PUTIN SHAME: WHY IN BALTIC REGION OF CURRENT USA THERE ARE STATELESS
PEOPLE?

Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times
Many ethnic Russians in Estonia, including Oleg Bessedin, do not have
citizenship.

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: August 15, 2010

TALLINN, Estonia — Oleg Bessedin’s main travel document is called an
“alien’s passport,” as if it were a gag item. But it is all that he
has when he ventures abroad — a reminder of his conflicted
relationship with this country, and of the explosive ethnic tensions
that endure across the former Soviet Union, nearly two decades after
Communism’s fall.

Related
Times Topic: Estonia
Enlarge This Image

Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times
When they travel they carry an alien’s passport.

Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times
Soviet World War II veterans who are Russian citizens living in
Estonia prepared for Victory Day celebrations in May.
Mr. Bessedin, 36, an ethnic Russian, was born and raised in Estonia,
and lives here with his family. Legally, though, he is not Estonian,
nor a citizen of anywhere else. He is among 100,000 people in Estonia,
most of them ethnic Russians, who are stateless, as if they were
refugees in their own homeland.

“I love my country, and I have done a whole lot for my country,” Mr.
Bessedin, a television producer, said. “But my country has not done a
whole lot for me.” He blames the Estonian authorities for ostracizing
him, and they in turn blame the former Soviet masters for the mess
they left behind.
Here in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, the slow burn offers a chance
to see just how the process has worked — both in history and on an
individual level.

Relations between Estonia’s government and its Russian minority have
long been strained. And if the past is any indication, it would not
take much to set off disturbances with repercussions in Moscow and
Washington. In joining NATO, Estonia brought the alliance to the
Russian border — much to the Kremlin’s displeasure.

In 2007, there was a brief spate of violence in Tallinn when ethnic
Russians protested the removal of a Soviet war memorial. In the last
year, Russia has criticized Estonia over its treatment of ethnic
Russians. Estonia has expressed fears of new encroachment by Moscow
and recently raised alarms after Russia stationed missiles nearby.

The citizenship policy has been perhaps the most provocative issue; in
some sense, it represents the Estonian government’s pointed response
to what Stalin wrought.

Before Estonia was seized by the Soviets in 1940, its population was
largely ethnic Estonian; resentment was strong enough that many sided
with the Germans when Hitler invaded in 1941. In subsequent decades,
to assure future loyalty, the Soviet government settled many ethnic
Russians and others here. Today nearly half of the people in Tallinn —
not all of them ethnic Russians — speak Russian as their mother
tongue.

With independence in the early 1990s, the government has reversed
Russification. It mandated the Estonian language in schools and
government offices. And it adopted a policy that left people like Mr.
Bessedin stateless: With few exceptions, Estonia granted citizenship
only to people who had it before the Soviet takeover, as well as their
descendants. Latvia is the only other former Soviet republic with a
similar rule.

Non-Estonians can obtain citizenship by passing a language test, but
that is difficult for many ethnic Russians, who felt no need to learn
Estonian during Soviet times. (There is also a civics examination, in
Estonian.)

Estonian society, in other words, has undergone a turnabout, and
ethnic Russians have lost their privileged status, just as the Soviet
collapse has reordered ethnic relations across the Soviet space.

Yet Kristina Kallas, an analyst at the Institute of Baltic Studies in
Tallinn, said she has been struck by the attitudes of many young
ethnic Russians, who act as if they had the stature of their
forebears.

“The memories and reflections are handed down to the next generation,”
Ms. Kallas said. “Even when we speak about the second or third
generation of Russians in Estonia, you can see that they refuse to
identify themselves or their ancestors as immigrants. It’s not just
that the older generation dies, and the legacy disappears.”

About 7.5 percent of Estonia’s 1.35 million people are stateless.
Their “alien’s passports” allow them to enter many European countries
without visas, just like Estonian citizens, though they tend to face
more bureaucratic hurdles. In Estonia, they cannot vote in federal
elections or hold some jobs.

...

THAT IS THE DISGRACE; PUTIN WOULD DO BETTER WORKING THSI PROBLEM.
FIRST.

THE HISTORY OF THE REGION SHOWS AT LEAST 4 ETHIC GROUPS THERE FOR A
LONG TIME, ALL BUT RUSSIAN.

EVEN WIKIPEDIA, NON CHECKED SOURCE OF HISTORICAL INGORMATION SHADES
THE LIGHT. THE FORMER  LIVONIA, THE BALTIC STATE OF CUREENT ESTONIA
AND LOTWIA ( IN ROUGH APPROXIMATION) WAS DEVIDED BETWEEN THREE
COUNTRIES, BUT RUSSIA.

1. AMONGS THEM- LIVONIA VOYEVODSHIP ALSO CALLED INFLANTY EXCLUSIVELY
AND FORMALLY  POLISH ALL THE WAY WAY THROUGH WW II .

/THE REPARATION TO POLAND FOR INFLANTY WAS FULY RATIFIED
AND IMPLEMENTED IN ALMOST ALL BUT THE POLISH SETTLEMENT IN THE RIGA
CONTRACT (TRACTAT, INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT). INSTEAD , THE RSSIAN
REGIMEN NOW ALMOST PROWD THAT IT KILLED THE
ARMY AND THE FUTUARE ADMINSITRATORS OF POLAND THAT REEMERGED IN 1918.
PUTIN MADE MANY STATEMENTS HOW RUSSIA HAD A RIGHT TO DO IT ( OR
BUSHLAND ASCRIBES IT TO HIM); THEY ALSO STATGED THAT STANDOFF ON
APRILL, 10 OVER THE ANNIVERSARY OF KATYN ( NOT KHATYN - THAT IS OTHER
SIDE NOT RELATED HERE) RESULTING IN INJURING AND KINDNAPING TO OTHER
PLANET ALL CABINET AND FAMILIES OF THE KILLED THERE ( REPORTEDLY 96
PEOPLE)./

2. SWEDISH   LIVONIA

3. Seems wandering concept as the Polish -Litweenian commenwealth,
while the Polish inflanty also for the times of Polsih Liweenian
Commenwearth is a part of it.

ARE THE CITISENS OF THSI REGION CENTURIES LATER DENIED CITISENSHIP?
AND WHO WORRIES
ABOUT IT MORE, IF THE RUSSIAN GIOVERMENT DECIDED IT THAT NONSTRATEGIC,
NON CONSIDERATE AND AGAINT THE HUMAN RIGHT.

  ( thsi si like thereatning kindnapped people that the  kidnapers
will quit)

( THREAT 'K' OVER ME INFORMING THAT THSI SI NOT ABOUT KHATYN, PERHAPS
MADE ESPECIALLY CONFUSING); BOTH ARE THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY;
KATYN IS ONLY PRIDE OF PUTING AND LETS DIGMORE :HOW?

KOMOROWSKI ( NOW POLISH) HAD NO RIGHT TO OVERTAKE THE CABINET; WHAT IS
HE THINKING?

APPARENTLY, THE DECISION TO CHECK WHAT ARE THEDOCUMENTS ABOUT KATYN
MASACRE
70 YEARS LATER WHILE RUSSIA REFUSED RELEASE IS VALID AND NECESSARY; IN
CONGRUENCE WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW.

THERE IS OTHER CURIOUS HISTORICAL ELEMENTS - THE IMPACT OF TUTONIC
KNIGHTS IN TE REGION, WHETHER BRITISH OR NOT, IS PROFOUND PRIOR TO THE
TENNENBERG 9 GRUNWALD BATTLE, WON JOINTLY BY JAGILLO AND VAYTATUS, WHO
THE MINUTE THAT HE WAS ANNOUNCED ROMAN EMPEROR WAS KILLED ( ORAL
HISTORY MOSTLY HOWEVER STILL TRACABLE EVEN IN WIKIPEDIA).

NOTE THAT ANYTHING THAT YOU READ TODAY ABOUT THIS PIECE OF HISTORY
THAT APPLIES TO FINDING OUT WHO THE PEOPEL WITHOUT A COUNTRY ARE, IS
COMPLETELY DISTORTED AT LEAST IN WIKIPEDIA TODAY BY BUSHALND; BUIT I
DO NOT KNOW HOW INNOCENT BRITISH STILL ARE.

  ( BUSHLAND WILL TELL YOU THAT THERE WAS NO WLADISLAW JAGIELLO ( OR
THAT IS LITHUNIAN IT IS NOT JAGILA) AND MANY OTHER LIES)