National Geographic : 1980 Apr
at customs. Mail is routinely censored. Today the economic and political systems of Estonia are fully integrated into the U.S.S.R. Least populous of the 15 repub lics, Estonia has parlayed her educated work force and strong prewar economic base of oil-shale and phosphate mining, tex tiles, and metal products to become, along with Latvia, the most industrially advanced in the Soviet Union. They are also the repub lics with the highest standards of living, surpassing much of Mediterranean Europe. "The problem is," a college professor told me, "Estonians don't compare themselves with the other Soviet republics-they com pare themselves to the West. They want to know why they're not equal with the Danes, rather than with the Uzbeks." But the years of terror, the midnight knock at the door, have passed, as have the years of violent resistance, and Estonia's collective will to survive has been channeled into achievement despite the occupation. "We are not intimidated," is the prevailing mood. "We exist." Although the war virtually emptied the nation of its ablest and brightest, a new gen eration has risen to build Estonia from the inside. Its cultural tenacity and economic achievements under difficult circumstances are remarkable for a nation of 1.4 million people who share a language with no one. Well informed and savvy about world af fairs and arts (I was questioned in detail about Americans from Thelonious Monk to John Cheever), Estonians increasingly pro vide a cultural link between Western avant gardism and socialist realism. In my two months of travel I heard an eloquent and forceful Estonian-language Hamlet. I found an enthusiasm for literature and a reverence for learning that has culmi nated in an impressive eight-volume Estoni an encyclopedia. I saw sophisticated skill with graphics and design, a deep feeling for traditional arts and crafts, and I heard a rich diversity of music, from medieval wind con sorts to bluegrass to the modern Estonian composers Arvo Piirt and Eino Tamberg. I also visited a fishing cooperative's gleaming new hospital, built with its own labor and funds, an experimental six-story pig-raising complex, and a collective farm that has used its profits to set up a hand cal culator industry, buying circuitry from Tex as Instruments. And everywhere I saw a people adapting, innovating, and simply excelling in what has been required-be it mechanization of industry or collectiviza tion of agriculture. OTHING HAS BEEN EASY. Soviet capital poured in for industry after the war, but housing and services were left to wither. Living standards plummeted, and industrialization created a demand for labor that could not be met by local peo ple. Russian and other Slavic immigrants came in waves. Today almost 40 percent of the republic's population is non-Estonian, and in Tallinn the number is rapidly approaching half. Re lations are strained. There is little social mixing, and the immigrants become ready scapegoats. "Vene viirk!-Russian stuff!" is a common expletive heard around flat tires and broken-down refrigerators. Many of the immigrants are content with laboring jobs that Estonians avoid, even though wages are higher for the ditchdigger (about 300 rubles monthly-$450) than for the physician(150 to 200 rubles). The major ity of Estonians are left to form a new face less middle class, a nation of state workers and collective farmers. They live quiet lives, in begrudging but passive collaboration with the party. "But I think we are more secure in life than you are," a young woman told me. "We never worry about having a job, or whether we'll have enough to eat." Marxism is taught with a confidence usu ally reserved for the multiplication tables, but seems to have lost its revolutionary intensity. During a flag-raising ceremony at Kose-Liikati summer camp for Young A two-basket buyer headsfor gooseberries,grapes, onions, and other fresh produce at a Tallinn market for privately grown foods. Farmersfrom as far away as the Black Sea bring crops to sell at the market here, since warm-weather fruits not available at state stores will bring high prices. NationalGeographic,April 1980 496