“You are our compatriots, not the Russian government’s”

So were the words of President of Estonia to Estonian-Russians.

President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves spoke before students of a Russian humanitarian high school in Narva during his visit to the country’s northeast. Ilves said he well understands the feelings of people who arrived in Estonia from different ends of the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20^th century, as well as the feelings of their descendants. He reminded that his own grandmother had to flee from Russia to Estonia after the “Bolshevik coop”.

REGNUM correspondent reports the Estonia president to say that he would not want the Russians who have moved to Estonia and their descendants to feel strangers in the country. He said: “Living in Estonia, you are our compatriots. Exactly our compatriots – not compatriots of the Russian government. This means that your concerns are not concerns of the government of Russia or the president of Russia, but our concerns. We cannot get along without you. Estonia is too little a country to indulge in indifference to her compatriots,” Ilves stated.

86% of Estonia’s northeast populace are Russian-speaking. Ilves is the first president of Estonia who does not master the Russian language.