What does independence mean in the Baltics?

The city of Tallinn, Estonia. Photo: Gunnar Bach Pedersen (CC) commons.wikimedia.org

One moment also commemorated in this centenary is the 1989 Baltic Way, the human chain where around two million Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians stretched the full 600 kilometres from Vilnius through Riga to Tallinn. To this day, older Balts will tell you, without being asked, that they stood in that very chain. Hand in hand with a neighbour, partner or a stranger that became a friend.

Growing independence

Even if the Baltics were officially independent, the years under communist rule left their influence on all three republics. No countries that were part of the Soviet bloc have made such progress in democracy and life quality as the republics on the Baltic Sea. Since 2004 they have been part of both NATO and the European Union. And when Lithuania joined the Eurozone in 2015, that integration also was fulfilled. Slowly now, the Baltic countries are unlocking themselves from dependency on Moscow when it comes to gas and electricity supplies. The new Rail Baltica railway project, although marred by delays and infighting, is poised to connect Tallinn to Warsaw and slash travel times between the Baltic capitals and Western Europe.

On top of that, employment has increased, economies diversified and education improved. Local tech companies have sprung up to take advantage of savvy programmers and designers. Estonia is most famed for this, with the likes of Skype and TransferWise now global companies. But Lithuania is also catching up, most recently by opening what it calls a regulatory sandbox for cryptocurrency-related companies. They can build whatever they like, to be subject to rules only at a later stage. Latvia has its own startup visa programme and is slowly trying to pivot away from transiting Russian oil and gas.

The speed with which these changes have taken place often surprises visitors from other countries. Locals are not so much less impressed, but rather explain that this stems from a desire to finally develop after many decades of stagnation behind the Iron Curtain: not necessarily with a desire to be more like the Nordics or Western Europe, but to finally carve out a place of their own in a region that has for centuries been a territory where bigger powers clash. Where some smaller countries would despair in the age of globalisation, the Balts have forged onward; consider Estonia and its efforts to open up its e-governance services for the whole world by way of e-residency – an online identity card that grants users access to banking in the eurozone and the possibility of maintaining their business completely online. In conversations with Baltic people, they will sometimes talk about “Europe”, as if it is an entity they are not really part of. It may show a relative isolation, but also their desire to finally do things their way.

Sustainable Estonian fashion designer Reet Aus is one of them. In her global industry, being located in Tallinn is the exception rather than the rule. “I have to explain so often why I am based here”, she says. “In some way, it would make more sense for me to live closer to where my products are made, in India for example.” This is because the Up-shirt, an upcycled t-shirt designed by Aus, is made from the cotton waste that Indian and Bangladeshi clothes factories would otherwise discard. It is sewn together from different coloured pieces of cotton to form an upward pointing arrow. Each of them saves 91 per cent water use when compared with a t-shirt made from scratch; there is also an 87 per cent reduction of energy use and it produces 80 per cent less carbon dioxide.

The Up-shirt can often be seen in the fashionable street life of Tallinn. Aus has also opened her own boutique in the city, recognisable by its bright blue and white exterior. Even in the colourful and gentrified quarter of Telliskivi, it is a visually striking shop. Like many other post-industrial areas in Europe, Telliskivi has gone through a major change. What started with one café less than a decade ago is now the heart of the creative and techy culture. It hosts a theatre, multiple bars and the mysterious sounding Club of Different Rooms – the hippest conference space in the country.

“In the end, for me it makes the most sense to be here,” says Aus. “It’s at most some two or three hours from most places in Europe. It’s quiet, affordable and small. The beauty of a small country like Estonia is that most people are just one phone call away. It makes the place very flexible.”

Fragmented societies

Museum director Lolita Tomsone notes something similar about Latvian society: “Because I knew the curator at the Latvian National History Museum, we were able to include the stories of people that helped Jews by hiding them in the very building the museum is located in these days. Imagine how hard that would be if Latvia wouldn’t have been such a small country.”

Tomsone is famous in Latvia for several reasons. First, she heads the Zanis Lipke Memorial in Riga. It commemorates Zanis and Johanna Lipke, who helped 40 Jews escape the Riga ghetto in the Second World War, close to a quarter of all Latvian Jews that survived the Holocaust. The location of the museum, close to the Daugava River, is the very same one as the bunker Lipke himself built to hide the refugees. A reconstruction of the shed that covered the bunker stands right next to the museum walls, as does the former house of the rescuers. The outside of the memorial museum is made from the same tarred wood from which the boats of Latvian fishermen were built. Tomsone is also famous for her outspoken position on many issues in Latvia that draw attention – so much so that no less than three political parties approached her to run in the last parliamentary election.

“It also shows how Latvian politics is getting more and more fragmented,” she admits. “We even have big populist parties now.” Two requests came from progressive parties and one, to Tomsone’s surprise, from a new conservative alliance. Tomsone thinks the latter one was interested in her because she rallied all different kinds of people together in a successful protest against the cutting down of old trees in Riga to make way for a controversial new tramline. “Suddenly I was campaigning with people that would be on the other side of the arguments in my fights for the recognition of Jewish history and the position of women [in society].”

She chose to stay away from direct involvement, all the while still amused by the requests. The last few years perhaps marks a break in that tradition. Latvia is starting to protest again and Tomsone is one of the more active figures in Latvian society. Not only protesting against controversial tramline, she also headed a resistance against a proposal to ban women who have not given birth from donating egg cells. “A lawyer that was trying to fight it said there was nothing to do about it anymore. But I thought: ‘I can’t let this happen.’” Tomsone organised protests outside the parliament, usually waiting in the early morning for members to arrive. It worked. The president refused to sign the law. Eventually, the requirement for donors to be mothers was scrapped. “For a long time, demonstrators had a bad reputation. I’d say this is because of the Soviet past, when you simply had no choice but to take part. The rule of thumb was that only freaks would march after it wasn’t required anymore.”

While the efforts led to a success, Tomsone sometimes feels frustrated by the conservative nature of Latvian society. She mentions domestic violence as an example. Thirty-nine per cent of Latvian women have, at one point, been victims of domestic violence – emotional, physical, sexual or otherwise. This is significantly higher than the 33 per cent EU average that came out of the same research. At the same time, only 64 per cent of Latvians think domestic abuse is unacceptable – the lowest of any EU member state. Thirty-one per cent consider it a family matter and police officers often tend to treat domestic violence cases as such.

Despite these worrying statistics, several parties that were running in the October 2018 elections explicitly stated they will not ratify the Istanbul Convention, which aims to reduce violence against women. One of the parties in government, the right-wing National Alliance, hired a law firm in 2014 to advise the justice minister (of the same party) not to sign the Convention, since it would, in their view, stop Latvians from honouring predominantly male freedom fighters.

All inclusive?

Inclusion is a topic that does not resonate widely in Latvia, Tomsone argues. She sees the celebrations around the 100th anniversary of the country as a good example: “It’s very Latvian-centred. In general, ‘we’ as Latvians think about our identity mostly based on ethnicity. Even if, for instance, Jews, Poles and Old Believers played a role in the country that we live in today.”

One self-declared half-breed, which is a reminder of inclusion in Lithuania, is Jurgis Didžiulis. The singer-songwriter was born in Bogotá, Colombia, but has been living mostly in Vilnius in recent years. “I may not be a millennial by age, but I definitely am by operating system,” he says in a fashionably low-lit Vilnius coffee shop. His mix of cultures sometimes confuses fellow Lithuanians, but Didžiulis has noticed that people generally have no problem with his Colombian side: “Let me give you an example. I say I am 100 per cent Lithuanian and 100 per cent Colombian. That’s still fine. But if a neighbour of mine would say he’s 100 per cent Lithuanian and 100 per cent Russian, that’s suddenly an issue.”

When it comes to work, Didžiulis is occupying himself less with music than before. In 2010 he represented Lithuania in the Eurovision Song Contest with his band InCulto. With a degree in marketing, he is now using his skills to give musical seminars that explore social dynamics in organisations. “Think of it as a mix of entertainment and mass psychology,” he says with a smile.

Perhaps more importantly, he has been working together with Lithuanians abroad and the government on ideas to convince the sizeable diaspora of Lithuanians to return home. More than half a million Lithuanians have emigrated in the past number decades, with the 2008 economic crisis being the largest motivating factor. Many ended up in Ireland, the UK, Norway and the Netherlands – in search of better wages.

Now that Lithuania has a booming economy once more, the moment seems ripe to entice them to return. Perhaps the wages are not yet as high as in Western Europe, but housing prices are still modest in most cities and there are plenty of openings in a multitude of sectors. Lithuania opens its arms for its lost sons and daughters.

Or does it? Didžiulis is critical of the place his compatriots may be returning to. “The focus is now mostly on the money side of the argument. That’s really tough when you consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Once you survive, a human needs purpose. The problem is not finding a way to survive here once people come back. If that were the main issue, they would be back already. These days it’s more about a loss of faith in society and corruption.”

What to offer the world

In Didžiulis’s view, those who emigrated are not likely to return if “the government doesn’t fix the Soviet background of our society”. When pushed to clarify that point, Didžiulis says: “Estonia has cleaned up in that regard. We still have to struggle with Soviet backwardness. The society is caught in between, more or less paralysed, and the result is that there’s not much dialogue about the issues of diaspora, who we want to be as a country, or what we want to offer the world.”

Back in Tallinn, Reet Aus, the fashion designer, agrees that Estonia does know what it wants to offer the world. “Having your own company is probably easier here than anywhere else.” A lot of others have also recognised this advantage and have applied for their own business papers here. With a keen eye for marketing, the government has launched a digital ID card that allows everyone in the world to operate a company from Estonia – ideal for any entrepreneur that hopes to enter western markets. It is an initiative that has served Estonia well. For one: the media attention around the initiative has been immense. “I was in Seoul last week,” Aus says. “The only reason people there know Estonia is because of the IT sector.”

Like in Lithuania, however, emigration remains an issue. Estonia may have advanced marketing teams taking care of its reputation abroad, but a lot of places in the country are not as appealing as Tallinn, or the academic centre of Tartu. Employment is still an issue in many smaller cities and towns and the young people that leave generally do not return. In recent years, wages have decreased in the westernmost mainland province of Estonia, while the national economy grows at a very healthy rate.

Aus’s eldest daughter has just left for the UK. “She will study art curation over there. People continue to leave Estonia, and I can see why. In her case, there was no similar course over here. I would, of course, love to see her come back, but I think the chance is that won’t happen if she chooses to have a good, international career.” With a chuckle she adds, “Even my 11-year-old is already saying he wants to study abroad, too. I just think borders don’t really exist anymore for the young.”

Koen Verhelst is a Dutch freelance journalist based in Riga since 2014. He covers topics of innovation, technology, politics, society and defence in the Baltic countries, Scandinavia and Finland.

Note from the author: The centenary in the Baltics has also prompted me to reflect on the past four years that I have spent here, trying to understand three very different and yet also similar societies. Increasingly, I have become convinced the three republics are in a crucial transitional period. The strategy of focusing on economic development has been proven right because it has significantly improved the quality of life, attractiveness to do business and integration with the rest of Europe. In more ways than one, though, these developments do obscure my – and my interviewees’ – observation that the societies have a significant illiberal and dissatisfied component. The transition to capitalist economies in the 1990s has ripped many families apart when the breadwinners could not cope with the sudden pressure. Less than 20 years later, in 2008-09, another crisis crushed the three economies into a deep recession. Many people who started their careers in the 1990s feel like they have not felt the economic improvement in their own lives. A big portion moved away out of necessity, others stayed and to this day struggle to make a living – particularly pensioners.

With only a small presence of labour unions and often a weak judiciary system, the political elites are much freer to what they please than in other EU member states, perhaps with the exception of Estonia. Luckily, also here we can see improvements from north to south. The first generation that grew up after the restoration of independence seems to be keener to get involved in politics or civil society. Voters also accept corrupt behaviour of their ruling class less and less. They know very well that prosecutors will often not go to court on suspicions and that political repercussions are their only weapon to show their dissatisfaction.

Baltics, Estonia, independence, Latvia, Lithuania