A selective democracy is hardly a democracy at all and a «state» where one third of population is disenfranchised on a whimsical technicality can hardly be considered either democratic or free. As I know both societies intimately well I can say with a degree of confidence that most Russians (or modern Americans, Austrians, French or Germans) cannot comprehend what it is like to be of wrong ethnicity and live under state tyranny in an ethnocracy. A friend of mine was born in Estonia from parents who were also born in Estonian SSR in the 1950s.
Distortion — that's an understatement.
Khimki incident was widely reported in Russia and became one of top subjects for online discussions. The amateur Russophobe author ( I assume a recent Soviet import and a would be American patriot) got his information on Khimki incident from what he terms glaringly hypocritical Russian media. Then he proceeds to say that the monument was destroyed without a protest, a claim that he promptly follows with a rather glaring counterclaim that authorities in fact dispersed a protest by force as was reported by (Gazprom-owned) Ekho Moskvy.
Depending on what's your view of the situation, in a single sentence, phenomenal in its absurdity, the author managed to accuse Russian people of passivity as for some reason they don't protest, of official brutality, as police dispersed the protest brutally, of media hypocrisy, as the incident was not reported, of unwarranted reporting, as the accident was reported, and perhaps of government control as he heard the report on Ekho Moskvy, which happens to be owned by Gazprom. No matter what happens in Russia and no matter who does what, where and when — it's always bad.
As someone who now lives in Russia but also spent a great deal of time in the Baltics I must say that not once have I heard any appeals for violence against ethnic Estonians or any incitement of ethnic hatred. The country is multiethnic and fairly tolerant. Unlike the Baltic ethnocracies Russia is not obsessed with ethnicity. People who would be described as ethnic minorities in other societies occupy disproportionate number of cabinet positions in Putin's government. Even Russia's comical anti-Semite in chief, Mr. Zhirinovsky, is Jewish and is the head of a major faux nationalist party. I am am not «ethnic» Russian but no one ever has suggested that I am alien or insufficiently «pure» to live here. In this respect Russia is very much like France, Canada or the United States.
Estonia and Latvia are the only two countries where native officials harassed me because of my Russian last name — something like that never happens to me in France, Finland, Slovakia, Holland or Austria or any other place and I've crossed quite a few borders. For locals ethnic harassment is a fact of daily life where ethnicity and not citizenship counts. To gain a strategic beachhead — or for some other reasons I can't frankly comprehend — the EU and the US — two backers of Baltic ethnocracies decided to support «restoration» of an outlandish obscene chimera — of monolingual purely ethnic states — in opposition to common sense and the territories' multiethnic and multilingual reality. Like in Iraq the consequences of what happens when foreign powers decide to force an ideology upon hapless natives or provide backing for a historic chimera can hardly be overestimated. One thing is certain — so far verbal encouragement of Estonian ethno-Nazis by the US, EU and NATO officialdom generated more grassroots support for Putin than he could have ever hoped for: no rise in living standards could have ever given such a boost to Putin's popularity or discredited Russia's «liberal» opposition so much and so deeply. Decades of Communist propaganda failed to accomplish what Andrus Ansip (the current Estonian Prime Minister and former instructor of the Communist party municipal committee in Tartu, Estonia) and his backers in Washington and Brussels managed to achieve in the matter of a few days.
Why is Estonia different from Russia? Because breathtaking hypocrisy of CIA «foundations» like the Freedom House notwithstanding, Russia is free while Estonia is not.
A selective democracy is hardly a democracy at all and a «state» where one third of population is disenfranchised on a whimsical technicality can hardly be considered either democratic or free. As I know both societies intimately well I can say with a degree of confidence that most Russians (or modern Americans, Austrians, French or Germans) cannot comprehend what it is like to be of wrong ethnicity and live under state tyranny in an ethnocracy. A friend of mine was born in Estonia from parents who were also born in Estonian SSR in the 1950s. She is Jewish or half Jewish or whatever as this is really irrelevant (or rather it would be irrelevant almost anywhere else but is very relevant in Estonia). She has some deep roots in the old province of Esthonia (even prior to Bolshevik-arranged independence) but her relatives were exterminated in 1941 though grandmother fled with the retreating Soviet army. As you know to please Hitler Estonian Nazis exterminated their Jewish and Russian population almost entirely. Anyway, after 1991 transformation of Estonian SSR into current ethnocracy she could not have provided a documentary proof of her relatives citizenship of the interwar statelet and is therefore still stateless. She doesn't understand why she has to apply for citizenship in a country where she was born, and her parents were born, of which she has always been a citizen, or why she can't use written Russian in public in a territory that was a part of Russia for the roughly the same amount of time as France had Alsace. When the memorial was about to be destroyed (it was destroyed as Estonian military used an excavator to dig up the grave) she was uninvolved in any protests. In fact she was unaware of them. About half an hour before police pogrom began my friend went to the phone in her home to call her friends in Russia. When she lifted the receiver she heard a prerecorded message in Russian — «do not attempt to spread disinformation. Your phone is temporarily disconnected.» Petrified she run to the computer and the Internet connection apparently worked (though Estonian authorities blocked access to numerous Internet sites like the photofile.ru which had photos of Estonian police thugs. The next day Freedom House certified Estonia as «perfectly free»). Apparently she was not alone as this sort of thing was reported en masse. Her phone was disconnected and she was placed under surveillance because of who she is — a Russian speaker. With the EU funding Estonia and Latvia compiled a extensive ethnicity based database for aliens, i.e. for Russians (Russian speakers) that contains fingerprints, eye retina images, DNA, information on relatives in Russia, description on activities and so on on. Few days after the monument was destroyed (and what I'd call ethnically motivated temporary interruption of phone service) my friend's seven year old son was ordered to the front of the class where he had to say out loud that he is a descendant of Russian occupiers (the boy is a descendant of Holocaust survivors). Apparently Russian speaking children all over Estonia were forced to read this aloud and condemn themselves. As it was enough the Minister of Education sent a memo, which I read, a greeting of sorts, commemorating the destruction of memorial in which he also said that (in the war) murderers wore the same uniforms as the one depicted on the monument figure.
Now -why these 12 buried soldiers in Tallinn were so important and how different was their grave desecration from what happened in Khimki. In Khimki local authorities without much ado moved a grave to expand the highway. Apparently this was done quickly, with consent of the relatives of those who were buried in the grave but generated much public protest nonetheless.
In Estonia the memorial — which is a wartime grave though the statue was erected on the spot in the early sixties — was a place of worship, something of an informal shrine for the Russian speaking community (who represent more than half of Tallinn's population). Both the monument and the grave were destroyed because ethnic Estonian authorities, the leadership of Estonian ethnocracy, wanted to hurt the Russians or rather Russian speakers as most of them won't even qualify for Russian citizenship. This was a symbolic public beating, an attempt to cause an emotional injury as severe as possible, an act that was followed by an actual beating and incarceration in an improvised concentration camp of 1000 randomly caught individuals, then re-selected by their ethnic origin, some of them to be tortured afterwards. The symbolism of every step tthe ethno-Nazis took was unmistakably clear and whole operation was planned in advance and was sadistic both in its intent and execution.
I am not going to go into describing how the demonstrators were assailed or how Estonian authorities murdered Dmitri Ganin, a 19 year old Russian citizen and a talented photographer, or how they kept his body for seven days without releasing to his mother despite all protests, and how they slandered and abused her, or on improvised concentration camp, on torture, or on state instigated Internet campaign where people had to vote «for» or «against» the memorial and those who voted for, with their IP tracked to their employer, were then fired. I'd have leave it for now.
The main difference with Khimki as I said was that the Tallinn's memorial was a place of worship. When confronted with criticism Estonian authorities claimed they moved it to (!) better location. It was demolished because you cannot move a place of worship to a better location. Besides they only moved the mutilated statue. Where are the soldiers true remains are unknown as they were dug up with an excavator. Estonian Defense Ministry did not allow independent witnesses or Russian duma experts or relatives' representatives to be in at the excavation site. I wonder why.
Because unlike Khimki, a suburb and transit area, where few people knew anything, the majority of Tallinn's inhabitants were against grave digging and against memorial desecration, but the ethno-Nazis (the central Estonian authorities) did it anyway — just to show who is the boss.
Because unlike Khimki there was a pending court hearing to prevent any excavation at the site. The Nazis (Estonian government) showed total contempt for their own courts as well.
Because the city of Tallinn was to be in charge of its monuments and memorials and the mayor of Tallinn prohibited tampering with the memorial.
So, because the ethno-Nazi (or those behind them) must always have their way, they declared the monument a national security area (!), placed it under control of the Estonian military (!) and classified everything that is related to it. EU and US-sponsored Estonia has made many unprecedented accomplishments. Like the unparalleled disenfranchisement of one third of its population. Or — the most recent one — declaring an open memorial site with a visible statue above a state secret.
Because unlike Khimki common people in Russia, not the government, asked and pleaded to leave the monument alone. I signed a petition.
Because unlike Khimki the prime minister of Estonia solemnly promised that the monument will NOT be tempered with until May 10.
Because unlike Khimki (Putin hardly knew about Khimki grave), the President of Estonia made an identical promise one day before it was demolished. He did it at Yeltsin's funeral.
Because even Estonian ethno-Nazis could have removed the monument — though not the grave — quietly — in June or July or at any time — for restoration or under some other excuse — and probably no one would have noticed right away.
Because unlike Khimki, Estonia's neighbor explicitly requested not to tamper with the monument. I am absolutely sure if Germany or even Finland asked not to move Khimki grave, then they would built a detour and would have left it where it was.
Because unlike Khimki, relatives of those who were buried in Tallinn petitioned Estonian «government» and pleaded not to remove the monument and not to dig up the graves at least for the time being.
So what did they do — they demolished the grave site and the memorial openly, but first surrounded it with police and the military (the symbolism of spiritual and perhaps biological descendants of SS butchers — the Estonian military — destroying graves of those who fought the Nazis is just overpowering and is certainly not accidental. The whole event was an incredible, well-orchestrated performance). When protesters gathered they used force which far exceeding anything I've seen in public protests in the US, Germany, France or Russia. This was unbelievable. The purpose was to provoke and hurt people.
Finally, they did this deliberately before May 9 — the day that is perhaps more sacred to Russian speakers in the Baltics than it is to residents of Russian Federation.
What does Estonia do with wartime graves or monuments or even cultural landmarks or how it treats Russian speakers is not Estonia's internal business. Estonia's backers made an exception here and pretended they think otherwise. They came out publicly with the defense of indefensible. There is now very widespread belief held both in Estonia and Russia that the dirty deed was a product of American engineering, a CIA-inspired affair, because the likelihood of ethnocratic Estonia daring to commit this sort of outrage on its own is very slim. After Putin is gone, even 10 years from now, the Estonian incident around the Bronze Soldier will continue to color Russia's relations with the EU and with the US. For the first time the EU (though not individual states except perhaps for the much despised New Europe) emerged as the enemy. The particulars or the meaning of what actually happened in Tallinn was totally ignored by the Anglo-Saxon media except, of course, for a few extraordinary falsehoods that appeared it print which were then promptly accompanied by even more outrageous Russophobe editorials. Few outside Russia or Russian-speaking communities understood the significance of what happened or realized the long term impact these events are likely to have.
Enough said.
Governance of today's Russia may be inefficient and corrupt, Russian elections may not be fully free (though every citizen can vote regardless of ethnicity and everyone born in Russia or anywhere else who lived there before 1992 is considered a citizen no matter what's his ethnicity or origin), United Russia's ad campaigns may bring back memories of the old CPSU, but certainly there is nothing in official Russia today that is so thoroughly darkly diabolically evil as is the ethnocratic state of Estonia.
As of country without friends — well the USA fits the description. A rogue superpower that is perhaps more despised and hated than Nazi Germany was in its heyday. One can hardly call troublesome vassals like Estonia «friends» (though that of course depends on one's definition of friendship). As of Russia being pushed into a new arms race — I hope Russian leadership would have enough common sense to rely on development of nuclear deterrent and on striking the enemy indirectly where it is already stuck fast rather than waste resources on improbable head on conventional confrontation.
By E.S. in St. Petersburg
PS: today some people turned upside down a monument to the fallen Dutch SS men in Estonia. The monument was opened in July 2006 with much fanfare and in the presence of all Nazi…sorry «democratic» and freedom loving Estonian officials as well as surviving SS butchers from Estonia, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands to commemorate their fallen Nazi heroes who fought on Estonian soil against advancing Red Army. The particular SS unit immortalized itself by butchering civilians in Belorussia. Apparently the people who «fell» the SS monument used a tractor or some other piece of heavy machinery as the stone slab was very heavy.
I am eagerly awaiting a condemnation of the «vandalism» from the EU and of course from honorable Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (as the memory of his countrymen is affected) who personally condemned Russia for undue «pressure» and disrespect (!) toward Estonian statelet.
