Quote:
Originally Posted by haku
It's a thorny issue for Estonia, the Russian minority makes no secret that it sees Estonia pretty much as a Russian oblast, it's difficult for a country to give citizenship to people who think the country should not exist. And we have to remember that those Russians were brought there by the USSR in a process of forced russification of the area and the locals, it's difficult for Russians to claim that they are an oppressed minority when they had themselves no regards for the Estonian minority in the USSR to begin with.
Forced russification is a process that has been going on from the Baltic to the Pacific since the old days of the Russian empire, the Komi republic is a good example of that, 92% Komi in 1926, 60% Russian now, a slow but effective process, the same thing was happening in Estonia until it broke away from the USSR.
It's no secret that many Russian politicians would want Russia to go back to its historical imperial borders, the LDPR (with which our own Tatu girls are good friends) even has it written in its platform, and that Russian minorities in neighboring countries are used as an excuse for a potential territorial expansion. Even though the ruling party United Russia doesn't go as far as the LDPR in terms of territorial claims, it does favor a return to the former USSR borders (with possibly Finland as an added bonus), and it is particularly irritated with the loss of the Baltic states since it has caused the Kaliningrad oblast to become detached from Russia proper, the Baltic states joining the EU has even reinforced that seperation since the free movements of goods and people within the EU implies a reinforced border around non-EU Kaliningrad. |
And it was Atilla who brought the huns to Hungaria. Your point being? 30% of the population of Estonia are Russians. They are there, and they are not going to go away no matter how badly they are being treated (and they are being treated VERY badly). It's a reality Estonia had better come to terms with; polarising the two major ethnicities further certainly isn't going to help the country. Maybe the politicians who are in power, sure, several of them have been known to take a liking to National Socialism, so polarisation fits in there perfectly. But the country is not going to be helped; neither the Russians, nor the Estonians. It sure as hell isn't going to make a single Russian Estonian adopt the opinion that Estonia has a right to exist.
A minor correction btw, haku. Tatu are not friends with the LDPR (which is officially the scariest party in Russian mainstream politics); Yulia is friends with a deputy who is a member of the LDPR (and a moderate one at that). That's quite a big difference. I have friends who are members of the Dutch laissez-faire liberal party. Please, please, don't think of me as a friend of the party though.
