What We Really Think (So Far) About Ieva Ilves — Estonia’s New First Lady

Ieva Ilves, née Kupce, recently appeared on an interview (her first) on Estonian TV. Sooner her than me!…

Whisper it quietly (because he won’t!) but our Dario has recently written a piece for Estonian public broadcaster ETV after an interview with new first Lady Ieva Ilves (formerly ‘Kupce’).

Not a bad article but naturally given the publication it has had to be somewhat restrained; we don’t need to worry about such formalities at the Dissenter of course, since we’re not a national mouthpiece as such and anyway there’s only like about five people reading this!

That aside, here is my take on the interview part of the ‘Kahekõne’ (a translation for Ex Pats could be ‘Face to Face’) series, with the new Mrs. Ilves, her first in Estonia.

Almost a Local Girl Made Good

Whilst naturally attracting a huge amount of interest because of her new role, Ieva is not really all that exotic, something touched upon towards the end of the interview.

She’s a Latvian, from Salacgrīva, a town almost on the Estonian/Latvian border and may well have some Liivi (a Finno-Ugric people related to the Estonians) ancestry; to my eyes she could also pass for a local.

The interviewer, Indrek Treufeldt, also notes that Mrs. Ilves comes from the same Soviet/Post-Soviet background (she’d have been about 15 when the USSR collapsed) as any Estonian of the same age, in marked contrast to the President himself, who as an American (albeit of Estonian parents) presents a few more cultural hurdles to cross in his media relations.

So it’s a conversation between equals who have an added equal language handicap (it’s an Ex Pat-friendly interview this time since, it was conducted in English) though perhaps someone needs to run through question formation with Indrek (‘how it is to learn Estonian’, ‘how long it could take…’ etc.).

A Tale of Two Interviews

The interview is however one of two halves; the first half is a very awkward probing of Mrs. Ilves personal life, conducted at the usual pedestrian pace you get on Estonian TV, and at times comes to resemble a bit of an interrogation (‘you’re one of us now’, Treufeldt rather sinisterly informs the new first lady!) but Mrs. Ilves seems to take it in her stride, whilst clearly feeling uncomfortable.

The second half makes for much easier viewing, and this is why they got the interview upside down. I’d have done the second half — with the friendly ‘oh we Estonians and Latvians we’re cousins and good neighbors’ bit, plus the all-too-brief (because interesting) section on Mrs. Ilves’ work — first.

That way, the interviewer would have gained Mrs. Ilves confidence, established a rapport and so perhaps been able to wheedle a little more out about her relationship with Toomas, how they met etc. (in other words what everyone wants to know about).

What we got instead was a pretty frigid first few minutes and Ilves’ relief once Treufeldt wrapped up that topic was palpable.

What I’d Have Asked

One elephant in the room which hardly helped was the implication that Ieva is somehow playing Camilla Parker-Bowles to Evelyn Ilves (her predecessor, and the Presiden’ts second wife), not helped by the charge Treufeldt levels that the engagement and wedding happened too soon after the dissolution of Toomas previous wife. Again, the new Mrs. Ilves handled these questions with aplomb — I can imagine a lot of Estonian women getting far more rattled by this line of questioning.

But then again, Ieva is not, and never will be, an Estonian in spite of coming from just next door and her position — and is thus subject to a subtly lower level of respect than is accorded by and to Estonians (who have any sort of position, that is).

So if Toomas had taken a British or American woman, say, as his third wife, any ensuing interviews could’ve been a bloody train wreck, certainly if Indrek Treufeldt was in the hot seat.

Another thing I’d have asked about, a phenomenon that’s always puzzled me, is why not tackle the President’s famous short temper (witness the Twitter spat or the Dermot Murnaghan ‘Tell him to shut up’ episode).

I know the interview wasn’t with the President himself but as Treufeldt points out early on in the interview, through the marriage Ieva has made herself a public figure and thus has to bat for her new husband when in public.

In short, I thought that Mrs Ilves acquitted herself well, came across as intelligent and — well, god forbid, if things don’t work out in the long run with Toomas, you know where to contact me!

For those who don’t want to watch the whole thing, here’s a blow-by-blow account of the main stages of the interview:

0'-2' Preliminary niceties; an absolute (probably unintentional) peach if you watch closely, after Indrek Treufeldt opens with the rather worn ‘can you say the Estonian ‘õ’ letter correctly [because most foreigners can’t]’ question, Mrs. Ilves retorts by saying ‘well I know Russian well so I can pretty much make that sound’ (referring to the ‘ы’ letter in Russian). Ouch!

2'-4' Deals with the attention Mrs. Ilves gets now and moves on to the topic of the engagement.

4'-6' Rather clumsy line of questioning about how Mrs. Ilves, as a ‘christian’ (which could mean all sorts of things) would want a formal marriage proposal, as if the one automatically goes with the other.

7'-12' The really toe curling part of the interview concerning general bitchiness from the Estonian public that Ieva has inevitably encountered… more language confusion — when Mrs. Ilves said that her former partner and the father of her children was ‘not among us’ I assume she doesn’t mean he is dead?!*

13'-16' The much more comfortable second half of the interview gets underway with an interesting and informative discussion of cybersecurity and the places Mrs. Ilves has worked.

17'-22' Segues into the cultural, historical and political links between Latvia and Estonia. As I said I’d have put that right at the beginning of the interview.

For those who have Estonian there are plenty more interesting Kahekõne interviews on the site.

*According to Mrs. Ilves Estonian-language Wikipedia entry, her former partner and the father of her older child, is at the time of writing Latvian Ambassdor to Greece.