Word: sovietizers
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...long borne witness to the brutality of occupation. Built in 1840 by Russian Czar Nicholas I, it was used[an error occurred while processing this directive] as a prison and execution site by the two powers that marched into Estonia in the 20th century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But Estonia is once again an independent country, the last prisoners have gone, and one Friday night last month, the fortress was literally pulsating with a new kind of energy as hundreds of Tallinn youngsters, some speaking Russian, others Estonian, packed into the place for an ear-splitting all-night...
...forward looking." Ilves narrowly won the vote, by electoral college. But a bigger challenge for Estonia's future may be the past. The nation still nurses deep wounds. Ethnic Russians comprise about one-quarter of Estonia's population, many of them the families of people shipped in during the Soviet period as part of a program to tame the country's irredentism. Since Estonian independence, thousands of these Russians have passed an exam to become naturalized Estonians. But some 130,000, almost 10% of the population, haven't, and officials reckon that about half of them don't want...
...This generation finds ethnic rivalries far less interesting than the economic boom. It's one of Estonia's characteristics that many of the top jobs in politics and business are held by people under 40, who were too young to have been tainted by the Soviet past. They are also the ones building the new homes that are shooting up on the outskirts of Tallinn, and refurbishing their apartments. Much of this is being done on credit; banks report that their lending is up by a startling 50% this year, leading some to worry about a bubble economy, especially...
...state rapidly privatized over 10,000 trading, service and industrial firms. As often happened in post-Soviet countries, the best of these firms were sold off to insiders, shoring up the power bases of important clans. But the biggest economic engine was oil, and that required outside help. Says Mikhail Dorofeyev, public relations director of KazMunaiGaz: "We offered oil to the West in exchange for technology, know-how and money...
...opposition sustained a serious blow last February when its key leader, Altynbek Sarsenbayev - who had been Nazarbayev's Information Minister, secretary of the Security Council, and ambassador to Moscow - and two associates were murdered by a group of officers belonging to the National Security Committee (KNB), heir to the Soviet-era KGB. Late last month, a court found Yerzhan Utembayev, the former Senate chief of staff, guilty of putting out the contract on Sarsenbayev "for reasons of personal enmity," and sentenced him to 20 years. Nine others received sentences ranging from three years to life for complicity in the murder...