Tartu, Estonia: A conversation with Heiki (b. 1975)
An conversation held online in February 2021.
Heiki describes himself as a father of 3, a runner, a Christian, and a fan of endurance sports. He is a software tester, and very much enjoys working at his job. “People say that we are a singing nation, but singing is something we do after work,” he says. “We like to work. We worked hard to build this country.”
I was born in 1975. I remember some very strange times from my childhood — everything was very red. Not like propaganda in the schools, but we did need to learn Russian. There was no choice. It was during the Brezhnev years. And then, the Gorbachev years came. I remember the period of 1985 to 1990: everything became a little bit more Estonian. There was a shift in the culture. Suddenly everything was blue, black, and white.
I didn’t necessarily understand the politics at the time. My town was very small, a village commune, so it wasn’t as affected. I do remember some strange things we had to do — like parades on the 9th of May¹, or a parade in November². Something about celebrating a victory in World War 2. All of the school children were told to go walk in the streets and we held flags, but I didn’t know why.
Looking at my kids now, their world is so much different from mine. The world is more open to them. It really changed when Estonia joined the Schengen area. Now, with an Estonian or EU passport, you can travel anywhere. Already, I’ve already driven through most of the European countries in a car with my kids. They know so much already. I didn’t go anywhere when I was their age. My entire world was maybe a circle of 100 or 200 km away from my home. My world was just Estonia.
Estonia is in a good place right now. Even though we have a neighbor who is…not necessarily aggressive, but Russia is not exactly our friend at the moment. They almost never have been.
I know many friendly people from Russia. Many people who live in Estonia are immigrants from Russia³. Most people who came to Estonia from Russia recently are more friendly than families who have been here for a couple of generations. So, they can be very warm and kind.
But if I look at politics, I need to look at Moscow and the Kremlin. It’s not just about Estonia or politics — there is a hostility to everyone outside of Russia.
Of course, if you live closer, then you are more in danger. It’s interesting seeing what is happening with Navalny at the moment. People are not satisfied anymore. More and more, people want to express their dissatisfaction with the current power. It’s hard to say what we can do to change it, or what should happen, because there’s a risk. The risk is that if someone besides Putin is in power, then the regime will be even worse.
I hope the change will be peaceful, because if it’s not peaceful then we will definitely be hit in some way. That would not be good. Yes, we have alliances from NATO, the U.S., and the EU, but I can still feel some…nervousness in the air. They are only 200 or 300 kilometers away. They are still doing wartime exercises. It’s at a scale that is unimaginable — from Murmansk to the Black Sea. It’s huge. It’s unimaginable for Estonia. Even if we put 100% of our GDP into the military, we are still a very small country.
In 1991, our independence was restored. This is very important for Estonians — we did not gain independence. It was restored, from the time we declared independence 103 years ago.
In the 1990s, the economy was very tough. The dot-com bubble did not cause our economy to fail, because we didn’t have technology as much — we barely had mobile phones and fax machines. But we worked very hard at it and countries like Finland and Sweden invested in us.
Technology is so important to us. Our government calls it e-citizenship. It’s amazing! I don’t need to go anywhere for anything. I can do everything in front of a computer screen! The only things I need to go in person for are to renew my passport and my citizenship card. Everything else I can do online. Even, for example: showing up in court.
One time I needed to have a court appointment, to take care of some things. All I did was go online, fill out the form, attach my files, and pay ten euros. One month later everything was taken care of.
I am very excited about this: Estonia is now a space nation. Can you imagine! Estonia just joined the European Space Agency, and now Estonians are writing code for the ESA. In fact, my company just got one of the contracts. It’s unbelievable. Even ten years ago, it would have been unbelievable.
Footnotes
¹ This refers to Victory Day, a holiday that commemorates the surrender of Nazi Germany. (It is alternatively celebrated on May 8, due to time zone differences between Russia and European countries.)
² This appears to be a reference to October Revolution Day, a public holiday in the Soviet Union that held major importance during the mid-20th century.
³ There seems to be a sentiment that these immigrants from Russia are not Estonians, nor can they ever become Estonians. Heiki describes Estonians as people whose mother tongue is Estonian.
This is part of a conversation series centered around the country of Estonia. Click here to read the introduction.
