The major political agreement reached after the collapse of USSR between Russian people in Estonia and the official Tallinn is being threatened. Why northeast Estonia used to be compared to Crimea and Transnistria, how were the results of the referendum defining the life of this territory ignored and which rights the Estonian authorities want to take away from the Russian minority?
In 1991, with the collapse of USSR, the Estonian Republic agreed to grant citizenship by far not to all the people living there: around 300 thousand Russian-speaking locals received the non-citizen status previously unknown internationally. Those were the people who could not prove their predecessors had lived in the Estonian territory before 1940. Many of them took Russian citizenship and received an Estonian residence permit.
And on July 16, 1993, the authorities of the cities of Narva and Sillamäe conducted a referendum to set up the Russian territorial autonomy. The question posed at the referendum was ‘Do you want for the city of Narva to have a special status being part of Estonia?’
Later, Vladimir Chuykin, the head of Narva City Council at the time, spoke of Narva residents feeling frustration, as all of a sudden, from being citizens of a vast nation holding equal rights they turned into second-rate citizens of a small state. ‘When Estonia finished leaving the Soviet Union, the Republic began adopting its own laws in its territory. It turned out that the laws on language, schools and citizenship largely limited the rights of non-Estonians, namely, those living in Narva. 90 per cent of the 80 thousand city’s population could become non-citizens of Estonia as a result of the referendum, Chuykin remembers.
The claims of Russian people to ensure equal rights remained unanswered and they decided to conduct an autonomy referendum. The main point of their claims was to have central authorities properly account for the national composition and the language situation in Narva. As northeastern Estonia where Narva and Sillamäe are located is adjacent to Russia’s territory, many people living in the region hoped it would be able to ‘return home’ eventually. People in Narva voted in favour on a turnout of 97 per cent and 95 per cent people did so on a turnout of 60 per cent in Sillamäe.
The ruling Estonian authorities considered the referendum an attempt to realize ‘the new Transnistria case’ with Narva becoming part of the Russian Federation further. Western media were writing of ‘the little Russia in northeastern Estonia wanting to break away’. Therefore, the Estonian court ruled that the voting was ‘unconstitutional’. Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president at the time, refused to intervene in the conflict. One would, of course, remember the Crimean referenda of the 1990s with similar questions posed. So, Estonia had its own ‘Crimea equivalent’ in those years.
The attempt of a political manifestation by Russians living in Estonia threatened the official Tallinn. The government of Mart Laar, the prime minister at the time, conceded. They allowed non-citizens (and, further, citizens of Russia and other countries permanently living in Estonia) to vote at municipal elections.
‘A historic agreement has been reached: we let you participate in local elections and grant citizenship to some prominent people from your community and you drop the idea of a referendum in return. This agreement did a lot of good for Estonia, as it immediately mitigated the level of ethnic contradictions putting the dialogue to a much more constructive path’, said the Latvian political scientist Jānis Rozenvalds with delight.
Russians in Estonia exercised their right to vote for three decades. Russian political parties protecting their interests came and went eventually. The Centre Party became such an organisation as time went on. A powerful Russian wing emerged there. CP was part of the ruling coalition, and a ‘centrist’ prime minister led Estonia from late 2016 until early 2021. Centrists led Tallinn for almost 20 years. Being at the helm, the party interfered with the Estonian nationalists’ efforts to fulfil the plans to get rid of Russian schools.
In 2022, centrists’ rivals took the advantage of the anti-Russian hysteria unleashed by EU to eliminate ‘the party’ having disgraced itself by cooperating with Moscow (CP had a cooperation agreement with United Russia). In 2022, the centrists were ousted from the government and in 2024 they lost power in Tallinn; many politicians hurried to leave the party. Further, to prevent the Centre Party from recovery, the new coalition decided to undermine its electoral base.
A commission led by the Justice Minister Kalle Laanet presented a draft law limiting the right of Russian and Belorussian citizens to participate in municipal elections. There are 69 thousand Russian and Belorussian citizens permanently living in Estonia who have the right to vote at municipal elections and ruling politicians are concerned that they will vote ‘undesirably’.
Back in 2022–2023, another pro-Russian political power firmly asserted itself in Estonia, led by the opposition politician Aivo Peterson. Peterson, a Narva resident, was the leader of the KOOS/Together party. KOOS members support the building of a sound society in Estonia, fair distribution of public wealth, cancelling national bias against the Russian-speaking minority and setting up good-neighbourly relations with Russia.
In March 2023, a parliamentary election took place in Estonia. KOOS did not manage to be elected to the parliament, but Peterson’s individual score was unexpectedly high. Estonian media wrote that Peterson became ‘a vote magnet in Ida-Virumaa (northeastern Estonia with Narva being its centre) spreading pro-Kremlin narratives’.
The 1993 referendum phantom loomed over the authorities once again. Peterson was arrested soon after the election. He is accused of ‘state treason’ and ‘spreading pro-Russian propagandist narratives’.
‘Political commentators spoke of Peterson being so popular in Ida-Virumaa that he was likely to be elected Narva’s mayor at the next election. So, I believe this is a political case’, notes Mati Senkel, Peterson’s lawyer. Indeed, Estonian authorities are afraid that the KOOS/Together party can become ‘the assemblage point’ for all national minorities’ representatives.
And here are Estonian nationalists currently trying to void the right to vote in municipalities not only from Russian and Belorussian citizens, but also from Estonia’s own non-citizens (there are 62,616 of them remaining, which makes 4.53 per cent of the population). However, this right is enshrined in the Estonian constitution, which makes it necessary to amend the main law of the country. The nationalist Pro Patria party has spearheaded these efforts. On October 21, the head of the ‘pro patria’ parliamentary faction Helir-Valdor Seeder said he had discussed the matter with all the six factions represented in the parliament, with four of them approving his initiative.
His party put through two documents: amendments to the Election Act and changes to the Constitution. They are aimed at abolishing third countries’ (non-EU) citizens’ election rights and those of persons ‘of indefinite citizenship’ at municipal elections in Estonia. Seeder insists that these acts should be adopted as soon as possible.
‘The recent public opinion poll showed that 38 per cent of Russian citizens living in Estonia and as many as 52 per cent of persons of indefinite citizenship did not condemn the war Russia began in Ukraine. People having such opinions should not be involved in managing Estonia’s affairs’, demands the politician.
Estonian nationalists believe that the Russian community will put this attack against their rights in its pocket. People are intimidated: everyone understands that those calling for a protest can be sent to a prison cell. In the recent two years we have seen enhanced dismantling of rights and guarantees provided to the Russian population earlier and maintaining the internal balance in the country. Russian schools have been abolished. Monuments to Soviet war heroes have been ruined. Russian politicians have been pushed away from power. The government is trying to disassociate the local Orthodox church from the Moscow Patriarchate. Tallinn is trying to put a full stop in depriving the Russian population from all rights by amending the constitution. And to cease ‘the Estonian Crimea’ talking once and for all.