Everyday from the world: Russian-speaking and low-income people are increasingly living in Estonia on their own worlds, writes Rain Kooli, ‘s Estonian journalist.
TALLINN Just over ten years ago, I rented my family a semi-detached house near Tallinn. It was owned by an older Estonian Russian Viktora graduate engineer and a two-term MP.
When he brought the keys, he introduced, among other things, the TV antennas in the house. There was a plate and an antenna mast on the roof.
– I don’t even know how many channels they show. Probably about five hundred, Viktor said.
I thought he was joking, but it was true. The most wonderful channels from Serbian to French, Portuguese and Arabic were found on my television. Not to mention the comprehensive channel offer in Russia.
Only one country shone in its absence. The host had never acquired a set-top box that would have shown Estonian TV channels.
I thought then ohoh. I had previously talked about the Estonian Russians in their own information bubble as a bit of an exaggeration.
But if even a well-to-do MP who has been sitting in the Riigikogu for years in the Estonian Parliament does not watch the TV channels of his home country, how can this be expected of ordinary Estonian Russians?
Russian-speakers are much more likely to live in suburbs dominated by Soviet-era prefabricated houses. They have lower average incomes, lower housing prices per square meter and a poorer starting point for success.
– Compared to Europe, the socio-economic differences between different residential areas are greater than in Tallinn only in Paris and Madrid, Eesti Ekspress writes.
The money goes to the money. Better-income Estonians are moving away from suburbs like Lasnamäe and Õismäki.
However, low-income people from other Russian-speaking areas of Estonia, such as North-Eastern Estonia or Maardu, are entering the farm.
So the suburbs are getting poorer and more Russian-speaking.
In the light of increasing inequality, this is a dangerous development. It is when you give a delicious lunch to Russia, which is always ready to sow, to develop stories about Tallinn’s Russian ghettos.
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