Tallinn: A Year without the Bronze Soldier
// The anniversary of the fall of the Soviet liberator
In Tallinn, they are marking the year's anniversary of the events after the authorities' decision to remove the monument to the Soviet liberating soldier in the center of the city led to rioting in the Estonian capital. This weekend, Russian nongovernmental organizations plan to hold meetings to protest violations of the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Estonia. Law enforcement is also planning for a wild weekend. Forces are being beefed up in Tallinn, Narva, Parnu and Tartu. The authorities say they will not allow the disorder of a year ago to be repeated. It was one of the reasons for the crisis that still has a grip on the country.
Weekend of Unrest
They are preparing for every manner of disruption this weekend in Tallinn. Public organizations uniting the Russian-speaking citizens of Estonia plan to remember the events of a year ago on Saturday and Sunday and hold a protest meeting against the removal of the bronze soldier from Tonismagi Square in downtown Tallinn to the city's military cemetery. The main inspiration for the memorial activities comes from the Night Watch organization, which ardently defended the Bronze Soldier a year ago. An announcement has been posted on the organization's site urging all who wish to to join the Might Watch meeting on April 26 near the Russian Cultural Center. “A meeting will be held to give people a chance to express themselves on the anniversary of barbarous destruction by the authorities of the monument on Tonismagi, to discuss the condition of our society and to make certain demands of the Estonian government,” the organizers write.
On April 26, 2007, events took place in Tallinn that were later dubbed the “bronze night.” After Estonian authorities decided to disassemble the Bronze Soldier and move it to the Estonian capital's military cemetery, protests began in the city that culminated on the night of April 27 in rioting and looting in downtown Tallinn that continued for several days. Then the police cracked down decisively on the protests. More than 2000 people were detained, more than 200 arrested, and about 50 were sentenced to various sentences, most of which were then suspended. At the time of the unrest, Russian citizen Dmitry Ganin was killed under circumstances that have never been explained. In May of last year, speaker of the Federation Council Sergey Mironov wrote a letter to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov stating that it was necessary to see to “the preservation of the memory of Dmitry Ganin, who died defending the monument to the Liberating Soldier in Tallinn.” Mironov suggested immortalizing the name of the deceased Russian by renaming Maly Kislovsky Lane in Moscow in his honor. The Estonian embassy is located on that street. Moscow authorities ignored the proposal.
The anniversary of “bronze night” will be marked on April 26 and 27 in several places in Tallinn at once. The military cemetery where the statue was moved to will be one of the main places for memorial events. Up to 10,000 people are expected to visit it tomorrow and the next day. Demonstrators will also gather at Terminal D at the Port of Tallinn, where police held their detainees during last year's disorder. “Most of all, we want to help the Estonian government realize the mistake it made a year ago. They insulted the Russian population then. They took away a monument, dug up human remains and took it all to another place at night,” one of the organizers, Dmitry Zarenkov, secretary of the Antifascist Committee of Estonia, told Kommersant. Although the public organizations say that the observations will be of an exclusively peaceful character, the police are preparing for the worst. In Tallinn, Narva, Parnu and Tartu, extra forces have been added. The beefed up units will be on duty at the meeting places all weekend. “We are prepared for the event that some people may allow themselves to be drawn into problems, without even knowing it,” Commissioner Kristian Jaani of the Pohjan police prefecture told the press. “It is very important that the organizers of public gatherings realize their responsibility and were aware of the possible consequences of their actions.”
A Difficult Year
Estonian authorities are trying to be cold-blooded as the anniversary approaches. “Estonia din[t lose anything from “bronze night.” On the contrary, the air is cleaner and the feelings of government are greater than a year ago,” stated Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, chief initiator of the moving of the Bronze Soldier, recently.
Not everyone in Estonia agrees. Ansip is more and more often accused of causing losses to the country because of that step. The events of that night badly spoiled relations between Tallinn and Moscow. Russia responded to the disassembly of the Bronze Soldier with economic sanctions. They were not as ostentatiously as with Georgia, but they struck at the Estonian budget nonetheless. The greatest damage was caused by the rerouting of Russian transit from Estonia through Latvia and Finland. Just a few months after the events in Tallinn, Eesti Raudtee, the Estonian railroad company, stated that the cargo flow from Russia had been severely reduced. By the middle of last year, Russian transit through Estonia had been reduced by 40 percent.
Authoritative Estonian economist Rein Taagepera said that the government has done nothing to pull Estonia out of the crisis that “bronze night” provoked. “A year after the scandalous incident with the moving of bronze Alyosha' the government counted its losses: ˆ450 million, or 3 percent of the GDP. The Port of Tallinn especially feels its losses. It lost 13 percent of its transit turnover,” the Estonian Business News newspaper scolds. They also remind Ansip of the reductions in Russian imports of Estonian goods. A year ago, several large Russian retail chains showed their political conscience and refused all Estonian goods of their own accord. That boycott did not last long, but Estonian producers say that turnover has not returned to pre-crisis levels.
A god number of Russian-speaking citizens have been the victims of the battle for historical justice. The tacit economic boycott and reduction of transit flows have struck at sectors of the economy where 80-90 percent of the worker are Russian. “Many firms have closed, gone bankrupt or been forced to make layoffs. Some sectors of transit have simply disappeared, the transit of coal, for example,” says Spacecom transportation company owner Oleg Osinovsky. “It is hard to say what the volume is, but many people have been left without work. Our enterprise laid off 100 workers this month, and next month those people will be on the labor market.” According to the Estonian labor department, unemployment has increased by 20.5 percent this year, with the greatest growth, 51.8 percent, in Tallinn.
Estonian labor unions are serious considering declaring a general strike. The railroad union, which has suffered more than any other from the Russian transit war, is the most active supporter of the move. Its leader, Oleg Chubarov, told Kommersant that he has studied the experience of the Union of Free Unions of Latvia, which forced the government of prime minister Aigars Kalvitis out of office last autumn. Now the new government of Ivars Godmanis has to reckon with them. A similar scenario is looking ever more likely for Estonia.
Maxim Lensky, Nikolai Filchenko
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 25, 2008
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