Word: baltics
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...more work. But they were double- edged. The shovel brigade was not organized by the Communist Party but by a new, pro-perestroika grass-roots movement called the Estonian Popular Front. Since the group first emerged last April in the most northerly of the Soviet Union's three Baltic republics, similar movements have taken root and flourished in neighboring Latvia and Lithuania, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers. What unites them is the common goal of promoting greater regional autonomy. In the words of the Latvian movement's draft program, people want "to be masters in their own land...
Since annexing Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in 1940, Moscow has tried to stifle resurgent nationalism in the Baltic states. Flags from the brief era of independence between the two World Wars were banned from public display. So many workers flooded in from outside the region that non-Latvians now outnumber Latvians (52% to 48%) and Estonians constitute only 60% of the population in their republic. Economic decisions take the form of edicts from Moscow. Notes Indrek Toome, chief ideologist of the Estonian Communist Party: "In our own republic we are not entitled to fix the price of a cinema ticket...
This shrewd collaboration may be calculated to keep the party from losing the initiative and divert nationalist sentiment into controllable channels. But the tactic is not without risk. Concerned that 90% of the Popular Front members are Estonian, Russians who live in the Baltic republic have formed their own "international" movement. Estonian leader Valjas has urged Popular Front members to "avoid aggravating nationalist disputes...
...Serbs are not the only group in the Communist world that are undergoing a revival of nationalism. In the Soviet Union tensions are smoldering in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave in the republic of Azerbaijan. Vigorous popular fronts have sprung up in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Though sanctioned by the local Communist Parties, the movements boldly tested the very limits of glasnost...
...style of questioning were turned on himself, he would reply that he is a bachelor who shares an apartment with relatives in Tallinn, the Baltic port city that serves as Estonia's capital. "If I were a Russian, the only type of life for me would be in Moscow," he says. "But I am an Estonian, and the surroundings in Tallinn suit me." As for his salary, he is paid the equivalent of $320 for each broadcast. Ott considers playing tennis a "sacred activity." Not that he has much free time these days. A celebrity in his own right...