You may remember a few weeks ago I spoke of the monument to Russian soldiers in Tallinn, the governement wanted to tear it down and there was massive public debate over the issue, well yesterday they finally tried to remove the statue and all hell broke lose in Tallinn, I told you history was happening!
Thats old mate there, a monument errected by the Soviets to commerate the soldiers who died "liberating" Estonia from the Nazis in WWII. However many in Estonia see it as a symbol of 50 years of occupation. Due to these good times after WWII, Estonia is still about 1/3 ethnically Russian, the Soviets had the bright idea to ship Estonians off to Siberia and import more Russians to help things out.
So you have a big Russian population in Tallinn particularly and last night things went beserk after the government sent in the bulldozers to remove the monument yesterday. I was sitting at my friends house chillaxing when a friend of a friend calls, its estonia and theres only 1.4 million people so news travels fast. Switch on the TV and I dont need to understand the words to know whats happening, its some good old fashioned rioting and looting going on in downtown Tallinn.
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These pictures are taken from a blog called "Life After Eesti" which you can read at http://asehr.blogspot.com/ The news program showed this very car being turned over, its a nice maroon Volvo S60. Aint no better way to riot than by turning cars over I say. I also realise that the very place where the car is turned over IS ELE’S FRONT DOOR. Sweet jesus, turns out the mob is just going after goods rather than people and everything is ok.
I dont know what the situation is like this morning but I imagine Tallinn is in a pretty sorry state. I should be getting some more images of the action soon and Ill post them later but WAAWAAWOOWAA, what a night. Things are still festive and happy here in Tartu thankfully. This is history happening definitly.
Heres some youtube videos for you, firstly is a video report from Russian news from a few days ago, it gives a good background to the issues here in Engish, only 1.50 long
and heres some footage of the insanity in action last night
NEWS FLASH
As I mentioned Ele was on the front lines last night and took some great videos and photos at her blog http://kizka.multiply.com Apparently the army rolled through sometime mid morning and cleaned up the rest of the Russians lingering in the street but tensions are pretty high right now, Russia has already agree to begin a export blockade of goods, its a tricky move because Russia needs Tallinn as a port as much as Estonia needs the business however. Heres my favourite celebrity of the night, the upturned Volvo now turned the right way again! Knowing Volvo, I BET it still works just fine.Check it out, hardly a scratch. Maybe I should make this bloke an offer for his slightly worn second hand S60? Photo by Ele.
