What is Estonia to Finland ?

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August 13, 2006

What is Estonia to Finland ?

What is the status of Finnish/Estonian relations ? Are they warm or cold ?

Mostly warm. Interestingly enough, though, the Estonians do not look to Finland as some kind of ideal or model. Finland, like Sweden and Norway, is a relatively interventionist welfare 'nanny' state. This means that we have virtually no poverty, but we pay very high taxes and have to put up with many petty restrictions which are 'good' for us but can be a pain in the neck, for example wine and hard liquor cannot be sold retail on Sundays or during the Easter vacation (the liquor stores are closed for four days), there are strict laws governing business hours, and things that are 'bad' for you such as cigarettes and automobiles have almost confiscatory taxes on them.

Estonia has constructed a 'leaner, meaner' state : a flat tax rate, more individual freedom to decide how to be successful (or fail), fewer petty restrictions - all alcoholic beverages can be sold around the clock any day of the week - and there is no special tax on cars (vs. more than a 100% tax in Finland). The good side is that ambitious people in Estonia have prospered markedly during the past nine years, the down side is that the weak, the less ambitious, those that plan their lives stupidly or impractically (from the standpoint of making money) have fallen by the wayside. The social net in Estonia has large holes in it, and you can't avoid seeing that many poor people live among the outwardly prosperous majority of Estonians.

Many Finns expected Estonia to build a Social-Democratic style welfare state, and were surprised and to some degree miffed that Estonia, which they wanted to regard as a little brother, chose to model itself after America rather than after Finland. The good side of this is that Helsinki and Tallinn, close as they are, have very different atmospheres and are thus quite fascinating for people who know one but not the other, or who are familiar with both.

What do Finns think of Estonians and Estonians of Finns ?
Relations are cordial and genuinely friendly, but not without problems.
Many Finns established deep personal relationships with Estonians already during the Soviet period. Once tourist traffic was opened in 1965 it was never difficult for Finns to visit Estonia ; nor was it ever terribly difficult for Estonians to visit Finland, especially after the beginning of *perestroika* in 1985. Many friendships between families, institutes, and companies were established decades ago, so the relationships between Finns and Estonians are often deeper than the normal friendly ones seen between neighboring countries.....

.... Estonians make up the second largest group, after Russians, of people sentenced for crimes in Finland. Lately, many of these crimes have involved narcotics, often manufactured in secret laboratories in the surroundings of Tallinn. Otherwise Estonians visiting Finland dress like Finns and tend to look like Finns, so they don't stand out and are thus not noticeable like Russian tourists. More than ten thousand Finns visit Estonia every day, so the tourist trade is an important source of revenue for Estonia.

This means that they have to tolerate some of the more obnoxious traits that certain Finns have :
- walking around town in sweatsuits, often with an open can of beer in hand (forbidden in Helsinki),
- pissing in the streets and in parks (forbidden in Helsinki),
- and talking loudly and aggressively under the influence of alcohol.
Tallinn also has a much more varied open sex industry than Helsinki does, and some Estonians resent the idea of drunken Finns coming to oogle girls or visit the cathouses (forbidden in Helsinki), although without a product there wouldn't be a market. Many Finns still tend to have a "little brother" attitude towards the Estonians, while some Estonians are developing a "country cousin" attitude towards the Finns.

Considering that Finnish and Estonian are very similar languages, are Finns and Estonians promoting Pan Finnic-Ugric movements ?

No. The languages are not quite similar enough to be mutually comprehensible - many Finns and Estonians communicate in English - and, unlike the Scandinavian languages, they are quite different with respect to their 'souls'.

Finnish is basically a conservative, inward looking language with a strong tendency to solve its communicative problems by making use of its own resources, e.g. puhelin "telephone" (puhel(e)- "to chat" + -in 'instrument'), cf. Estonian "telefoon" ; Finnish lukuunottamatta "except" (lukuun "into the number" + ottamatta "without taking", cf. Estonian "väljavötetud" (välja "out" + vötetud "taken") on the model of German ausgenommen.

Estonian, on the other hand, is more cosmopolitan, with lots of loanwords, loan translations, and grammatical constructions taken from German and, to a lesser degree, Russian.

I heard that a lot of Finns live in Estonia.

Several thousand. It has not been uncommon for a Finnish man to find an Estonian girl friend, typically a divorced woman with a child, and make an "arrangement" with her : a place to stay and company when visiting Tallinn against some help with living costs. There are many Finns involved in business, commerce, and consulting : I've seen Finns selling stuff out of the back of trucks at the central marketplace n Tallinn. And some Finns just rent an apartment for a month or two in Estonia order to "get away from it all" : a Finnish salary goes a long way in Estonia where prices tend to be about 30 to 40 per cent what they are in Finland for basic living expenses.

and many Estonians speak Finnish.

And an increasing number of Finns is learning Estonian, even if bad Finnish and English are the languages most often used in everyday contacts on the tourist level. For both linguistic and cultural reasons Estonians learn Finnish, which in many ways is an archaic dialect of Estonian, more easily than Finns learn Estonian, which is like Finnish with many of the communicationally important syllables and endings missing, and many familiar words having ever so slightly different or absurd meanings meanings, e.g.

- Estonian *Ära raiska oma raha!* "Don't waste your money !" looks to a Finn like *Äla raiskaa [sinun] omaa rahaa[si]* "Don't rape your money !",
- a frequently seen sign like *Naiste ja laste ülikonnad* "Women's and children's outfits" looks suspiciously like *Naisten ja lasten ylikonnat* "Women's and children's supertoads/supervillains",
- and the notice *Parkeerimine keelatud ilma loata*. "Parking prohibited without a permit" looks supiciously like *Parkeeraminen kielletty ilma loatta* "Parking prohibited the air without mud".

When Estonia regained her independence in 1991. Were the Finns excited that a long lost brother had regained statehood ?

For me (not a Finn by birth) it was one of the most exciting things I have ever witnessed, and many of my Finnish friends feel the same way. It was broadcast directly, and Finnish and Estonian are similar enough for it to have been possible to follow what was happening without a translation.
Official Finland, on the other hand, was not so enthusiastic. The president at the time, Mauno Koivisto, advised the Estonians to take it easy. His caution is understandable : a Soviet invasion could have resulted in all three Baltic countries and heaven knows what else going up into flames. I remember visiting Tallinn shortly before the re-establishment of independence in May, 1991. The Soviets had already shot on and killed innocent demonstrators in Vilnius and Riga, and the Estonians had prepared for the worse by surrounding the seat of government on Toompea with house-sized boulders. Luckily, the Estonians were spared the fate of their two sister republics to the south and problems, including ultimate withdrawal, between the government and the Soviet/ Russian army were resolved in a gentlemanlike manner.

On the other hand, though, the Soviet borders were opened up in 1989 so free travel (with a visa, though) between Estonia and Finland were already commonplace by the time Estonia regained her independence. Things were normalized three years ago when travel in both directions became visa free. Now, for us in Helsinki at least, visiting Tallinn is easier and cheaper than visiting Turku or Tampere.

Regards,
Eugene Holman

August 13, 2006 in Country Info and Statistics | Permalink