Skip to main content

LUGUSID/ARTICLES

Dear New Tallinners

Whether you are here for work or study; welcome to Tallinn, I hope that you have a successful, productive and fun time in our beautiful city.
Tallinn has come a long way in the last 20 years. It is hard to believe this city was once grey and Soviet.
It can be bewildering at times being in a new city in a new country, when all the information you need is in another language.
Did you know that you can help to make it better? Did you know you have access to legal services? What do you know about the sports, leisure and cultural activities going on in Tallinn?
The local elections for the City council take place this October 15.
Did you know that you can vote?  Everybody registered to live in Tallinn can vote?
Voting will give you say in how the city is run? It gives you power?

I hope to serve you as your local candidate. How someone like me ended up in Estonian politics, is too long a story to go into here.  I will try to represent your interests.
The party I stand for the centre-left, Keskerakond (the Centre Party) is in power. We have opened green spaces, enriched the cultural life of city with the Cultural Hub and the Telliskivi development and provided free public transport.
We have bold new plans to turn the city hall into a multi-functional conveference and entertainment centre, the first of its kind in the region, to create new attractions at the zoo, and to build a new hospital.
The Centre Party stands for people from all walks of life. It is the only party that has successfully united Russian and Estonian speaking people not to mention ethnic minorities from Central Asia.
Here is my Platform
Easy cycling.  Personally, I don’t drive, I cycle everywhere. The bicycle project aims to link North Tallinn to the Centre City and provide bicycle lanes in the centre.
Tram connection. More frequent trams to the airport including early morning trams to match plane timetables.
Dealing with Tallinn’s drug problem. A drug addiction treatment centre to help clean up the kids who suffer from Tallinn’s crystal meth problem.   
Information to foreigners. The Information portals owned by the city should be easier to understand, promoted in places which students and international workers can see and should be fully multilingual.
Tallinn is a great place to live. It can be even better. You have a chance to get involved.  You never know you might decide to live here for good. Please write to me personally with your ideas and cimput or simply to find out more. Here is my e-mail address abdul_turay@yahoo.com and watch this space for more information.

Yours Sincerely

Abdul Turay

Interview with the US Ambassador 



Ansip through the Eyes of a Reporter


Quiet Storm
About the local Election in October 2013 .

Descendants of a gang of pirates
In defence of the British monarchy 

Mere Anarchy
Promoting Estonia's young anarchists. 

Cut it Out 
About immigration. Frankly I am getting tired of the issue.

Britain and Referenda 
Why Cameron will lose the next election and we will have a government more favourable to Europe and Estonia...

Chartist versus the World
It was just perfect timing, I write a book discussing amongst other things, whether Estonian political culture is failing on not, and a month later, some of the country's leading minds, let's call them the chartists, get together and say categorical that failing it IS! ..

 A Black President for a Small White Nation II
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.Four years ago I outraged the nation when I suggested in my first Postimees article what Michelle Obama the president's wife might be thinking if Estonia got into trouble.Ah yes Estonia that small-minded little white nation....to hell with them.”.......

Intellectual Casino
Tallinn is the global headquarters for a venerable institution, a giraffe, which for legal purposes we will call Giraffe Forex company. It is all part of the retail forex market which in Estonia is controlled by Russian-speaking Estonian who started out in the 90s. They allied with Russian from the mother land in the early 2000s and set up shop here in Tallinn. Giraffe Forex has plush offices down town. It billboards can be seen in advertising hoarding in the city centre. With offices in over 27 country and growing, its ehhh..... tentacles are spreading out across the world. Giraffe Forex remains an excellent way for suckers to lose all their money. Don't take my word for it.

The Great Migration If you haven't spotted it already, the great Facebook migration means that Estonia has gone from being as leader to follower.Whereas five years ago Estonia was ahead of the curve now it is behind it. Instead of inventing stuff that others are using, Estonians are now using stuff invented elsewhere.

 Two Tribes 
The story of Estonians in Britain is an interesting narrative not only on how communities develop but a reflection on Estonia itself. Its shows us that some of the assumptions that we make about modern Estonia are wrong.

Why I write in Estonia

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

More Articles

On the Meikar Affair A political scandal Involving money laundering
The invisible beautiful Estonian film
The Austrian Factor On Austrian economics
Galojan won't be coming home soon.
On Veerpalu
Survival of the fitness
The view from London On the Euro
White Riots More on London Riots
City under siege London Riots
The end of Newspapers 
China Rising
Why the world is silent about the Estonian election
Playing around with higher education
Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)
Right is Right ?


Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids
Go West Where is Estonia exactly? Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story to Go West Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story to Go West
The greatest speech of all time A review of United Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.
For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.
The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA
Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day
Cancel the debt Haitian crisis
Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.
The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.
Black men, Estonian women the truth
Pyrrhic Victory
The Sexiest man in Estonia Guess who?
The Playboy bunny and foreign policy
Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.
Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids
Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.
Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania
A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis
Let's eat potato peels and again


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Black men, Estonian women: the truth By Abdul Turay Published Postimees 11 November 2009 Well that got your attention; the headline I mean. Any story on this subject, the technical term is miscegenation, is bound to get punters. The yellow media, women's magazines and reality TV shows are obsessed with the subject. Not a month goes by without some publication writing about it. Anne and Style, for example, recently ran a long feature about mixed couples. Most of these stories are muddle-headed and wrong. There's paranoia in this country that there is an army of dark-skinned men form Turkey, the tropics, some place south, who are going to make off with the nation's women. It's never going to happen. I'll explain why in a minute. Seriously, I think there are more important things to think about and worry about. I worry about feeding my family. I worry about other people being able to feed their families, so I write about politics and economics. But the p...
The second sex Published Postimees 16 January 2013 One issue scares the hell out of me. Men's rights. We are are told that we live in a male dominated society, that men have it easier than women; there are people who make a living by telling us this. In Estonia there are a dozen organisation dealing with women's rights there is even a gender studies unit (i.e. women's studies unit) at Tartu University, but there isn't yet far as I am aware, and I have checked, even one organisation dealing with men's right. It is inevitable that anybody who challenges this hegemony will come in for a barrage of criticism from an army of well-funded groups. When men's rights are discussed, it is in the context of men's health. Men are dying off. Men die younger and are more likely to commit suicide than women. Even God it seems is against men. Last week January 10 2012, for example the ministry of internal affairs published figures that show, ...
The Great Migration Published Postimees  13 Sept 2012 Recently, I asked a group of young people, if they have Facebook accounts. They looked at me like I was mad. "That's like asking us, do we have a noses?" one of them said. "Come to think of it even people who don't have noses have Facebook accounts," another said to much laughter. Last week 6 th July, Kanal 2 did a program "Minu Facebooki sõbrad". It was a light hearted look at the social network phenomenon. But the whole Facebook is king challenges some of our cherished beliefs about modern Estonia. 10 years ago when I first visited here, Estonia was more advanced than my own country the United Kingdom. It was a revelation. Estonia was my introduction to whole concept of social networking. Rate.ee was founded in May 2002, that's a year before Orkut, or MySpace, two years before Facebook. I so wasn't impressed when I first saw Facebook. "So...