Word: estonians
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...elderly couple, ethnic Russians afraid to identify themselves beyond their first names Ivan and Natalya, walk slowly across the bridge that links the Estonian city of Narva to the Russian community of Ivan-Gorod. They used to make the trip easily, before the break-up of the Soviet Union turned the Narva River into the official boundary between two independent countries. Above the huge medieval fortress that guards the west bank flies the Estonian flag. On the eastern shore, a rugged rampart displays the Russian tricolor. On the bridge below, lines of pedestrians and cars move slowly between customs posts...
...problem has reached the boiling point in Estonia, where ethnic Russians and other Russian speakers make up 40% of the 1.6 million population. Worried about becoming a minority in their own homeland, Estonians in the State Assembly passed a package of laws that would deny citizenship -- and hence employment -- to anyone who had moved to Estonia after 1940 and who failed to pass a very complicated language test. Last month another law was passed requiring noncitizens to apply for either Estonian or Russian citizenship or to register as aliens and face possible deportation. "We want to determine where they stand...
Last spring the Estonian government granted citizenship only to those inhabitants, and their descendants, who had lived in the republic during its brief period of independence between the two World Wars. All others, most of them Russians who immigrated during Soviet rule, were left out and could not vote in recent elections. Estonia's naturalization rules are relatively lenient, however -- just three years' residency, knowledge of Estonian and an oath of loyalty. In Latvia, where fears of Russian political and cultural dominance are justifiably greater, parliament is considering a draconian 16- year residency period...
...Balts view the issue differently: Russian migration was the means by which the Kremlin subjugated them. "Is making Latvian the official language a deprivation of human rights?" asks Viesturs Karnups, director of the Latvian Department of Citizenship. Argues Estonian journalist Tarmu Tammerk: "There is a misperception in the West. Most Russians here have come to terms with the fact that this is a foreign country...
...Russian communities have not organized any broad-based resistance movement to protest the alleged discrimination. The main reason is economic: for all the hardship in the Baltics, most Russians know that life across the border is far worse. "We're between two fires," says Dmitri Klenski, an Estonian-born Russian. "There is nothing for us in Russia, and no one wants us in Estonia...