Estonia charges four for riots in April, claims Russian involvement

average russianOct 18th, 2007 - 17:22:05

So far all Estonian claims - like cyber attack by the Kremlin - have proven to be baseless. Estonians simply lie.

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average estonianOct 18th, 2007 - 19:11:59

politics is idiotic by nature.
cyberattacks were organized, by whom, is uncertain, but carried out by russian people. and should be regarded as such. and i don't really see a problem there... people tend to do things like that.

but...

russian officials said some things i didn't think a state in the right mind would want to say in 21st century.

i somehow liked the reaction of mr. putin though. he didn't say much, except condemned the action and said neither he nor russia liked that. and it pretty much ended there with understandable freezing of relations.

i was outright scared when i read the russian media back then. what the hell... estonia as the biggest enemy for russia? a country roughy 100 times smaller? what were they smoking?

not that media in estonia was much better, fueling the scandal and panic.

by the way, eventhough out of place and very hostile to us, i kind of like the emotional reactions of russian politicians. those were clear, real opinions. based on wrong facts sometimes, but still real. very rare in today's political world.

about the events themselves:

i basically think it was wrong to move the statue like that, but still the riots still happened _before_ the removal, no matter what the mostly russia-based news try to say.

what was the real mistake estonian government made, it didn't make the information available enough - estonian ethnic russians don't participate and watch (or believe) estonian media (both in estonian and in russian but produced by estonian companies). and all they got from the sources they used... is that the monument was going to be demolished.

i specifically asked that from 7-8 ethnic russian young men couple of days later. they were called to the spot by messages saying that monument was being demolished.

estonians knew what was going on: the excavations of those buried there. as a preparation of moving the monument later with proper respect.

by the way, the monument stands calmly and beatifully in the cemetary, reminding us all about the horrors of world war 2. and got more flowers on 8-9 may this year than ever before.

some good things have come out of all that though. estonian russian minority has a lot to say and finally, they are really heard. and that's always a good thing.

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Above average EstonianOct 18th, 2007 - 20:55:56

It wasn't about monument. It wasn't about it's placement. It wasn't about the graves. It wasn't about history.

Everything the government did about this monument served one purpose: to enrage the local Russian population, using one of the not-so-numerous points where the Estonian and Russian populations differ: memory of World War 2.

The monument was dear for thousands and thousands among the local Russian population, and it was removed to prove a point - that their opinion about this monument was worthless and the government couldn't care less about what they think, especially in comparison to that of one ultra-nationalist provocateur. (Whose organization, by the way, is dedicating a lot of their public communication on Holocaust revisionism and white supremacism these days)

Moving the monument wasn't a big deal, it was all about *why* the monument was moved, how it was suddenly, after 60 years of peaceful and respectful existance, touted to be a 'symbol of occupation', and that the opinions of people who think otherwise, as well as those people themselves, are worthless.

That's why the riots happened. Because as far as the government was concerned, the opinions of the many who honoured this monument (predominantly Russians) were dirt. Add this to an already dodgy situation with undersolved citizenship and other issues, and you got an explosive cocktail.

By removing the monument despite the protests, the government said 'F... you', and the riots carried the simple a message of 'No, f... YOU'.

If we in this country could at least understand this exchange, then we might've at least gotten somewhere. Alas, it appears not: the Estonian media and government have learned absolutely nothing, yet the Russians have learned that the government are assholes, so those events are bound to repeat themselves. :(

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another average estonianOct 19th, 2007 - 09:41:59

average russians should also realise that there was no liberation, just 2 hostile regimes.

but yeah everyone on russian media went like 'omg they are going to demolish it', while there was no such thing
and the riots started even before it was moved. ridiculous.
though I have to admit I dont like the flood of news everyday in estonian papers, 'omg russia this russia that'

personally I dont like the idea of a statue of the soldier-occupator being in the city centre.
I guess that would equal to having a statue of genghis khan in moscow? :D?

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non-Estonian, non-RussianOct 20th, 2007 - 00:24:14

'above average estonian' 's opinions obviously sympathises with the Russian side of this major international conflict (not!)

'The monument was dear for thousands and thousands among the local Russian population, and it was removed to prove a point - that their opinion about this monument was worthless and the government couldn't care less about what they think,...'

Facts are the statue was removed to another less conspicuous location with the permission of the democratically elected government of Estonia. Most non-Russian people Estonia wanted it moved. To them it IS a symbol of Soviet occupation - a regime which for 50 years held back development of their country. If Russia had not invaded at the end of WW2 Estonia's standard of living would easily have been on par with any other country in northern Europe. Not that it won't take them long to reach it now.

As far as the riots themselves went - what the rest of the world saw was a bunch of drunken idiots yelling 'Ross-i-ya', Ross-i-ya', smashing windows, looting, throwing cobblestones - for what - because they thought the glory of their wonderful culture had somehow been insulted?

I'm straying away from the point - which is that in a democracy there's winners and losers. Russians living in Estonia now live in a democracy. So get used to it. You can't have it your own way any more - the tables have turned. If you don't like the decisions made by a government - vote them out. At least you have a real choice now - not like the people in your homeland.

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TanvirOct 20th, 2007 - 19:16:09

Russia and Estonia have not had the best of relationships since Estonia’s independence from Russia. Can you blame Estonia? It’s natural to have conflicts with the country which occupied Estonia until 1991. Recently Russia was suspected to be involved in the cyber attacks on Estonian computers. Although, experts indicate the cyber attacks were not caused by Russians, the tension between the countries are inevitable. Thousands of Estonians stood up against Russia when they revolted in the late 1980s, commonly known as The Singing Revolution. I just saw a website about Estonia’s Singing Revolution – singingrevolution.com; this is quite inspirational.

Estonia has had success on their own, since their independence. Their press is raked among the top in the world in freedom. Estonia’s health care is one of the best in the word for getting your money’s worth. That’s something to be jealous of.

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