Word: baltics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...their long-standing ties with Moscow, the Armenians have a detailed list of complaints against the Soviet state. Aside from the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, a special sore point has been bureaucratic insensitivity to the environment, as in the Baltic states. Ever since the Soviet Union under Stalin began to industrialize in the 1920s, Moscow has built the republic into a leading chemical-production center. One result is chronic air pollution. "The air is so bad, you can no longer see Mount Ararat," complains a Yerevan resident, referring to the snow-peaked 16,945-ft. mountain some 30 miles away across...
Next month the movement to return Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenian control will attempt to broaden its character by transforming itself into a Baltic-style Armenian All-National Movement. Like similar organizations in Estonia and Lithuania, the group will officially be committed to supporting perestroika, though its agenda may not be identical to Moscow's. So far, the group's organizers have not announced a specific program, but they are expected to press for issues such as more Armenian-language instruction in schools, greater economic independence for the region, and the right to establish embassies in other Soviet republics with cities...
Four days earlier, the Kremlin had dispatched three Politburo members to the Baltic region to head off dissent on the constitutional package. While Vadim Medvedev, party secretary for ideology, visited factories in Latvia, and Politburo member Nikolai Slyunkov engaged in street debates in Lithuania, former KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov confronted the restive Estonians. "You can achieve sovereignty," he warned during a factory visit, "but you can lose everything else...
Centralization has also battered the fragile Baltic environment. Economists estimate that nearly all the pollution that fouls Estonian rivers, lakes and the Baltic Sea is emitted by industries controlled by eight Moscow ministries. An even touchier question is Moscow's role in skewing the republic's demography. During the industrialization drive of the 1960s and 1970s, the Kremlin sent huge numbers of non-Estonian workers to the region. As a result, Estonians now make up only 60% of the population. The influx has revived bitter memories of Stalin-era deportations, when tens of thousands of Estonians were branded as opponents...
...response to Popular Front appeals, some local planners are touting a scheme to turn the Baltic States into "self-financing" republics, fiscally independent of Moscow and empowered to manage their natural resources. Language is another concern: last month the Estonian supreme soviet issued a draft law declaring Estonian the official language of the republic. Plans are also being discussed to introduce a form of Estonian citizenship as a step toward controlling immigration...