Abdul Turay

The language myth By Vincent Freeman with additional reporting by Adam Mullett First published July 16, 2008 Tallinners can be strange. Not only do they dislike Russian-speakers speaking Russian, they don’t like Finnish tourists speaking Finnish. “We are not in Finland. If you can’t speak Estonian, speak English” would be a typical response. It’s understandable that Estonians prefer English — it is, after all, an international language. Also, in this part of the world, it is politically neutral. Russian, German and even Swedish can be associated with occupation and colonization. Estonia and the other Baltic states are small nations, and they can’t expect everybody to learn their language. There are also practical reasons. The fact is, a lot of people living in Estonia don’t speak Estonian. It is possible for two people born in Tallinn in the same year to be forced to converse in English because it is the only language that they have in common. It’s part of the great Russian-Estonian di

The Swedish Empire strikes back By Abdul Turay First published June 18, 2008 The following list may be familiar to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of the region. Danes, Teutonic Knights, Swedes, Germans, Russians, Nazis, Soviets. These are the powers that have occupied and exploited the region, especially Estonia and Latvia, over the past millennium or so. Conventional wisdom says that there are two gaps on this litany of foreign occupation – 1919 to 1939 and 1991 to present. This is an illusion. The reality is, as recent events show, one of the old occupying powers is back and they mean business. The Baltics are controlled by Swedish capitalists. It could be called the new Swedish Empire. Let us look at the evidence. In Estonia at the end of 2007, the share of SEB and Hansabank was 71 percent of the loan market and almost 100 percent of banking assets belonged to foreign-based credit institutions or investors. Investors were attracted by the region’s flexible att

Quiet genius who brought the East to the West By Marge Tubalkain-Trell with additional reporting by Vincent Freeman First published April 9, 2008 TALLINN - The Koran is undoubtedly one of the most important texts in world culture, so it’s maybe not so surprising that the book is selling well in Estonia. No one thought, however, it would sell as well as it did. The truly astonishing thing is that it took until December 2007 for the book to be published in Estonian. There is no doubt the Koran would not have been translated at all if weren’t for the work of one remarkable man, Haljand Udam – geologist, scientist, linguist, translator, writer, and genius. The Baltic Times spoke to the friends and family of the man who single-handedly made the most important cultural event of the year in Estonia possible, including his widow who has never spoken to the press before. “It was his life’s work and his last work,” said Aivar Lestsinski, editor in chief of the Avita publishing company. Udam died

Fighting to preserve a nation’s heritage By Abdul Turay First Published July 09, 2008 When Tobias Jasetas was a small child, his family emigrated to England. One summer his mother decided to go back to Lithuania for an extended holiday to visit relatives. She took Jasetas, who was then nine years old, with her. It turned to be one of the saddest decisions made by anyone, anywhere, ever. The year was 1939 and within a few months of arriving war had broken out. The mother and son were stranded in a country under Soviet occupation. The Soviets deported Jasetas’ relatives to Siberia. Then the Nazis came and things got even worse. Jasetas is now 87 and still lives in Vilnius in a run down apartment with basic utilities. He doesn’t like to reflect on what might have been. He is the ultimate survivor. He lived through the first Soviet occupation, the Ghetto, the murder of his mother and other relatives. He escaped from the Ghetto just before the “Child Achtung” in 1944 when Ghetto children w

Tallinn's unlikely twin By Abdul Turay First published November 2008 The idea behind twinning is that two vaguely similar cities exchange cultural links for their mutual benefit. Warsaw is twinned with Coventry – both cities were flattened by the Luftwaffe, after all. Tartu, the famous Estonian university town, is twined with Uppsala which is the home to the oldest university in Scandinavia. And Tallinn… Tallinn is twinned with Dartford. Come again, Dartford! For those of you who don’t know Britain well, Dartford is a dull dormitory suburb on the back end of London. Dartford is in the county of Kent, the so-called “garden of England”. Technically it is both a town and a borough , but it is not a city since it doesn’t have a Royal charter to call itself that. Say the word “Dartford” to most Britons, and they will answer back “tunnel”. The Dartford crossing is both a tunnel and a bridge. It links up Kent with London both above and below the river Thames. When City Paper called up the

A hard landing indeed By Abdul Turay First published Aug 20, 2008 Estonians act and think like any group of people who have known poverty. They like to spend money they don’t have on stuff they don’t need. This is why the credit crunch has hit the Black and Hispanic community in America so hard. Now a sensational new book which makes the same point is causing a buzz in the ex-pat communities and the corridors of power. The book is called “Hard Landing”. It was written by Dr Claudio Zucchelli, an Italian-German, financial analyst and investor and Dag Kirsebom, a Swedish-Norwegian former banker and entrepreneur. Ministries have ordered copies. The Estonian prime minister, Andrus Ansip is rumoured to have read it. The book has been specially ordered by Merrill Lynch. All this for a pocket-sized book that a fast reader could finish in an afternoon. The book argues that not only will Estonia suffer a hard landing but the culture and mentality of Estonians themselves has led to this situat

Neo-Nazi thrown out By Abdul Turay 11 August 2009 An American neo-Nazi has failed in his attempt to remain in the country after a court rejected his asylum plea and branded him a racist and a public menace. Craig Cobb, 57, founder and operator of the Podblanc website, a sort of YouTube for racists, emigrated to Estonia in 2005. Cobb planned to make Estonia the centre for his propaganda campaign to promote white nationalism. Now it seems time is up for Cobb. He was put on trial August 2009 and banned from Estonia for a minimum of 10 years. Cobb was found guilty of endangering public security, public order, public safety, moral standards, and health. The court also found that he was promoting racism and was a racist. Cobb has not yet been removed from the country, but is being detained. “I have cash and an American passport and am expelled by Estonia, but they have me locked down here till 16 Sept if they want and I think I can get extensions every two months. One Khazarstan(sic) guy has