself. There is no justification to what RUSSIANS did here in Tallinn yesterday! SHAME ON YOU!
And nobody wants to pull the statue down. You have been brainwashed. The statue will be preserved! I said it before and let me repeat it: the statue will be preserved for people like you! Traffic junction in the centre of the city is not an appropriate place for a grave. Graves should be in peace at cemetery. Russians should rather refrain from desecrating their own burial places by actions of meaningless violence.
now now, dennis just needed a new pair of jeans
I must say I'm with 'on the spot' and Tallinner on this one and have little sympathy for the estonian russians (or whatever they want to be referred to, CCCP citizens maybe?)
Greetings from across the gulf and I hope peace will be restored in Tallinn. All the best.
I am a foreigner living in Tallinn and what I saw yesterday left me disappointed and embaraced. I had to reassure my mom about my safety. Everybody, please tell me: both the Estonian government and those Russians rioting have nothing more important to do in their lifes than to think so much about a statue ??? Why the government do not think instead to fix the Estonian roads which are a shame or to solve the problem of a still astonishing poverty which surrounds the rich tallinn city center ??? and again why the Russians instead of always complaining and crying of their situation do not finally start to accept that their are not living anymore in the Soviet Union and they should start to integrate in the Estonian Society ??? All of you...it is time to let your brains work and cut those bullshits out. THE SECOND WAR AND THE OCCUPATION ARE FINISHED, YOU ALL LIVE IN THE EUROPEAN COMUNITY NOW. DO NOT LIVE OF MEMORIES BUT THINK TO THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF YOUR COUNTRY IN A MORE POSITIVE WAY.
Well put Steve.. but then again stuff like this happens in every country.
You are right Finlander, but sorry this does not happen in every contry but only in those where the people let the ideology to replace the intelligence in their brains.
Hi
think that before people start commenting negatively about the Estonian government. They should take a good look at the history behind it.
Firstly they are not destroying the statue at all they are just relocating it.
Secondly that statue is of a Russian RED ARMY soldier. The same red army who murdered, raped, pillaged and euthanized tens of thousands of people all throughout the Baltics, not soldiers but civilians. They also occupied the countries of these people and sent members of their families to Siberia. This happened in Estonia as well as other countries. That statue while to a small percentage of the population might represent the army that fought the Germans. To the majority it represents the murder and deportation of many of its citizens and 50 years of occupation.
The fact is that the Estonian government is merely relocating it.
Think of it this way it is the equivalent of having a statue of a Japanese soldier in the Sydney city centre or in the centre of Washington.
as an outsider looking in I commend the Estonian government on how they have handled the situation and I hope that the Russian community in Estonia will see that they are only hurting themselves and their own standing as a race by needlessly destroying public property.
Instead if they want to do something then they should protest peacefully, like civilised people.
Dear Michael,
Nothing to comment about the history that everybody knows very well, but than why French, Spanish, Romanians, Israelis, English, North-Africans, Greeks, Portuguise are not removing the roman statues, monuments and walls they have in their countries, which have been occupied by the Roman Empire for almost 1000 years ? (yes not 40 years but almost 1000). Right or not what provoked this high instability (in both Ethnic Estonians and Ethnic Russians), in a otherwise very calm country, is just right the decision of removing a statue. The result now is that the relations with Russia (that is just a too big and powerful contry to have a confrontation with) are as more broken as ever before, the tourists are scared to come to Estonia, my clients are calling me to postpone commercial meetings and all this is slowly turning against the economy of the country. Well what can I say more ? a very good start for a just newly elected government. Tell me, is it possible the the first 'important' decision from a new goverment is the removal of a statue ? I repeat, is there nothing more important to think about ? For how long again we have to assist to this 'hate' between Estonians and Russians ? When all this will end ?
I support Estoniangovernment 100 per cent. It is only Estonia government elected by it's citizens can decided what to do in Estonia and not a neighbour from the east. Of course taht statue they could moved silently like here in lithuania we moved all soviet statues silently and put them to teh park of soviet sculptures, now people patys money to watch them, lol. and liek in latvia they had problems with russian schools. here we diminished number of russian schools silently even nobody said anything.
anyway keep on moving estonias and deport all those riot makers out of the country. they should understand that they not living in ussr no longer and that they go back to russia if they don't ,like here or accept rules of the country they live in.
Dear steve,
as living in estonia you should know very well situation about russian and estonian relations. The things is that russians themselves do not want to integrate to the society, second think they are not and never were loyal to estonian government. second thing that the the most 'protestants'(too good word to call them though) are not even citizens of estonia.
one more thing to add that local russians in baltic states are used by russian government to make instability in those countries and try to make preasure on those countries. and the less relation estonia willhave with russia there will be much better for teh country.
i have been to tallinn few times, last time i was there last summer and belive me local russians were also agresive then. and no doubts it is the most big number of criminals among them.
and if they say that they are treated so bad in estonia why they just do nto leave back toa countries whose citizens they are or where originaly they are from.
Dear all,
I tried to let everybody understand that for a stupid matter as a statue is, all the people in Estonia (when I say all I include all the Estonian citizens including the ethnic Russians and the foreigner citizens making business in Estonia) are now suffering of a very bad situation. Today afternoon, that is saturday, I saw most of the shops in the city center closed, very few people on the roads and unfortunately very few turists around. It would never happen in the past to see an almost desert Tallinn during a hot saturday. This is a very bad sign and the Estonian government should think more about that. The consequence of an act which was intended to be for the safety of the country (at least this is the official explanation from the prime minister) have just made the safety of the country unstable. If you do think that this is an illuminated decision, well I don´t. Even if a government have been elected by the citizens this does not means that it´s gonna take the right decisions (it is not god).
The problem is that the Estonians do not want to integrate as much as the Russians. When all of you will finish to fight for the past and will look instead to the future ???? Is there any possible way to let all of you understand this for god sake ????
Just to finish, tonight, like yesterday and the day before, instead of going out to enjoy the only free part of my life, as the rest is dedicated to work, I am obliged to stay home and this surely not for my fault.
i understand what u trying to say, but the thing is that the past is not so easy to forget, especially that there are lot's and lot's of witnesses who sufered deportations and repretions of soviets are alive. and that broze solder are no more than a memeory for that. i am sure almost every estonian family had sufered from it. so it is not so easy to just to forget it.
I understand the sufference of the Estonians but the life must go on even if it is sad. Those stupid young people I saw breaking everything do not even know what happened during the occupation and they are just doing this because nowadays the young people miss the correct education from the parents and do not have good ideals to follow. I have a suggestion for the Estonian government, instead of inventing stupid excuses like the country safety for removing a monument, say the true by showing to the people what in reality happened during the soviet union time in the schools, TV, public conferences etc. Show to the people what kind of hell have been Estonia under the occupation (both the nazist and communist). Convince them that actually the first ones suffering under the communist soviet union have been the Russians themselves and they should be the first ones to blame the past. I tell you what I think deeply: The second world war have been for the communists leaders in Russia the best thing that could happen to them in order to cover their internal brutalities and the best way to brainwash their own people. Today they are still using the memory of it once more to let the people believe in a model which tries to revive itself from the death. At the end however show also some mercy for those old people that goes on the 9th of may just to put some flower and make some prayer to those poor young people who died during the second war.
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